Munich (d.de) – An AI researcher and an engineer from Germany are among the winners of the European Inventor Award 2024. The computer scientist Cordelia Schmid won the award in the “Research” category for her work in the field of “computer vision”. According to the European Patent Office, her research is about enabling artificial intelligence to “see” and interpret complex visual data in real-time. Self-driving vehicles are one area of application. Schmid is the research director at the French national research institute for digital science and technology (INRIA).
The award in the “Industry” category was won by Richard Oberle from Germany and the Italian Fiorenzo Dioni. For the Italian IDRA Group, they jointly developed the world’s largest die-casting machine, the “Giga Press”. The machine produces parts for electric vehicles and, according to the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA), “significantly reduces waste, energy consumption and transport costs”.
The European Inventor Award is presented once a year by the European Patent Office. DPMA President Eva Schewior congratulated the two award-winners from Germany. She said that the AI researcher Cordelia Schmid, with self-improving machine learning models, had decisively advanced the processing speed of AI applications in computer vision – and thus pushed the boundaries of what technology can do for our lives. Talking about the work of the engineer Richard Oberle, Schewior explained that the new technology enabled “an innovative approach to make automotive manufacturing even more efficient”.