The MaRBLe experience of: Florian Wimmenauer

Florian Wimmenauer is one of the students who participated in the MaRBLe project during his studies at DKE. He received a scholarship to attend the BNAIC conference in 2017.

“This article aims to summarize my experience of participating the Benelux Artificial Intelligence
Conference (BNAIC) 2017, where my bachelor thesis, which is also a MaRBLe (Maastricht University
Research Based Learning) project, was published.

There is a wealth of experience gained by attending the conference. Firstly, I gained first-hand experience of the workflow of publishing an academic article, from revamping the article for final submission, to creating a concise yet insightful conference poster, to answering questions from different backgrounds.

Moreover, I got great opportunities to speak with participants from both industry and the academia. During the NVIDIA deep learning session, I spoke with NVIDIA representatives about recent hardware advancements that enable scaling up current machine learning solutions. I have also met a professor from Delft, whose research interest closely related to my master research internship on
applying integer linear programming in a multi-agent setting. All of these are great experiences that I benefited a lot from.

I also got to see that there is a lot more to AI than machine learning. Logic, cognitive neurosciences are all disciplines that contribute to the broader realm of AI in their unique ways. The keynote speech by dr. Rineke Verbrugge on how children develop from first-order to second- and higher-order belief makes interesting connections to DKE courses on logic and the theory of agents. It made me realize that the study of artificial intelligence not only builds machines with intelligence but also helps us understand how we humans develop certain types of intelligence.

Lastly, I felt fortunate being a DKE student, which has the opportunity to individually carry out complex research already in the bachelor thesis. I became aware that this is not the case in many other studies.

All in all, it has been a very fruitful experience both academically and personally. I feel very fortunate that the work of my thesis has come this far, bringing me to such a large platform like BNAIC. It was a journey of over a year from selecting a thesis topic to finally attending the conference in Groningen. I am grateful for the help from my thesis supervisors, Evegueni and Matus, the KE@work and MaRBle program, and every staff member behind the two programs. It has been an honor.”