Mayor Thomas Westphal made a stop at the User Innovation Center (UIC) at Fachhochschule Dortmund during his summer tour. Under the motto "Dortmund is getting easier", Fachhochschule Dortmund employees presented various prototypes and innovations from their respective research areas.
"For this purpose, colleagues Jonas Sorgalla and Philipp Heisig, together with other colleagues from the Institute for the Digital Transformation of Application and Living Domains (IDiAL), put together a small expo on the topics of smart city, mobility and robotics," says Dr. Emine Bilek, Managing Director of IDiAL. These included a robot that maintains artificial turf ( TurfRob(Opens in a new tab) project), an intelligent system for inspecting wastewater sewer networks ( iKannA(Opens in a new tab) project), innovations for sustainable mobility for parking and charging in the city ( PuLS(Opens in a new tab) project) and a coffee machine with a user interface that adapts to the individual user ( Plug-In(Opens in a new tab) project). There were also interior demonstrators for rescue robotics ( A-DRZ(Opens in a new tab) project) and the OmniMan(Opens in a new tab) project.
Students showed exhibits
Exhibits by students from the Faculties of Architecture(Opens in a new tab) , Design(Opens in a new tab) and Computer Science(Opens in a new tab) complemented the exhibition with further examples of the use of digitalization technologies in various areas of life. For example, students on the "Digital Transformation(Opens in a new tab) " Master's degree course developed a flood warning system that also works without a network infrastructure. And architecture students on the "Digital Methods in Architecture" course scanned existing buildings in Dortmund, prepared them digitally and made them available virtually (e.g. Bau.Kunst.Archiv(Opens in a new tab) or Export 33(Opens in a new tab) ). In addition, Dr. Bastian Pelka and students from the Technical University presented an exhibit from the field of rehabilitation sciences as guests.
Possible applications for virtual reality
In addition to digital participation and the networked city, the stop also focused on virtual reality and its many possible applications. Mayor Thomas Westphal took the opportunity to try out one of the virtual reality goggles provided and immerse himself in a 360-degree film experience produced by storyLab kiU(Opens in a new tab) in collaboration with Theater Essen.
Engaged discussion
The event concluded with a fish bowl discussion "between big data and beer", in which students and representatives from companies such as the Smart City Alliance(Opens in a new tab) took part. There was a lively discussion about how cities can make their digitalization offerings more secure and easier to understand in order to offer citizens and companies services with concrete benefits that benefit everyone.
About the User Innovation Center (UIC)
"The UIC is a project of IDiAL, the Institute for the Digital Transformation of Application and Living Domains (IDiAL)," explains Prof. Dr Sabine Sachweh, spokesperson for IDiAL. "It is a link between teaching, research and Business Studies and offers space for information, innovation and co-production on the topic of digitalization."
The digital penetration of almost all areas of people's work and lives makes it necessary to have a central and flexible facility that can quickly adapt to evolving technologies. This is particularly noticeable in teaching, as it is based on the latest technical and methodological standards. Due to the high level of trans- and interdisciplinary connections in digitization, it is difficult for the various faculties with their decentralized special laboratories and teaching formats. This is where the UIC offers the space to advance digitalization across disciplines.
