November 11-13, 2024

The recent The Brain and The Chip Congress 2024 meeting brought together renowned researchers, clinicians, and experts in various fields—neural engineering, intracortical brain-computer interfaces, microelectronics, artificial vision, neurosurgery, neurology, materials science, neural-inspired AI, ethics, etc.—to foster collaborations, exchange knowledge, and explore advancements in intracortical interfaces. The congress was co-sponsored by NeuraViPeR. Several NeuraViPeR members gave talks and presented posters on their current research. 

Link to congress website

Oct 3-6, 2024

Session covering current and future state of visual prosthetics. Talk given by NeuraViPeR partner, Eduardo Fernandez. 

Link to workshop website

December 16 - December 17, 2022

The main objective of this International Congress "The Brain and the Chip", was to provide an updated vision of advances in the field of cortical visual neuroprostheses from a multidisciplinary point of view, and to encourage clinicians (ophthalmologists, neurologists, and neurosurgeons), neuroscientists, engineers, physicists, artificial intelligence experts, low vision professionals, and other basic and clinical researchers to exchange opinions and discuss the latest developments in this field of research. Different approaches and strategies to help blind people were presented, including cutting-edge research developments and results from several ongoing clinical trials. Talks were given by several NeuraViPeR members (Bodo Rueckauer, Cristina Soto, Leili Soo, and Eduardo Fernandez). There was also an important involvement of people with visual disabilities.

Link to workshop website

June 25 - July 14, 2022

Bodo Rueckauer co-organized a topic area on “Lifelong Learning at Scale (L2S): From Neuroscience Theory to Robotic Applications”, in which 30 participants were involved.

The L2S topic area studied bio-inspired continual learning – the ability of an agent to acquire useful representations, form memories, and learn new skills in a continual flow of signals, generated by observing or acting in an environment. Invited experts from computational neuroscience (Michael Berry, Princeton), deep learning (Hava Siegelmann, UMass), neuromorphic circuits (Shantanu Chakrabartty, WUSTL and Rajit Manohar, Yale), neuromorphic processing (Garrick Orchard and Andreas Wild, Intel), and robotics (Tobias Fischer and Michael Milford, QUT) taught participants the necessary background and stimulated the development of novel algorithms. Participants deployed these algorithms on robotic platforms (e.g., "Durin" platform loaned to us by Jorg Conradt, KTH) with vision sensors and low-power processors.

Link to workshop website

June 2 - June 4, 2022

During this event more than 100 participants learned the newest developments in this rapidly expanding field, with contributions related to the visual prosthesis and also to deep-brain stimulation, focused ultrasound and other new methodologies for brain reading and brain writing. 

https://summerschool.nin.nl/

Dutch TV show ATLAS

10 Nov 2021

Mensen die blind zijn weer kunnen laten zien, het kan. Jaarlijks verliezen 40 miljoen mensen hun zicht. In het Herseninstituut onderzoeken ze een nieuwe techniek. Met behulp van chips helpen ze blinden om weer te kijken. Wat zie je dan? Elisabeth probeert het uit. 

https://www.npostart.nl/mensen-die-blind-zijn-weer-laten-zien/10-11-2021/POMS_NTR_16692325

12th World Research Congress on the Relationship between Neurobiology and Nano-Electronics Focusing on Artificial Vision 

May 3 - May 5, 2021

Eduardo Fernández, Xing Chen, and Leilli Soo gave talks at the Eye and the Chip, which is a research congress that seeks to marry the most recent advances in nanoelectronics and neurobiology – to provide artificial vision to many people who are now blind as a result of many eye conditions, diseases and injuries. Results from the congress will advance the day when many persons now blind recover some level of useful vision. At this collaborative event, the Detroit Institute of Ophthalmology brings together more than 30 authorities from various vision science and technology fields. 

The Healing Powers of Electricity, and What Microsystems Engineers Need to Do to Release Them 

March 2021

Maria Asplund gives online lecture to the Schüler-Ingenieur-Akademie of the Ursula-Gymnasium in Freiburg, to attract more women to study Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft und Technik (MINT) programs at the university.  

November 2020

Maria Asplund gives invited talk on visual prostehtics and neurotechnology at the “Women in Science” event on Biomedical Engineering, targeting an audience of young women (age 14‐20) in Guatemala.

Link to event website

NEMO Science Museum, Amsterdam

July 10 - October 31, 2021

Link to event website

Virtual

June 27 - July 15, 2021

In this years's Telluride workshop, three members of the NeuraViPeR consortium organized a topic area on Sensori-Motor Integration. The goal of this topic area was to apply principles of brain-inspired sensori-motor control as observed in biological organisms to artificial agents in a naturalistic simulated environment for solving navigation tasks. The projects aligned well with the algorithmic research within NeuraViPeR and led to fruitful and ongoing collaboration.