The IEEE Student Branch Karlsruhe continued its series of talks given by industry experts on topics of professional interest to IEEE student members. On 24 January we were proud to host Dr. Martin Westphal, member of IBM"s EMEA Voice Technology Development, at the University of Karlsruhe (TH), Germany.

In front of an audience of about 40 students with majors in computer science and electrical engineering, Dr. Westphal gave an informative talk about IBM"s activities in the area of creating innovative user interfaces using language technology. Besides giving an introduction into the technical aspects of the topic, Dr. Westphal also presented an overview over the market for language technology and its economic impact. This overview was followed by descriptions and examples of already available products and standards at IBM, describing Dr. Westphal"s and his colleague"s work at the border between research and product development. Also useful and interesting for the student audience were his remarks on how students can get involved at IBM, not only in the form of a standard internship, but with innovative and clever projects that try to join research and product development in a fun way while maintaining a serious background. He demonstrated this concept with a student project conducted in the past.

Thus, the students in Karlsruhe could enjoy an entertaining talk on fascinating and fast developing technology, while at the same time learning about IBM"s products, about IBM as a potential employer and opportunities for students to get involved at IBM.

The series of talks in Karlsruhe will be continued this summer on 27 June with a talk given by Walter Fischer from Rohde & Schwarz on terrestrial Digital Video Broadcast (DVB-T).