Inaugurated by Professor Dr Annika Raatz, the project coordinator, the highlight of the first two days were the inspiring keynote speeches by Dr Shahram Eivazi of FESTO, a company specializing in control and automation technology, and Dr Christoph Keplinger, director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart. The rest of the time was focused on presentations by different projects within the SPP2100 programme, including engaging question and answer sessions. In the evenings, a poster and prototype presentation session was organized to give space for a more question-oriented interaction between the researchers.
The last two days were reserved for the PhD students, focusing on collaboration between projects and the sharpening of specific ideas achievable in the second funding period. Additionally, these two days also gave the young researchers to discuss ideas to create a bigger impact with their research outside the laboratories. A few key ideas put forth were workshops in established conferences, a winter school, and possible laboratory visits. The PhD days, as usual, gave the young researchers the opportunity to network with their colleagues and focus on the importance of the outreach of their research from the pure academic interests.
This marked the end of another very successful general assembly organized by the SPP2100 coordination team at match.
We would like to thank all the participants for inspiring four days and wish them the very best in their project plans for the coming year.