The German AI researcher Cordelia Schmid receives the Körber European Science Prize, which is endowed with one million euros. The foundation announced on Wednesday in Hamburg that Schmid had developed groundbreaking new processes that enable computers to understand the content of images.
Thanks to its algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) can find motifs and objects in databases with millions of images in fractions of a second. The Körber Prize will be presented to the computer scientist on September 8th in Hamburg City Hall. The Körber Prize, which is worth one million euros, is one of the most valuable research prizes in the world.
“The award winner is currently researching systems that can interpret videos semantically and even predict future actions,” it said. According to the information, one of their goals is the development of robots that react to voice commands and can be used, among other things, as intelligent assistants in hospitals or in geriatric care.
Schmid is an important pioneer of AI research, the foundation further announced. In 1992, Schmid completed her computer science studies at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In 1996 she received her PhD from the Institut National Polytechnique Grenoble. From 1997 she did research at the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology. She habilitated there in 2001. Since 2004 she has been the research director of this institute.
“If developed responsibly, AI has the potential to revolutionize our society – just like steam power and electricity once did,” Schmid said. “AI can help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, from sustainability to health. Personally, I’m excited about the research opportunities this opens up.”
