Educational program Digital Assistants of 2022 is a combination of previously DAAD-supported courses Robotics and Data Mining (2017), Data Mining (2018), Machine learning (2019). The program is being constantly transformed and updated according to students’ feedback and demand.The program was also supported by the DAAD in 2020, but was not implemented due to pandemic restrictions.

This course is a result of the cooperation between two universities – Ulyanovsk State Technical University (UlSTU) and Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (h_da). UlSTU summer school students of 2022 can benefit from IT-professors and IT-specialists from two countries.

Faculty of Information Systems and Technologies of Ulyanovsk State Technical University (UlSTU) is the city and regional leader according to student competitions in robotics, programming, mathematics, labor market demand, etc. In general, IT community in Ulyanovsk is very strong, active and international. University graduates are highly-qualified specialists and are highly demanded by employers in the city, country and even abroad.

The Department of Computer Science of the University of Darmstadt is one of the largest and most recognized computer science departments among German universities of applied sciences. The department offers students the entire spectrum of computer science studies, from theory across a variety of applications (e.g. IT security, big data, augmented reality) to questions the economy in computer science.

The program leaders are Prof. Kirill Sviatov (UlSTU) and Prof. Stefan Rapp (h_da). Prof. Sviatov is the dean of the Faculty of Information Systems and Technologies of UlSTU, his scientific interests cover machine learning and robotics issues for many years in a row, including lecturing in partner-universities in Germany and China, participating in all-Russian and international student competitions, i.e. Robofest. He also organizes and supports local scientific and technical events for schools and universities. Whereas Prof. Stefan Rapp teaches several computer science courses in Darmstadt, ranging from computer engineering to user interfaces for embedded systems and autonomous driving. Prof. Rapp has many years of experience in voice assistants and multimodal user dialogue, topics on which he worked for Sony and other companies.

During the course students can practice and work with the following technologies:

• Architecture of assistant system and forms of assistance;
• Linear and logistic regression;
• Neural networks;
• Deep learning;
• Generative models;
• Image processing;
• Text processing;
• Speech recognition and generation;
• Digital voice assistant architecture and implementation;
• Basics of intelligent robot control;
• and others.

The professors offer a short theoretical introduction for students in their areas of expertise. Then students can put their knowledge into practice by developing algorithms. As a final examination students develop their own project.