Encoding Cultures: Rainer Stiefelhagen | Assistive Technology using Computer Vision - Reducing Barriers for the Visually Impaired

Recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence are revolutionizing the way with which we think and act. They give an idea of the fundamental changes that will affect our society in the coming years. The interdisciplinary symposium »Encoding Cultures. Living Amongst Intelligent Machines« brought scientists, programmers and developers, cultural theorists and artists into dialogue with a broader public. The lectures and discussions provide insight into the latest state of research and development in the field of machine learning and ask about the current and long-term effects of this technology on science, business, politics, art and society.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rainer Stiefelhagen holds the professorship "Computer Systems for Visually Impaired Students" at the Faculty of Computer Science of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He is head of the research area "Machine Vision for Human-Machine Interaction" at the Institute of Anthropomatics and Robotics and the KIT Study Center for the Visually Impaired. He received his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Karlsruhe (TH) in 2002 and his habilitation in 2009. His research is concerned with the development of methods of machine vision, in particular the video-based recording of humans, in order to enable user-friendly, interactive technical systems, such as perceiving interactive robots or environments. Other areas of application for his work include computer-aided evaluation of images and image sequences for intelligent security applications, as well as assistive systems for people with special needs, especially people with blindness or visual impairment.

Video documentary:

ZKM | Videostudio

Camera: Frenz Jordt
Live-Editing: Moritz Büchner
Editing: Bastian Buchgraber