News Archive 2008

B-IT, Dahlmannstr. 2, Rheinsaal

B-IT Research School in Applied Computer Science, approved by the State of North-Rhine-Westphalia, started in October 2008. Interested students from Germany and international students with an outstanding academic record are welcome to apply for the PhD and Combined Master-PhD Scholarships. The scholarships are to be filled in by April 1, 2009.

Application deadline for these scholarships is January 30, 2009.

Important note: The current application phase for the PhD and combined Master-PhD scholarships of the B-IT Research School has finished. Please visit this page from time to time for the next scholarship openings.

More information:

About the Scholarships

About the Areas of Research Covered in B-IT Research School

About the Application Requirements

About the Application Process

Due to the overwhelming success of Schüler-Krypto in the previous years, Schüler-Krypto 2009 will offer two courses this year. They will be held on February 12 and 13, 2009. The courses will address schools, introducing school students to the important field of cryptography. Read more about Schüler-Krypto 2009 (in German).

Deniz Sarier graduated in 2007 in Media Informatics, with a thesis on hybrid symmetric/asymmetric encryption written under the supervision of B-IT Professor von zur Gathen.

She has won the Best Student Paper Award of the "2008 International Conference of Information Security and Internet Engineering", held in London, UK, and has been invited to the conference committee of the coming "World Congress on Engineering 2009 (WCE 2009)". After this major success at a very early career stage, she is now pursuing doctoral studies at the B-IT Research School.

B-IT group of Computer Security (cosec) particiaptes within the activities of the Year of Mathematics in the Science Tent in Bonn. From 2 to 5 July 2008 the science tent will invite people to Bonn city for strolling through projects showing how mathematics shapes their everyday life. We will also be part of this exhibition. Mathematics is the fundamental building block of cryptography. Cryptography in turn grants security, authenticity, anonymity, and much more. That in turn enables us in our every day life to buy and sell in the internet, to communicate with people around the world

Read more about this here.

This summer school on cryptography offers undergraduate and graduate students and researchers the opportunity to crypt a bit. It provides acquaintance and interaction in an intellectually stimulating and informal atmosphere in pleasant surroundings.

Description

The one-week summer school crypt@b-it 2008 takes place 28 July - 1 August 2008 in the b-it building. It will explore some areas of cryptography:

- Design and analysis of block ciphers and cryptographic hash functions
- Cryptography: Numbers at work and play
- The Enigma crypto machine

In addition, there will be tutorials and hands-on exercises on topics somewhat related to the lectures, including an exhibit of an actual Enigma machine. The intended audience are undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdocs and researchers who work in the area or at least have a basic knowledge. Speakers

- Vincent Rijmen, COSIC, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium / IAIK Krypto Group, Graz University of Technology, Austria.
- Igor Shparlinski, ACAC, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
- Joachim von zur Gathen, b-it Bonn
- Frank Niedermeyer, BSI Bonn

Read more about crypt@bit.

Following the success of Mobile Response 2007, we would like to announce the continuation of this event in 2008. Mobile Response 2008 will be hosted by the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology in Bonn. The symposium will present the latest approaches and technical solutions in the area of mobile information technology for emergency response planning and execution. We invite participation from research, industry and public rescue organizations to enable an in-depth discussion of the opportunities and drawbacks of new digital technologies for emergency response.

Read more about this symposum and its programme at its Website.

The “European Master of Informatics (EuMI)” is one of the earliest and most successful among the currently ca. 80 EU-sponsored double degree scholarship programs within Erasmus-Mundus. In EuMI, B-IT Media Informatics cooperates with RWTH Aachen’s Software Systems Engineering Programme as well as with master programmes of the Universities of Trento (Italy) and Edinburgh (UK) which have achieved top places in their recent national research rankings. Since 2004, the EU supports years of student intake with 20 to 35 generous scholarships awarded in a competitive process from among roughly 500 applicants from all over the world. Up to now, a total of 94 scholarships have been awarded. The German EuMI participation is coordinated by Professors Matthias Jarke and Gerhard Lakemeyer (Information Systems and Knowledge-Based Systems Group, RWTH Aachen).

Read more about this in the press release.

B-IT director Matthias Jarke gave the Fraunhofer-Magazin an interview about B-IT and its programmes, focusing on the need to attract and further educate excellent international students. B-IT with its partners and programmes sets such a framework to achieve this goal by offering excellent students optimal conditions to train and develop their scientific skills in an inspiring academic environment.

Read more about this in the interview (page 26 and 27, in German).

B-IT Professors Martin Hofmann-Apitius and Jürgen Bajorath have organised a series of talks about Life Science Informatics that will be held on Thursdays in B-IT lecture hall. Eminent scientists from this field of research were invited to present their work.

More information about this lecture series, held in co-operation with B-IT partner Fraunhofer SCAI, can be found below.

Detailed information about the lecture series on the B-IT Website and on the SCAI Website.

B-IT Research School will offer new opportunities for excellent students of B-IT master programs in Media Informatics and Life Science Informatics to continue their studies in a PhD program, but also addresses outstanding international students from outside B-IT to apply. The PhD programs will entirely be taught in English.

B-IT Research School will be run by Aachen University and the University of Bonn under the participation of the Fraunhofer Institutes. Accepted students will be exposed to the inspiring learning and research environments of both universities, the participating Fraunhofer Institutes. Moreover, students will additionally be taught by high-level international lecturers. B-IT Research School is scheduled to start in October 2008.

The well structured PhD programs will ensure that accepted students will quickly be familiar with their respective field of doctoral research on one hand whereas B-IT partners will lay the foundation of a comprehensive education on the other hand.

The recently approved B-IT Research School also acknowledges the success of B-IT master's programs in Media Informatics and Life Science Informatics which have been run since 2003.

More information about:

B-IT Research School

• Press Release of the Ministry for Innovation, Science, Research and Technology of North Rhine-Westphalia (in German).
• Press Release of B-IT directors, Professor Dr. Armin B. Cremers and Professor Dr. Matthias Jarke (in German).

B-IT Master's programs

• Life Science Informatics.
• Media Informatics.

Due to the success of Informatiktage in B-IT in the previous years, it was decided that Informatiktage should be held here again. Informatiktage are organised by Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V and will be held in the time of March, 14-15, 2008 at B-IT. This gathering focuses on workshops and keynote lectures, addressing excellent graduate and doctoral students in computer science.

All lectures will be held and all courses wiil be taught in German.