Letter from Darmstadt

Prof. Utz Roedig, Full Professor of Computer Science and CONNECT Principal Investigator at University College Cork, sends us this letter from Darmstadt…

Hello from Darmstadt,

This week I am visiting Darmstadt University of Technology. I am on the scientific advisory board of the emergenCITY research centre and participated in their annual meeting, the emergenCITY week. 

emergenCITY is roughly the same size of CONNECT and has many overlapping research topics. It is working on resilient infrastructures of digital cities that can withstand crises and disasters. It is an interdisciplinary centre involving computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, social and historical sciences, architecture, economics and law. However, communication systems are very much a focus. Similar to CONNECT it is distributed over multiple sites led by Technische Universität Darmstadt and involving Universität Kassel, Philipps-Universität Marburg as well as the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance and the City of Darmstadt. In terms of research topics, the overlap with CONNECT would be mostly found in Dependable Networks, Sustainable IoT and Link Performance. There is also an overlap of interests with the ENABLE spoke as the focus is on digital cities. You can find information on emergenCITY and details on their work here: https://www.emergencity.de

It is for me always great to travel to Darmstadt as it is the place where I studied and received my PhD. Things are changing quite a lot and new university buildings are popping up everywhere (They also got finally around to renovate the old buildings I remember). Darmstadt is a great place to be, there are about 25000 students in mostly technical subjects. The university founded the first faculty of electrical engineering (in 1883) and introduced the world’s first degree course in electrical engineering and in 1968 the first degree course in computer science in Germany.

It is incredibly hot here at the moment and so I moved outside to a Biergarten (in the city I recommend the Ratskeller) where I sit now writing this letter and checking in for my flight back to Ireland tomorrow (I hear the weather is nice there too at the moment, so not too bad).

Utz

CONNECT is the world leading Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Future Networks and Communications. CONNECT is funded under the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centres Programme and is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund. We engage with over 35 companies including large multinationals, SMEs and start-ups. CONNECT brings together world-class expertise from ten Irish academic institutes to create a one-stop-shop for telecommunications research, development and innovation.