inIT excites at Science Speed Dating in the Wissenswerkstadt

Research you can feel! At Science Speed Dating in the Wissenswerkstadt Bielefeld, inIT researchers gave exciting demonstrations on sustainable artificial intelligence.Bielefeld is in the grip of science fever: as part of GENIALE 2025, the Wissenswerkstadt invites visitors to experience, try out, and question AI—free of charge, for all generations, from September to November in the city center. The aim is to create spaces for exchange, understanding, and informed opinion-forming around AI.

One highlight alongside the inIT Science Slam was the Science Speed Dating event on October 11, 2025, which attracted many guests to the Wissenswerkstadt. Sinem Görmez, research assistant in the Human-Technology Interaction research group led by Prof. Dr. mult. Carsten Röcker, has developed a format as part of the SAIL project that combines entertainment, exciting facts, and creative insights into the main areas of research.

The event offered visitors impressive insights into current regional research projects. Nine exhibitors brought science to life – including inIT scientists Julian Bültemeier and Sinem Görmez.

When minimal changes mislead AI

Julian Bültemeier, research assistant in the Discrete Systems working group, used “semantic adversarials” to demonstrate how easily AI systems can be deliberately deceived. Even minimal changes to images—such as in color or color saturation—can cause an AI to completely misinterpret an object, even though it looks unchanged to humans.

“It was a very exciting event with many interested visitors, both young and old. Especially in times when AI is used as a matter of course in so many areas, it is important to highlight not only its possibilities, but also its weaknesses and risks,” says Julian Bültemeier.
 

Experience robots first hand

Sinem Görmez's demonstration also attracted a great deal of interest. She brought along a collaborative robot that visitors could control themselves. The task: build the tallest tower possible!
With concentration, skill, and team spirit, the participants tried to stack the building blocks as high as possible—using a real robot. Whether children, teenagers, or adults—everyone was on the edge of their seats as the robot arm placed the next block.

“It was particularly nice to see how quickly even children were able to operate the robot intuitively,” says Sinem Görmez. “This shows that modern collaborative systems are not only safe, but also easy and fun to use.”

Her demonstrator impressively illustrated how humans and robots can solve tasks together – a tangible example of research in the field of human-robot interaction at inIT.
 

Research meets the public

Das Science Speed Dating in der Wissenswerkstadt brachte Forschende und Öffentlichkeit direkt ins Gespräch. Mit kurzweiligen Demonstrationen, Mitmachaktionen und Diskussionen zeigte das Event, wie lebendig und anwendungsnah Forschung an der Technischen Hochschule OWL betrieben wird – von künstlicher Intelligenz bis hin zu kollaborativer Robotik.

The Science Speed Dating event at the Wissenswerkstadt brought researchers and the public into direct conversation. With entertaining demonstrations, hands-on activities, and discussions, the event showed how lively and application-oriented research is at OWL University of Applied Sciences—from artificial intelligence to collaborative robotics.

We look forward to welcoming many visitors to GENIALE 2025. 

The SAIL network is organizing a hackathon on November 14-15, 2025, accompanied by Peter Kuchling (Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences) and Sinem Görmez (inIT).