Hengstberger Award 2025
Dr. Annika Elstermann
Dr. Bianca Marchionna
Jun.- Prof. Dr. Dabringhaus u. Dr. Morack
2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004
Generative AI as a Cultural Phenomenom
Converence Date: 03.06. – 04.06.2026
Ever since OpenAI published "ChatGPT" in November 2022, generative AI has become ubiquitous in everyday life. The advantages, we are told, outweigh the challenges, which themselves are actually opportunities. At the same time, studies have shown that the grand promises of generative AI have not yet been met. If its actual capabilities are so sobering, why has generative AI not been disenchanted yet? Why does it remain so popular across different sectors? The basic hypothesis of this symposium is that generative AI and the discourse surrounding it are primarily a cultural phenomenon, which needs to be analysed as such. To do so, we will bring together perspectives from literary and cultural studies, history and philosophy of technology, religious studies, art history, education, and ethics. The symposium will examine the roots of current discourses through the history of AI as well as explorations into the science fiction narratives which have expressed and shaped our fears and hopes related to AI for decades, and which are an integral part of its perception today. Which qualities and characteristics are attached to generative AI? To what extent are these religious or otherwise spiritual, and what role does this play culturally and for the way we as human view ourselves? How, on the other hand, are machines anthropomorphised, and what are the consequences of this on trust in automatically generated statements? The aim of this symposium is to approach this cultural phenomenon as such, and examine the various motivations, catalysts, and effects from this point of view. To round out the symposium, we will also take a look at very concrete fields and discuss what effects generative AI can have in education in schools as well as universities, and what its implications are for these systems. Generative AI has become a complex social phenomenon, for which an interdisciplinary approach is particularly promising.
annika.elstermann@as.uni-heidelberg.de
Gruppen, die auf nicht positiv gekrümmten Räumen wirken
Conference Date: 15.06. – 18.06.2025
Non-positively curved (NPC) spaces are mathematical objects that are ubiquitous in nature and in our everyday life experience. Flat Euclidean spaces are probably the most common examples. This is not all: negatively curved objects shape, for example, the head of lettuce or a tree canopy. Wrinkles, curls and fractal behaviours – given by the negative curvature – have crucial biological advantages. Recent advances in machine learning have also revealed that (isometric) embeddings of neural networks in higher-dimensional negatively curved spaces have key implications in language learning. NPC spaces also play a leading role in several areas of pure mathematics. The workshop primarily focuses on their role in geometric group theory, a young yet rapidly growing area lying at the intersection of algebra and geometry. A key problem is to understand suitable collections of symmetries, called “groups”, of the relevant spaces. From spaces, one can deduce algebraic properties of their groups of symmetries, as well as transfer concepts (curvature, large-scale properties, …) to groups, with key classification advantages. The workshop focuses on two aspects in this direction: approximating groups of symmetries of NPC spaces via discrete substructures (lattices) and studying the finiteness properties of the relevant groups. The workshop brings together young and established researchers with the goal of sharing recent developments and future directions around the two themes above, as well as promoting new synergies.
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Dr. Bianca Marchionna
Institut für Mathematik
Mathematikon
Im Neuenheimer Feld 205
69120 Heidelberg
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Breaking Paradigms: Main-Group Elements in Redox Catalysis
Converence Date: 02.09. – 04.09.2025
In the face of rapidly progressing climate change and a growing global demand for energy, rethinking fundamental chemical processes with regard to sustainability and efficiency ranks among the central challenges of the 21st century. Catalysis plays a key role in the sustainable transformation of the chemical industry, as it makes chemical reactions more efficient and selective while minimizing waste and energy consumption. However, current catalytic systems are still predominantly based on toxic, rare, and expensive transition metals. For a long time, these metals were considered the only viable option for developing efficient catalysts but this dogma is now being challenged: main-group elements (p-block, groups 13–18), which are abundant and often non-toxic, are gaining increasing importance as redox catalysts. To firmly establish these p-block elements as sustainable building blocks for the next generation of catalysts, the central question now is how the redox properties of these elements can be purposefully designed, controlled, and harnessed in sustainable catalytic systems. Although promising research approaches already exist across various disciplines — from the structure-oriented perspective of inorganic chemistry to the transformation-oriented approach of organic chemistry — these efforts are still rarely integrated and discussed in a broader context. Industrial perspectives, as well as contributions from materials science, physics, and engineering, have likewise received little attention so far. The planned symposium therefore brings together international experts from these diverse fields to identify shared challenges and develop interdisciplinary strategies. The program is organized thematically around the main-group elements to highlight trends and synergies. In addition to talks and discussions, the meeting facilitates knowledge transfer and promotes Heidelberg as an international hub for catalysis research. The symposium Breaking Paradigms: Main-Group Elements in Redox Catalysis thus aims to mark a milestone in the ongoing development of main-group redox catalysis.
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Jun.-Prof. Dr. Philipp Dabringhaus
Anorganisch-Chemisches Instiut
Im Neuenheimer Feld 270
69120 Heidelberg
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Dr. Tobias Morack
Organisch-Chemisches Institut
Im Neuenheimer Feld 270
69120 Heidelberg
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