Teaching and Education

Sustained excellence in research is only possible with sustained excellence in educating the next generation of highly qualified scientists. Consequently, teaching and education in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are central aspects of the Lamarr Institute’s mission. Our activities comprise the formation of postgraduate (PhD) students, the education of Bachelor of Science and Master of Science students as well as an education initiative targeted at pupils.

In addition, the Lamarr Institute promotes the adoption of AI in business and industry and therefore is actively engaged in further education. The institute and partner organizations offer professional training with a focus on Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

© Fraunhofer IAIS

Preparing for a Career in Science or Business

At the Lamarr Institute, we are committed to comprehensive support of early-career researchers. Therefore, PhD work at the Lamarr Institute follows a structured program consisting of an orientation and training phase, a research phase, and an examination phase, all with English as the primary working language. We offer regular professional training to help young scientists achieve their full potential. Members of the Lamarr team have access to a specially curated catalogue of courses comprising both skills for excellence in science as well as professional training for those who envision a career in business.

Promoting Talent and Diversity

Junior Scientists (postdocs) are supported by principal investigators and encouraged to apply for targeted mid-term research projects. This helps junior researchers to become independent and to gain experiences with research planning, execution, and management. Whether our young talents aim at careers in academia or industry, we create an environment to fast-track them up the career ladder and to encourage them to assume professional responsibilities early on. The Lamarr Institute particularly supports female researchers and researchers from diverse backgrounds.

As a special element of our teaching, students are offered the possibility to join both research and application projects early on and are encouraged to apply for practical internships within the industry network of the Lamarr Institute or the partner institutes. In addition, data study groups allow interdisciplinary work on concrete data science problems of societal or industrial interest beyond what is possible in classical hackathons or science code slams.

© Anke Liepertz-Peter –
Fraunhofer IAIS

Bringing Computer Science to Schools

Members of the Lamarr Institute are actively engaged in the project AI4Schools and in the Roberta® Initiative which are bringing computer science to schools. Together with partners, the Lamarr Institute offers AI theme days, which include workshops and discussions as well as programming opportunities. Thus, students and teachers can learn about the technical basis of AI systems and future-oriented career opportunities related to ML and AI.

The Roberta Initiative is a huge success and has developed into an international program: More than 10 million pupils from over 120 countries have programmed online since the successful launch of the initiative’s programming platform Open Roberta® Lab in 2014. In addition, 650,000 high school and elementary school pupils have been trained in on-site classes in Germany by more than 3,500 certified Roberta teachers. The Roberta Initiative has created the Open Roberta Lab, which is one of the world’s largest school education platforms for programming with robots and also includes AI elements such as the option to program artificial neural networks. Scientists of the Lamarr Institute are contributing further AI modules to the platform and help extend its contents toward more advanced AI topics for senior high school students. To allow further growth of the Roberta Initiative, we encourage students at the Lamarr Institute to become ambassadors, visiting high schools, acting as role models, and sparking interest in AI.

© Fraunhofer IAIS