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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250507
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250508
DTSTAMP:20251227T162730Z
CREATED:20251217T121209Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251227T162730Z
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SUMMARY:BrIAS/CEVIPOL Seminar : The Filibuster for Democracy - Arun Chaudhary
DESCRIPTION:The Filibuster for Democracy\n\nThe Premise\n\n\n\nWe had sixty-five elections (of varying quality) across the globe last year. Who is keeping track? I am. I worked in almost twenty of those elections across four continents. I share the frustration of those concerned with our failing record against the natavist right. In all the breathless discussion of which new tactics to mimic or adopt\, the greatest danger could be in overcorrection. \n\n\n\nTraditional media\, academia\, many institutions are going so far as to hire and fire based on new paradigms that are not borne out by date or vibe. When we look at political tactics and elections\, the forces of Democracy are failing not because they aren’t adopting new tactics quickly enough\, it’s because they aren’t even employing the older ones correctly. \n\n\n\nThat can be hard\, especially when trapped inside the electoral cycles of any particular nation. \n\n\n\nThe Filibuster For Democracy tries to rise above that limitation by distilling the best tactics\, messages\, and content that have *worked* worldwide\, and putting them into a frame that is usable by practical for progressive forces. A filibuster because we have to take the time to get this right. There is so much we already know\, but to put it into context takes time. \n\n\n\nI hope people can join us for any portion of the event and we will also annotate the recording to make it useful as a reference \nArun Chaudhary\nArun Chaudhary is a filmmaker working in politics. After being a key member of Barack Obama’s New Media team during the 2008 campaign\, he became the first Official White House Videographer\, a position created for him at the beginning of the Obama administration. Chaudhary traveled extensively with the President\, capturing public events and behind-the-scenes moments as well as producing and packaging presidential tapings for the Internet and broadcast television. He and his team set a new standard in documenting history\, delivering crucial images to the public from the road in real-time. Arun is the creator and architect of “West Wing Week”\, the first-ever online video diary of the White House. You can read about Arun’s time with Obama in this New York Times profile. After departing from the White House\, Chaudhary joined Revolution Messaging as a partner\, where he went on to help craft Senator Bernie Sanders’ game changing 2016 Presidential campaign as Creative Director. Arun’s work received extensive media coverage and praise\, including this Ozy profile\, “The Creative Genius Behind Bernie’s Revolution”\, and this New Yorker piece\, “How the Sanders’ Campaign got a Punk Sensibility”. In 2020\, Arun moved to Berlin with his family to focus on counter-programming the far-right globally and to work more closely in international elections/campaigns. \n\n\n\n  \n 
URL:https://brias.be/event/brias-cevipol-seminar-the-filibuster-for-democracy-arun-chaudhary/
LOCATION:BrIAS\, Boulevard Général Jacques 210\, Ixelles\, Brussels\, 1050\, Belgium
CATEGORIES:Other Events
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250508
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250509
DTSTAMP:20251217T131810Z
CREATED:20251217T130608Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251217T131810Z
UID:2657-1746662400-1746748799@brias.be
SUMMARY:BrIAS Seminar
DESCRIPTION:Seminar 1: BrIAS Fellow Prof. Paolo Falcone\nCautious-by-design motion planning. The role of prediction\n\nSafety of passengers and surrounding road users is the most important challenge in the design and deployment of autonomous driving technologies. In fact\, the highest Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL-D) will likely be required for autonomous driving functionalities. While fulfilling such safety requirements involves special design efforts at all levels of the autonomous driving stack\, in this talk we will focus on the control design of a safe motion planner in urban environments. \n\n\n\nWe will start by illustrating a model-based control design approach to vehicle motion planning problem\, in the presence of human road users (pedestrians\, cyclists\, human-driven vehicles). We will show that\, under mild assumptions\, vehicle behavior can be made cautious in the presence of road users and guaranteed to be persistently safe. Experimental results obtained with a passenger vehicle negotiating an intersection with a simulated pedestrian\, will be shown. An important ingredient of the proposed motion planning framework is a prediction model of the surrounding traffic. In the second part of the seminar\, we will illustrate our ongoing research on humans’ intent prediction in traffic environments. We will show how the evolution of a traffic scene can be predicted using very simple models and motion data (position\, velocity) of road users observed in similar traffic scenes.   \n\n\n\nSeminar 2 : BrIAS Fellow Prof. Hideyuki Sawada\n\n\n\nRobotics and machine learning techniques for understanding\, controlling and predicting physical phenomena\n\n\n\nMachine learning techniques are widely applied to the variety of fields to provide human-like intelligence for flexibly understanding\, controlling and predicting daily issues. In this lecture\, the history of the development of AIs is firstly introduced from the viewpoint of computational capacity and human ability\, then the basic idea for machine learning will be presented\, together with the robotic technologies. Several applications that have been conducted in our research team will be introduced as examples of the effective use of machine learning and the robotics technologies.
URL:https://brias.be/event/brias-seminar/
LOCATION:BrIAS\, Boulevard Général Jacques 210\, Ixelles\, Brussels\, 1050\, Belgium
CATEGORIES:Programme Events
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250519
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250520
DTSTAMP:20251217T131852Z
CREATED:20251217T130243Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251217T131852Z
UID:2652-1747612800-1747699199@brias.be
SUMMARY:BrIAS Public Forum: Protection of Critical Underwater Infrastructures
DESCRIPTION:The objective of this forum is to raise awareness and foster dialogue among academia\, industry\, operators\, policymakers\, and the public-at-large on the theme of the protection of Critical Underwater Infrastructures (CUIs). The conference will begin with an introduction to CUIs and discussing their vulnerability to covered sabotages\, terroristic actions\, and hybrid warfare. The geopolitical importance of these infrastructure will be highlighted and an historical overview on the most notorious and impactful incidents will be provided. After this introductory part\, experts and operators will explain how this problem is currently approached by governments and by the industry\, what are the tools available today\, and what are the typical prevention and intervention operations carried out. A critical analysis of successes\, pitfalls and lessons learnt from nowadays technologies\, operations\, and policies will be carried out. The forum will then move toward the future. Ongoing research directions and a vision on the future will be presented by researchers (from academia and the industry) and funding agencies. The forum will end discussing what politics and policy making can do to: i) encourage new research actions; and ii) promote the development of a comprehensive framework based on the share of responsibility between civil and military bodies\, as well as public and private entities. \nProgramme\n\n\n\n\n    09:00 – 09:30\n\n\nWelcome and Initial Remarks                                                                                     Prof. Emanuele Garone\, ULBProf. Marius Gilbert\, Vice-Rector for Research\, ULB\n\n\n\n\n09:30 – 11:50\n\n\nSession I: The Problem and the Present (chair: Prof. Emanuele Garone)\n\n\n\n\n09:30 – 09:50\n\n\nCritical Maritime Infrastructures – A Geopolitical issue for the EU and beyondDr. Allison Weston – Senior Coordinator for Maritime Security and Deputy Director in the Security and Defence Policy Directorate\, European External Action Service\, European Commission. \n\n\n\n\n09:50 – 10:10\n\n\nAn analysis of the problem and an historical overview of incidents involving CUIsDr. Tobias Libetrau\, University of Copenhagen.\n\n\n\n\n10:10 – 10:30\n\n\nOperative Experience on CUI protection – The Belgian experience\, some operational experience\, and identified challengesRepresentatitve of the Belgian Navy\n\n\n\n\n10:30 – 10:50\n\n\nCoffee break\n\n\n\n\n10:50 – 11:10\n\n\nThe Italian perspective of underwater dimension for the resilience of critical infrastructureAdm. Francesco Milazzo\, OF6 –  Italian Navy – Commander of the Italian Submarine Fleet\n\n\n\n\n11:10 – 11:30\n\n\nCUIs\, Threats\, and solutions. A vision from the Private Sector John Wrottesley\, Executive Director of the European Subsea Cable Association\n\n\n\n\n11:30 – 11:50\n\n\nProtection of CUIs in a changing worldAdm. Marcello Grivelli\, OF6 – Italian Delegation at NATO \n\n\n\n\n11:50 -12:30\n\n\nPANEL SESSION I – CUI Today : Success\, Pitfalls and Lesson Learnt (Moderator : E. Garone)Participants: Dr. Allison Weston\, Dr. Thobias Lievetrau\, Adm. Francesco Milazzo\, Belgian Navy speaker\, John Wrottsley\, Adm. Marcello Grivelli.\n\n\n\n\n12:30 – 13:20\n\n\nLunch\n\n\n\n\n13:20 – 15:10\n\n\nSession II – Research and CUI (Chair Geert DeCubber\, Royal Military Academy)\n\n\n\n\n13:20 – 13:30\n\n\nDefense oriented Research\, Development and Innovation : a strategy that applies on CUIAdm. Baudoin Coppieters de Gibson – OF6 – Director General of the Royal Higher Institute for Defense.\n\n\n\n\n13:30 – 13:50\n\n\nResearch on Protection of CUIs: The potential of using fibre optic distributed acoustic sensing for CUI protection. Prof. Martin Landro\, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.\n\n\n\n\n13:50 – 14:10\n\n\nRobotics and Protection of CUI: on overview on current research trends. Prof. E. Garone\, ULB\n\n\n\n\n14:10 – 14:30\n\n\nRobotics and Protection of CUI: Industrial Research Tanguy Durand\, Naval Group.\n\n\n\n\n14:30 – 14:50\n\n\nHow the European Commission sees R&D on CUI’s protection. Renauld Hock\, European Defence Fund.\n\n\n\n\n14:50 – 15:10\n\n\nBelgium future in CUI’s protection – Mission Driven Defence Innovation Ecosystem for Critical Underwater Infrastructures.Piet Opstaele – CEO Blue Cluster\n\n\n\n\n15:10 – 15:40\n\n\nPanel session II – Going in the right direction? (Chair M. Grivelli)Participants:  Piet Opstaele\, Prof. Martin Landro\, Renauld Hock\, Tanguy Durand\n\n\n\n\n15:40 – 16:00\n\n\nCoffee Break\n\n\n\n\n16:00 – 17:00\n\n\nSession III – Policies for CUI protection \n\n\n\n\n16:00 – 16:20\n\n\nWhich policies for CUI protection? Speaker TBC\n\n\n\n\n16:20 – 16:40\n\n\nCurrent and Future Threats\, what should the EU do ? Sophie Witte\, Munich Security Conference\n\n\n\n\n16:40 – 17:00\n\n\nPanel Session III – Which Policies and which Political Actions?\n\n\n\n\n17:00 – 17:50\n\n\nPanel Session III – Which Policies and which Political Actions?\n\n\n\n\n17:50 – 18:00\n\n\nClosing remarks and FarewellProf. Jan Dankaert\, Rector VUBProf. Emanuele Garone\n\n\n\n\n18:00\n\n\nAperitif\n\n\n\n\n18:30\n\n\nPiano Concert: Simon Vaskou\n\n\n\n\n19:15\n\n\nDinner
URL:https://brias.be/event/brias-public-forum-protection-of-critical-underwater-infrastructures/
LOCATION:BrIAS\, Boulevard Général Jacques 210\, Ixelles\, Brussels\, 1050\, Belgium
CATEGORIES:Programme Events
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250522
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250524
DTSTAMP:20251217T131914Z
CREATED:20251217T124518Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251217T131914Z
UID:2648-1747872000-1748044799@brias.be
SUMMARY:BrIAS Conference on Battery Management and Future Technologies
DESCRIPTION:The BrIAS Batteries2025 aims at becoming a recurrent international event for a multidisciplinary scientific community to present and discuss the most recent advancement and future avenues concerning the Dynamic Modelling and Control of Battery Systems (including Battery Management Systems and Energy Management Systems with storage).
URL:https://brias.be/event/brias-conference-on-battery-management-and-future-technologies/
LOCATION:BrIAS\, Boulevard Général Jacques 210\, Ixelles\, Brussels\, 1050\, Belgium
CATEGORIES:Programme Events
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250526
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250529
DTSTAMP:20251217T131941Z
CREATED:20251217T123731Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251217T131941Z
UID:2643-1748217600-1748476799@brias.be
SUMMARY:BrIAS x OHME : Crossing Wires - Arts\, AI & Robotics
DESCRIPTION:Crossing Wires is a three day event dedicated to Arts\, AI and Robotics\, presented by Ohme and hosted in collaboration with BrIAS – Brussels Institute for Advanced Studies. \n\n\n\nThe programme features art installations\, workshops\, engaging talks and a resonant closing night\, to celebrate the closure of the second edition of the Sustainable Robotics artistic residency. \n\n\n\nArtists and researchers reflect on current themes such as ethical issues\, climate change and our collective future in the age of automation and artificial intelligence. They share their vision and process\, aiming to offer insights into our complex relationship to creative thinking and the computational systems that increasingly shape our world. Crossing Wires investigates topics like sustainable robotics\, the future of Generative AI\, creative computers and the complex dynamics between Art and AI. \n\n\n\nFocusing on exploration rather than definitive answers\, this event opens a space for dialogue and exchange on how artistic and scientific practices can challenge each other in shaping tomorrow’s society. \n\n \nProgramme\nArt installations\nThe installations developed as part of the Sustainble Robotics residency will on display during the entire three days:​​ \n\n\n\n\nPlantoid by Dewi Brunet is a bio-inspired work that merges robotics and nature. This interactive installation invites visitors to discover robotic plants that respond to their environment. Plantoid explores the potential for harmonious interactions between technology and nature\, highlighting how robotic art can enrich our relationship with biodiversity.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Garden of the Future by Kris Verdonck imagines an ecosystem where self-sustaining robots\, powered by renewable energy sources like solar and wind\, perform ecological roles in harmony with natural cycles. Free from batteries or power grids\, these robots adapt to energy fluctuations\, challenging conventional consumption.\n\n\n\n\n\nCarbon Technostructure by Guillaume Slizewicz and Gijs de Heij is an interactive installation that materialises the often invisible environmental impact of digital infrastructures. By employing real-time data analysis and physical visualisation techniques\, the project bridges the gap between the intangible nature of digital services and their tangible carbon footprint.\n\n  \n\nAI in education: Where are the opportunities? – Prof. Sarah Howard (University of Leeds) & Prof. Jo Tondeur (VUB)\n\n\n\nIn the fast evolving landscape of digital technologies\, the introduction of new artificial intelligence (AI) has caused great excitement and unrest in education. In “Teachers and Machines: Is something new happening?”\, we consider interactions between teachers and AI-advancements. The aim is to examine claims\, possible benefits and the conditions. The discussion presented in this talk is not just about the feasibility of AI tools in education\, but also about the context\, vision\, and strategic planning required to usefully integrate these technologies into the educational practice of tomorrow. Ultimately\, this work provides a perspective of putting teachers in a position to select and integrate new AI-enabled tools. \n\n\n\nSarah Howard is professor at the University of Leeds. The driving question of her research is: how can we help teachers best use digital technologies to support what they value in learning? A key focus of this work is experimenting with new approaches\, technologies and multimodal data to observe the classroom and explore digital technology integration\, with the aim of conducting research that is meaningful and useful in practice. \n\n\n\nJo Tondeur is Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Prior to academia he was a teacher across various levels of schooling. His research interests are in the field of educational innovation\, technology use\, online and blended learning\, and professional development. Most of his current research focuses on the interplay between (digital) innovations and pre/in-service training. \n  \n\nWorkshop: Carbon Technostructures – Guillaume Slizewicz & Gijs de Heij\nA hands-on workshop on the carbon technostructure of the web\, inviting participants to trace the journey of their HTTP requests and to link each network node to its energy source. By combining developer tools with API calls\, attendees will gain a direct sense of the geographic and environmental footprint of web activity. The aim is not only to reveal where data travels\, but to connect those pathways to real-world energy systems. \n\n\n\nIn the first part\, we will use traceroute commands and IP-localisation services to map the path taken by requests to a chosen website. Participants will learn to interpret each hop and record its location. In the second part\, we will query public energy-production APIs to discover the mix of renewables\, fossil fuels and other sources that power each node. \n\n\n\nThis comparative analysis will show how different regions rely on different energy mixes and invite discussion on how choice of infrastructure affects carbon intensity. \n\n\n\nBy the end of the day\, participants will have a working script\, and a clearer understanding of the hidden carbon cost of their web projects. Please bring your own laptop to take part. \n\n\n\nGuillaume Slizewicz is a designer and digital artist whose work sits at the intersection of technology\, the environment\, and societal issues. Through his practice\, he engages with the tension between innovation and sustainability\, using technology in poetic\, evocative and critical ways. His approach draws connections between ancient practices and contemporary digital tools. \n\n\n\nGijs de Heij is a Brussels based designer and programmer. He is a member of the collective Open Source Publishing which exclusively uses free and open source software (F/LOSS). Through his work he questions the influence and affordances of digital tools to make design and to enable different modes of collaboration. \n\n  \n\n\n\n \n\n \nParticipation is free but registration is recommended due to limited capacity.
URL:https://brias.be/event/brias-ohme-crossing-wires-arts-ai-robotics/
LOCATION:BrIAS\, Boulevard Général Jacques 210\, Ixelles\, Brussels\, 1050\, Belgium
CATEGORIES:Other Events
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250528
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20250529
DTSTAMP:20251217T132002Z
CREATED:20251217T122600Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251217T132002Z
UID:2639-1748390400-1748476799@brias.be
SUMMARY:BrIAS Seminar & Closing Ceremony
DESCRIPTION:BrIAS Sustainable Robotics\, AI and Automation Closing Ceremony \n\nSeminar 1: BrIAS Fellow Prof. Ilya Kolmanovsky\nExploiting Supervisory Schemes and the Interplay Between Computations and Closed-Loop Properties in Model Predictive Control\n\nAbstract: Model Predictive Control (MPC) leads to algorithmically defined nonlinear feedback laws for systems with pointwise-in-time state and control constraints. These feedback laws are defined by solutions to appropriately posed optimal control/trajectory optimization problems that are (typically) solved online. There is a growing interest in the use of MPC for practical applications\, including as an enabling technology for control and trajectory generation in autonomous vehicles\, including in aerospace\, automotive and robotics domains. To enable MPC implementation\, the solutions to MPC optimization problems must be computed reliably and within the available time. After describing several motivating applications in aerospace and automotive domains\, the talk will reflect on recent research by the presenter and his students/collaborators into strategies for computing solutions in optimization problems arising in receding horizon and shrinking horizon MPC formulations. These strategies include methods for solving MPC problems inexactly\, and the use of add-on supervisory schemes for MPC which reduce the computational time and enlarge the constrained closed-loop region of attraction. In particular\, a Computational Governor (CG) will be described which maintains feasibility and bounds the suboptimality of the MPC warm-start by altering the reference command provided to the inexactly solved MPC problem. As it also turns out\, the analysis of time distributed implementation of MPC based on fixed number of optimization algorithm iterations per time step and warm-starting benefits from the application of control-theoretic tools such as the small gain theorem; intriguingly\, similar tools can be exploited in “control-aware” multi-disciplinary design optimization. \n\n\n\nSeminar 2: BrIAS Fellow Prof. Bruno Sinopoli\n\n\n\nLinear Methods for Dimensionality Reduction: is there life beyond PCA?\n\n\n\nAbstract: Feature extraction and selection at the presence of nonlinear dependencies among the data is a fundamental challenge in unsupervised learning. We propose using a Gram-Schmidt (GS) type orthogonalization process over function spaces to detect and map out such dependencies. Specifically\, by applying the GS process over some family of functions\, we construct a series of covariance matrices that can either be used to identify new large-variance directions\, or to remove those dependencies from known directions. In the former case\, we provide information-theoretic guarantees in terms of entropy reduction. In the latter\, we provide precise conditions by which the chosen function family eliminates existing redundancy in the data. Each approach provides both a feature extraction and a feature selection algorithm. Our feature extraction methods are linear\, and can be seen as natural generalization of principal component analysis (PCA). We provide experimental results for synthetic and real-world benchmark datasets which show superior performance over state-of-the-art (linear) feature extraction and selection algorithms. Surprisingly\, our linear feature extraction algorithms are comparable and often outperform several important nonlinear feature extraction methods such as autoencoders\, kernel PCA\, and UMAP. Furthermore\, one of our feature selection algorithms strictly generalizes a recent Fourier-based feature selection mechanism (Heidari et al.\, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory\, 2022)\, yet at significantly reduced complexity. \n\n\n\n 
URL:https://brias.be/event/brias-seminar-closing-ceremony/
LOCATION:BrIAS\, Boulevard Général Jacques 210\, Ixelles\, Brussels\, 1050\, Belgium
CATEGORIES:Programme Events
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