The ShanghAI Lectures 2012 (Artificial Intelligence) 

Center for Cognitive Programs and Technologies (RSUH)
The Artificial Intelligence Lab (University of Zurich) 

The ShanghAI Lectures 2012

In 2012 RSUH participated in the course of lectures "the ShanghAI Lectures 2012" on  Artificial Intelligence (AI). Center for Cognitive Programs and Technologies at RSUH became the organizing and coordinating body of the project. It was for the third time when RSUH took part in this unusual and extremely interesting project.

Vera Zabotkina, Director of Center for Cognitive Programs and Technologies initiated and organized the course on the RSUH side. Valeria Chernikova and Tatiana Volkova were the coordinators of the project. Marina Andrianova,  Head of Department of Communications and Operations Support of Educational Process and Activities and Alexander Shtyhov,  Director of Webcasting Center of Information Support of Multimedia Classes Complex from the Institute of New Educational Technologies and Informatization have provided the technical support for the project.

As in 2011, lectures were held via videoconference. The broadcast was conducted from the Artificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) of University of Zurich (Switzerland). Professor Rolf Pfeifer, Head of the Laboratory, was the key speaker. There were also several invited speakers. (schedule of lectures, slides, video recordings of the lectures are on the project website - http://shanghailectures.org).

Lectures were held at RSUH from the 27th of September till the13th of December 2012, every Thursday from 11.00 till 13.00 (from 12.00 till 14.00 in winter) in the Webcasting Studio.

The format of videoconference gave the opportunity to participants to take an active part in discussions, to ask speakers questions and to make brief repots for other participants. In addition to viewing the lectures, the course involved doing exercises through the robot simulator Webots within  international teams of students.
Besides, in 2012 two competitions of robots were held between university teams using the robot Nao (humanoid robot made by Aldebaran Robotics) and robotic kit EmbedIT (made by Artificial Intelligence Lab of the University of Zurich).

The lectures of this course were broadcast from Shanghai (China) for the first time, so the course was titled as “ ShanghAI Lectures”. In 2012 universities of various countries, including Japan, Spain, Australia, China, Hungary, England, Germany, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea took part in this project.

The partner universities of the project that took part in lectures weekly are the following:

·                          University of Zurich, Switzerland

·                          ETH Zurich, Switzerland

·                          Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

·                          Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia

·                          University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain

·                          Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

·                          University of Salford, UK

·                          Osaka University, Japan

·                          Humboldt University Berlin, Germany

·                          University of Tasmania, Australia

·                          Université des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumediene, Algiers, Algeria

·                          Chiba University, Japan

·                          Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China

·                          New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE

·                          Budapest University of Technology and Economy, Hungary

·                          Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea

RSUH was the only university representing Russia among them.

The organizers of the project Prof. Rolf Pfeifer and his chief technical assistant Prof. Nathan Labkhart declared, that the main purposes of the project were the following:

•  make education and knowledge in modern actual scientific researches available to everyone;

• investigate the newest methods of knowledge transfer;

• create permanent community of students and researchers who are engaged in developments in the field of "Embodied Intelligence";

• overcome difficulties of the organization of multicultural and interdisciplinary educational process;

• advance global education to a new level.

In 2012 students and graduate students of such educational programs at RSUH as Artificial Intelligence, Information Security, Psychology, Linguistics, Philosophy, International Relations took part in the project.

"The ShanghAI Lectures" is the unique international innovative project, realizing new methods of knowledge exchange supported by  modern technologies.

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