"Smarter Planet Comes To You" - IBM presents IT visions

IBM is travelling to more than 20 university cities across Europe. "Smarter Planet Comes To You" is the name of the IT company's tour - the only stop in Germany: Dresden and Oldenburg. On 13 and 14 May, the large IBM cube will be on the Haarentor campus of the University of Oldenburg between buildings A4 and A5.

In addition, a comprehensive lecture programme will take place on Tuesday, 14 May from 10.30 a.m. at the university (library hall). Among other things, the Oldenburg project group ALISE will present the "Smarter City" project, which collects data on traffic, weather and energy consumption using Oldenburg as an example and processes it into a simulation. Kay Hartkopf, Head of Smarter Cities at IBM Germany, will introduce the project and discuss promising IT ideas and visions for a "smart planet".

As part of the "Smarter Planet Comes To You" tour, students and interested parties can find out more about IBM's Smarter Planet strategy and the developersWork platform in the IBM cube - the so-called "Skills Cube" - from 9.00 a.m. on both days. In a "job zone", the team will present opportunities for starting a career at IBM. Visitors can also compete against the IBM supercomputer Watson and win prizes.

The visit to "Smarter Planet Comes To You" is being organised in close co-operation with the ALISE project group, which is headed by Daniela Nicklas, Professor of Database and Internet Technologies at the university. At ALISE, students on the Master's degree programmes in Information Systems and Computing Science are developing the "Smart City" programme. It simulates traffic, weather, energy production and consumption using Oldenburg as an example. The simulation can be used to test urban developments in transport planning or energy supply. The project group was supported by the City of Oldenburg's Transport Centre and Economic Development Agency, the Oldenburg Computing Science Institute OFFIS and the Smarter Cities Lab of IBM Research (Dublin/Ireland).

Lecture programme "Smarter Planet Comes To You", Tuesday, 14 May, Library Hall:

10.30 - 11.45 a.m.: Welcome with Jun.Prof. Dr Daniela Nicklas, Dr Martin Mähler (Head of Science Relations, IBM Deutschland GmbH), Prof. Dr Bernd Müller (Head of the Department of Transport and Road Construction)

11.45 - 12.45: "Intelligent Mobility in Smart Regions" with Matthias Bruckner (Head of Transport, OFFIS)

14.00 - 14.45: "What makes the City Smart?" with Kay Hartkopf (Smarter Cities Leader, IBM Deutschland GmbH)

14.45 - 15.30: "Smarter City - ALISE student project" with members of the ALISE project group

15.30 - 16.30: "Added value and benefits of big data - solutions for public sector clients" with Alexander Schmidt (Business Development Executive, IBM Deutschland GmbH)

16.30 - 16.45: "Summary" with Dr Martin Mähler (Head of Science Relations, IBM Deutschland GmbH) and Jun.Prof. Dr Daniela Nickla