News Digital Business & Software Engineering

Team of the Digitial Business & Software Engineering Department present AI research of the MCI Research Unit "Digital Transformation"

Team of the Digitial Business & Software Engineering Department present AI research of the MCI Research Unit "Digital Transformation"

Nearly 70 pupils got an insight into our DiBSE study program

Two conference presentations of the Research Unit Digital Transformation by Martin Nocker

We warmly welcome DiBSE Year 22 at MCI

Dr. Pascal Schöttle is awarded professorship at MCI

Conference presentations of the research sub unit IT Security & Privacy at the ICIAP in Lecce

DiBSE Project researcher Martin Nocker as Speaker at the Pint of Science Festival in Innsbruck

MCiT & DiBSE Lecturer Pascal Schöttle and his doctoral students provide useful tips for raising awareness of data protection and privacy. !-- MCiT & DiBSE Lecturer Pascal Schöttle and his doctoral students provide useful tips for raising awareness of data protection and privacy. Overview:The project "Secure Machine Learning Applications with Homomorphically Encrypted Data" (SMiLe) is funded under project number 886524 by the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK) as part of the 8th call of the "ICT of the Future" program.Project partner:MCI | The Entrepreneurial School: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pascal Schöttle, Associate Professor; Martin Nocker, MSc, Research AssistantFraunhofer AustriaSoftware Competence Center HagenbergCenter for Virtual Reality and VisualizationCompanies: Fill, CORE smartwork and TributechProject duration:The project has been running since April 2021 and will end in September 2023 after a duration of 30 months.Status quo:There is enormous potential in the data that is being collected and stored by companies in ever-increasing quantities, which can be tapped using machine learning methods. Since, on the one hand, machine learning works particularly well with large volumes of data, but, on the other hand, it is not worthwhile for every company to build up know-how and infrastructure for the application of corresponding processes, collaboration is an option for companies. When it comes to sensitive data, however, this is only an option for many companies if appropriate security precautions are taken. Pascal Schöttle, Associate Professor at MCI, believes that the importance of security in connection with machine learning will increase even further in the future. Research into methods that allow secure processing of data has been going on for years. Results to date show that a certain type of encryption, known as homomorphic encryption - is suitable, at least in theory - for enabling secure machine learning on sensitive data. In practice, however, know-how and suitable software are lacking. SMiLe addresses both aspects and thus aims to create an essential prerequisite for the practical use of machine learning on encrypted data.Goal:The requirements with regard to the processing and protection of data are manifold. With Fill, CORE smartwork and Tributech, three companies are on board that have the most diverse requirements! The Austrian research team intends to investigate various potential applications during the course of the project. In order to successfully transfer the theoretical preliminary work into practice, a wide range of expertise is required: Fraunhofer Austria contributes experience with machine learning to the project. MCI provides the necessary knowledge about cryptographic methods. The Software Competence Center Hagenberg and the Center for Virtual Reality and Visualization also make important contributions to the project with their expertise in the areas of explainable artificial intelligence respectively data visualization.Outlook:In addition to insights into the practicality of homomorphic encryption, Pascal Schöttle expects the project to yield new theoretical findings. However, he is also aware of the challenges that need to be overcome: "One of the biggest challenges in the course of SMiLe will probably be to efficiently combine an exceedingly computationally intensive application, such as machine learning, with an equally computationally intensive form of encryption, as is the case with homomorphic encryption."Pascal Schöttle is supported by Martin Nocker, Research Assistant at MCI, who also sees great potential in the SMiLe project: "Homomorphic encryption is referred to as the 'holy grail' of cryptography, as its properties allow sensitive data to be processed securely. We want to be part of the active and young community that continuously develops homomorphic encryption and combines the most suitable methods with state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms. In doing so, we must always pay attention to the best possible trade-off between security, accuracy and efficiency."Dr. Pascal Schöttle, Associate Professor and Martin Nocker, MSc, Research Assistant at MCI are part of the Austrian research team investigating the practicality of machine learning on encrypted data. Photo credit: Arno RottensteinerDr. Pascal Schöttle, Associate Professor and Martin Nocker, MSc, Research Assistant at MCI are part of the Austrian research team investigating the practicality of machine learning on encrypted data. Photo credit: Arno RottensteinerDr. Pascal Schöttle, Associate Professor and Martin Nocker, MSc, Research Assistant at MCI are part of the Austrian research team investigating the practicality of machine learning on encrypted data. Photo credit: Arno RottensteinerBachelor Management, Communications & ITMaster Management, Communications & ITBachelor Digital Business & Software Engineering endsearch-->

We welcome 68 Digital Business & Software Engineering Freshmen to the MCI Campus

DiBSE student Bernhard Auer reports on his temporary stay at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, HTW for short !-- DiBSE student Bernhard Auer reports on his temporary stay at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, HTW for short  On June 24, 2021, the 20th Girls Day took place. 36 interested schoolgirls visited MCI - The Entrepreneurial School® on this day. Our technical study program Digital Business & Software Engineering was not only presented to the visitors but also made tangible by means of a practical example. We asked our colleague Elisabeth Rabanser, MSc, organizational Assistant & Project Manager at the study program DiBSE as well as our colleague Alexander Monz, MA, Teaching & Research Assistant for an interview.What kind of activites did you offer at Girls Day 2021?Alexander Monz: "We started with a presentation in which we briefly explained color vision in humans and animals. The focus was on the question of why tigers are orange - after all, their primary habitat is the jungle, where the color scheme is strongly dominated by green. However, since tigers' main prey cannot see red, the big cats adapt almost perfectly, turning orange into green. This effect was demonstrated with the help of a self-developed online tool and we presented the fact that colors are also represented in computers with the help of the same scheme - through red, green and blue components. The visitors were then challenged to use this knowledge independently adapting the background of a website code we had prepared. Step by step, we showed them how other aspects of this website could be changed - from adapting the font, to integrating external images and videos, to getting to know their first script.""With our concept, we were able to ensure that the students could experience the effects live on the final product," Elisabeth Rabanser added.What was your intention with this?Alexander Monz: "The core of the idea was to show future students, who have no prior knowledge of programming, that creating software is not "magic". With motivation and appropriate commitment, it is possible for anyone to acquire the necessary knowledge - creating a website, for example. We were able to demonstrate this to them, as the visitors were already able to independently adapt various aspects of the website after about 30 minutes. It was important to us that the girls were actually able to edit program codes, in order to be able to straighten out the myths surrounding the activity of programming."Elisabeth Rabanser: "The challenge with our study program Digital Business & Software Engineering was that the course content could neither be shown in labs, tried out on robots, nor presented on end devices. Our goal was to move away from pure presentation and towards some form of interaction. We solved this by means of a very simple social media profile."In your eyes, what is the biggest challenge in getting girls and young women excited about technology?Alexander Monz: "In my opinion, the biggest challenge continues to be changing the reputation of technical professions and divisions as a "male domain" in the long term. The literature in this area identifies female "role models" as one of the most important factors in motivating young women to pursue technical studies and careers. Unfortunately, there are currently far too few of these. For this reason, many attempts are made to appeal interesting to young women through specially prepared content. However, this good intention leads exactly to the fact that existing gender differences are intensified even further. I think the better approach is to neutralize the subject area and also such content - for example, if someone is enthusiastic about developing apps, it doesn't matter WHICH app is being developed."Elisabeth Rabanser: "In my eyes, a familiar environment of girls and young women sets the first and essential foundation for getting them excited about technology. If this does not happen, the next step requires a strong character and/or a motivated teacher who recognizes her potential and supports her on her way. It already counts as support if the young woman is encouraged in her idea of pursuing a technical career."What were the biggest learnings for you after this year's Girls Day?"The most important learning is that many girls are interested, but they are often not aware of the existing study or career opportunities. In order to develop video games, for example, they need many different technical skills - from sound design and animation to the development of highly complex algorithms for the game's internal artificial intelligence. This is where we could definitely make a contribution, so that the aggregate of STEM/MINT fields can actually be represented much better in job profiles," says Alexander Monz.Alexander Monz & Theresa Baumann give interesting insights into our technical study program Digital Business & Software Engineering. Foto Credit: DiBSEAt Girls Day 2021 36 girls looked behind the scenes of our technical study program Digital Business & Software Engineering. Foto Credit: DiBSEBachelor Management, Communications & ITMaster Management, Communications & ITBachelor Digital Business & Software Engineering endsearch-->

Girls looked behind the scenes of our technical study program Digital Business & Software Engineering for one day.

Austrian consortium aims to enable cross-company usage of sensitive data

Our lecturer Assoc. Prof. Matthias Janetschek, PhD takes us into strange new worlds of IT

Virtual drink with our scholarship holders

DiBSE Insights: The entire Digital Business & Software Engineering team congratulates our lecturers on receiving the MCI Associate Professorship. !-- DiBSE Insights: The entire Digital Business & Software Engineering team congratulates our lecturers on receiving the MCI Associate Professorship.In the presence of companions, colleagues, students, friends and family, the certificate of appointment was solemnly handed over by the head of the course of studies FH-Prof. Dr. Peter J. Mirski, together with MCI Rector Andreas Altmann and the Chairman of the University Collegium Univ.-Prof. FH-Prof. Dr. Franz Pegger.Pascal Schöttle's great passions are mathematics and computer science. Both have accompanied his academic career ever since. After successfully completing his doctorate at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster, he came to Innsbruck in 2015 and spent a good three years at the university as a post-doc. Pascal Schöttle has been enriching our team as a lecturer for the past two years and has been shaping the DiBSE program significantly. In his courses, he teaches our students complex contents such as mathematics & statistics or algorithms & data structures with great commitment, practical relevance and profound knowledge. Besides teaching, research is also an important part of his work. Here, he concentrates on topics such as machine learning, IT security and privacy.Matthias Janetschek has also been awarded the MCI Associate Professorship in this context. He began his academic career at the University of Innsbruck and graduated in 2018 with a Doctor of Philosophy in computer science in the field of high performance computing. Matthias has also accompanied our Digital Business & Software Engineering program from the very beginning and has made significant contributions to its design. He teaches with a lot of expertise and commitment to exciting topics such as databases & big data, programming technology and virtual reality. In his research, he focuses not only on embedded systems and Internet of Things but also on virtual reality.At this point we would like to thank Asc. Prof. Dr. Pascal Schöttle and Asc. Prof. Matthias Janetschek, PhD for their commitment to teaching and research at the Department of Digital Business & Software Engineering.MCI Associate Professorship for Dr. Pascal Schöttle & Matthias Janetschek, PhD Photocredit: MCIHead of department Prof. Dr. Peter Mirski at the ceremony Photocredit: MCIDr. Pascal Schöttle receives the MCI Associate Professorship Photocredit: MCIMatthias Janetschek, PhD receives the MCI Associate Professorship Photocredit: MCIBachelor Management, Communications & ITMaster Management, Communications & ITBachelor Digital Business & Software Engineering endsearch-->

This year round three starts with 70 students.

Our lecturer Dr. Pascal Schöttle gives exciting insights into his research area.

Gaming Day as part of the course “eCollaboration”

We are delighted to welcome 56 students