New MindLabs building officially opened
On Wednesday, September 27, the Grand Opening of the new MindLabs building in Spoorzone took place. We celebrated this moment together with the other founders and members of MindLabs, partners, colleagues and invited guests.
After a welcome by Tilburg Mayor Theo Weterings, visitors were led past five knowledge stations for a demonstration of the research taking place at MindLabs. Tilburg University gave an interactive glimpse of the MasterMinds project led by Prof. dr. Max Louwerse and consisting of innovative research projects in collaboration with fifteen partners to develop breakthroughs with interactive technologies. The projects focus on Serious Games and logistics, Virtual Reality in maintenance, Avatars in education, Brain-Computer interaction in aviation, and Data Science and predicting human behavior. There was also a demonstration of various robots in the Robotics Lab and of research in the Brain and Behavior Lab.
Vice-Rector Magnificus Jantine Schuit, together with the other members of the MindLabs board, reflected on the opportunities offered by the MindLabs ecosystem: "The connection made here between vocational education (MBO and HBO) and academic education, and with organizations that have questions about human-centered AI, is an opportunity for our university's knowledge to be applied in practice."
The Grand Opening was concluded by avatar MAI developed especially for MindLabs. She can now be followed via her own Instagram account.
After this festive day, we are looking forward to the many more initiatives that we will develop within the MindLabs ecosystem.
More about MasterMinds
Societal developments have shown the need for artificial intelligence with input from human behavior and taking its impact into account. In order to achieve this across multiple sectors in society, collaboration across knowledge institutions, industry, and governmental organizations is essential.
Under the umbrella name MasterMinds, five projects have been started in which Tilburg University and other knowledge institutions such as Fontys University of Applied Sciences and ROC Tilburg, an educational organization for secondary vocational education, work closely together with societal partners. These projects, which were funded by the Regional Deal ‘Makes and Moves’, aim to:
- help the western and central Brabant area stay up to date in the field of AI technologies.
- provide an impulse to strengthening the collaboration between knowledge institutions and business partners in the field of AI technologies.
- accelerate innovation by applying knowledge and expertise to projects where the answer to already existing questions has a direct impact on its environment.
The projects address questions such as: Can serious games help improve complex decision-making processes? What is the learning effect of using virtual reality for the training of pilots? What is the most effective way to design virtual and augmented reality training? Can interactive VR agents facilitate learning for primary and secondary school pupils? Can unsupervised learning help us uncover hidden patterns in how people respond to risks?
The picture shows a demonstration of the use of VR simulations as an innovative and time- and cost-effective way to train pilots.
Interested in knowing more about the different MasterMinds projects? Go to the following pages:
- MASTERMINDS – DECISION MAKING IN COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS USING SERIOUS GAMES
- MASTERMINDS – VIRTUAL REALITY IN EDUCATION
- MASTERMINDS – PREDICTING BEHAVIOUR
- MASTERMINDS – NEUROPHYSIOLOGY AND VR IN AEROSPACE
- MASTERMINDS – VR & AR IN MAINTENANCE
More about MindLabs
MindLabs is a growing partnership founded by Tilburg University, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, ROC Tilburg, the City of Tilburg, the Province of North Brabant and DPG Media. We work on innovations together with the companies, social institutions and startups that are MindLabs’ partners. Within MindLabs we strive to create structural partnerships in which knowledge and skills are shared to use interactive technology to solve social issues.
MindLabs specializes in enhancing human interaction with interactive technologies such as Robotics, Serious Gaming, Virtual Reality and Natural Language processing. There are currently over eleven projects that focus on these four technologies. For more information, visit the MindLabs website.