Adlershof Journal November/December 2023
Everything but blah blah blah: how the campus communicates:
The traffic manager: Katharina Marienhagen looks after Berlin's traffic lights // MO-SPACE: Communicating securely with quanta // Happy Birthday BESSY II: 25 years of high-brilliance radiation source …
From the Editors
Who? How? What?
6.00 am. My alarm is vibrating. Airplane mode off, I look at my iPhone. I have one unread message on WhatsApp. I don’t respond immediately, hoping that I won’t forget it later. There are two new status updates. They’re from distant contacts I’m not really interested in, but seeing as they’re there I might as well take a look. Ping. My banking app woke up and told me about a transaction on my account. Good to know. Then there was that important email I’ve been waiting for since yesterday. A quick look. The message I hoped for isn’t here but many others in its place. I wonder what’s going on Instagram. Everything. Starting with terrorism and war, the most beautiful AI-generated architecture spots, debates about government money for parents, and puppies waiting to be adopted. 6.30 am. My head and I are both exhausted.
As early as 1913, the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti said: “Those who nowadays use things like telephones, gramophones … cinematographs and large daily newspapers do not think about the fact that these different forms of communication … and information also have a decisive influence on their psyche.” Today, in 2023, the channels and means available to us have all but multiplied. Do they enable us to communicate better and more easily? Our correspondent Jördis Götz asked people on campus about their media behaviour at work and in their personal lives and what it did with their perception of time. What are the current challenges for a science communicator? We spoke to Kathrin Buchholz of Berlin’s state laboratory about this. Thanks to artificial intelligence, mathematician Mario Koddenbrock expects more quality of life in the future and provides some proof of his prediction himself, with a thesis on AI-based monitoring of ventricular assist devices. Lastly, MO-SPACE founder Michael Ullrich tells us how to communicate securely with quantums.
I wish you all a good time as we near the end of the year.
Sincerely,
Peggy Mory
Editor-in-chief
Articles
That’s not what it’s about
Essay by Dilek Güngör, journalist and writer from Berlin:
Vera says she won’t have time on Wednesday. Vera says she had been there every Wednesday so far, and was often the first, which was because she had the shortest way from the office to Beppo’s, she knew that. The rest…
In conversation with Dr Kathrin Buchholz
The environmental engineer is head of public relations at the Berlin-Brandenburg State Laboratory:
“Communication with a focus on science” is the metier of environmental engineer Kathrin Buchholz. She has worked for the scientific office of the Adlershof-based research network IGAFA, headed the business office of…
The traffic manager
Katharina Marienhagen and her team look after more than 2,100 traffic lights in Berlin:
Two hours of Berlin traffic, day after day. From the far northwest to the far southeast in the morning, and back again in the evening. Once Katharina Marienhagen has reached her desk in Adlershof via Falkensee, the…
Are we consuming too much media? Where’s the time going?
How do Adlershof students and staff feel about their own communication behaviour and media consumption? A survey:
We asked the students and staff at Adlershof’s research institutions and companies about how their communication behaviour, the way they deal with social media and their time perception has changed. One thing left us…
Happy Birthday BESSY II
A conversation about 25 years of the high-brilliance radiation source in Adlershof:
BESSY II is a synchrotron, a storage ring, a high-brilliance radiation source. Or as Bernd Rech puts it: a high-tech X-ray microscope. For 25 years, it has been helping researchers from all over the world to uncover…
The trail of the roses
Jakob Engel investigates supply chains at the Department of Geography at Humboldt-Universität:
On his research journeys, he would hear people say, “We don’t do email in Africa!” Time and time again, Engel had to become quite inventive to obtain the information he needed for his studies. In his doctoral thesis,…
Let’s talk about AI
Mathematician Mario Koddenbrock uses artificial intelligence to develop practical everyday solutions:
Mario Koddenbrock, a mathematician and an expert in pattern recognition at the Society for the Advancement of Applied Computer Science, investigates artificial intelligence (AI) and develops real-world applications…
Marketplace + drop-off station + package service point
The NachbarschaftsBox, or neighbourhood box, set up by Berliner Stadtreinigung (BSR), Berlin’s municipal waste company, and Charlottenburger Baugenossenschaft, a housing cooperative, has countless functions:
For people who live in Berlin, it’s a familiar sight. “Zu verschenken” (to give away) is scribbled on cardboard boxes in front of buildings or on hallways. They often contain books, shoes, children’s clothes, and…
MO-SPACE: communicating securely with quanta
With his start-up, aerospace engineer Michael Ullrich wants to provide the highest standard for secure communication:
Not everything that rushes through the airwaves is intended for other people’s eyes and ears. Administration, businesses, and the military have always relied on information being confidential. Because of this,…
Berlin is on the Baltic
“SOKO Wismar” is investigating in Adlershof:
The police station of the fictional special investigations unit “SOKO Wismar” of the eponymous crime series is a long way away from the seaside town of Wismar. It’s located in Studio 20c in Berlin Adlershof, 260…
News in short
20th anniversary of the HU Mathematics and Natural Sciences Campus in Adlershof
In 1991, the decision fell to relocate parts of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU) to the emerging “City of Science, Business and Media” in Adlershof. Then, in 1995, HU presented a comprehensive concept for its Adlershof campus and new buildings were planned under the auspices of the Senate Department for Urban Development. The last one was completed in 2003. Computer scientists were the pioneers, who moved to Adlershof first in August 1998. They were followed by the mathematicians, chemists, physicists, geographers, and psychologists. The move of all the departments into their cutting-edge buildings was completed in the autumn of 2003. Since then, the HU campus has been expanded with the Erwin-Schrödinger-Zentrum, which houses the natural sciences branch of the university library and the computer and media service, the building ensemble of the Great Wind Tunnel, including the school laboratory of the chair of physics education research, and the Integrative Research Institute for the Sciences IRIS Adlershof, which conducts interdisciplinary research on novel, hybrid materials. Over 7,000 people are currently doing research, working, and studying here.
Campus Adlershof — Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (hu-berlin.de)
Tomislav Stolar wins Falling Walls Lab Adlershof
Tomislav Stolar, a scientist in the Structural Analysis Team at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM, Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung) won the Falling Walls Lab Adlershof 2023 with his science pitch “Breaking the wall of circular plastics economy”. The preliminary of the international science pitch for the north of Germany is organised by BAM together with the Joint Initiative of Non-University Research Institutes Adlershof (IGAFA e. V.). Second and third place winners of the Falling Walls Lab Adlershof are Anthea Widges of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and Arsène Chemin of the Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie.
Tomislav Stolar received a prize worth 500 euros and a ticket to the Falling Walls Summit from November 7-9 in Berlin. There, he will compete in the grand finale against the other winners of a total of 78 international labs and will be able to present his idea again in front of a larger jury on November 7.
https://falling-walls.com
Science slam “Battle den Horst”
On 30 November 2023 at 6.30 pm, the Adlershof science slam “Battle den Horst” will take the stage at Bunsen Hall, Volmerstrasse 2. Five or six scientists from various disciplines will take part in the competition and present their research topics in a way that is educating as well as entertaining in just 10 minutes. As always, the audience decides who entertained them the most. The event is organised by WISTA Management GmbH.
www.adlershof.de/horst
WISTA Academy launched
Launched on 28 September 2023, WISTA academy aims to support the companies based at Technology Park Adlershof with skills development training for their employees through qualification and further education offerings. The advantage of the academy is that the concepts of the offerings are tailored to the current and individual needs of companies, research facilities, institutes, and start-ups on the site. The diverse course and workshop offerings are made available by WISTA Management GmbH together with its partners, the Steinbeis Center of Management and Technology, the Federal Employment Agency South Berlin, and the Health Network Adlershof.
www.wista.de/academy
A hot spot for quantum technology
On 19 September 2023, the kick-off event for the Berlin Quantum Alliance (BQA) took place. This joint initiative by Berlin's business community, research institutions and universities is intended to make Berlin an international hotspot for the research and development of quantum technologies. At the same time, a new innovation hub and co-working space for quantum technologies has opened at the Innovation and Start-up Centre (IGZ) in Adlershof, which offers a platform for exchange, networking and collaboration between various players from science, business and the start-up scene who want to address the potentials and challenges of quantum technologies. These activities are managed by Humboldt Innovation GmbH, the technology transfer agency of Humboldt-Universität, OpTec Berlin Brandenburg e.V., the industry association for optical technologies, and Berlin Partner for Business and Technology, a public-private partnership promoting Berlin as a business location.
https://leap.berlin
