Summer EXPO 2026 Recap

17 Jul 2026

The Summer EXPO 2026 for HCI/HCS, CS, and GE was a great success! Visitors explored over 50 interactive demos and projects highlighting Würzburg’s leadership in XR and AI.

This year’s Summer EXPO showcased a diverse array of projects and research at the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (CAIDAS) on Campus Hubland Nord. With over 50 exhibits spanning Human-Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, Extended Reality, and Psychology, the event highlighted the strong AI and XR research ecosystem at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).

Students and researchers presented their work to faculty, peers, industry partners, alumni, and honored guests. Participating students were enrolled in:

• Human-Computer Interaction MSc
• Human-Computer Systems BSc
• Games Engineering BSc
• Computer Science BSc
• Computer Science MSc
  
  

Visit from Bavaria’s Minister for Digital Affairs

We were honored to welcome Bavaria’s Digital Minister, Dr. Fabian Mehring, back to the EXPO.

In his opening speech, Dr. Mehring praised the university’s role as a global beacon for XR and AI research. During his tour of the exhibits, VR developer Janna Elghabaty demonstrated an AI-driven application for designing VR avatars. The minister also learned about projects such as “Pussel”—an AI tool developed by HCI master’s student Lewe Lorenzen to assist students with dyslexia by simplifying complex academic texts—and AI-supported video training systems for high-stakes conversation scenarios presented by Prof. Carolin Wienrich.

The EXPO also highlighted strong connections between academia and industry. Alumnus Dr. Maximilian Landeck from MA Lighting International presented collaborative projects with JMU students focused on simplifying complex stage lighting control through AI and virtual environments.

Awarded Student Projects

Congratulations to the students recognized for outstanding projects and research across the disciplines!

Human-Computer Interaction

• Nicole Dering: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training in Virtual Reality with Intelligent Virtual Agents
• Nathalie Weger: One Screen, Many Eyes: A Research-through-Design Study of Communication in Robot-Assisted Surgery

Games Engineering

• Samuel Kienle: Surrounded
• Adham Salem & Julian Fambach: GrandMA’s Muscle Memory
• Marie Schramm: Trigger Rush
• Daniel Gottschalk: Real and Virtual Robots in Games

Acknowledgments and Partners

The Summer EXPO 2026 was made possible through the collaboration of numerous chairs, research groups, and external partners.

Special thanks to our participating institutes—including research groups across Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology of Interactive Systems, Psychological Ergonomics, Games Engineering, Machine Learning, Robotics, Computer Vision, and Computational Decision-Making—and to our supporters: XR HUB Bavaria, Zentrum für Digitale Innovationen Mainfranken (ZDI), MA Lighting, Körber, the Human Dynamics Centre, the Faculty of Human Sciences, and the Institute of Computer Science.

Impressions