Computer Vision News - March 2021

234 AI Events Andreas Maier is the Head of the Pattern Recognition Lab at the Friedrich–Alexander University Erlangen–Nürnberg. Christoph Palm is Professor for Medical Image Computing at the OTH Regensburg University of Applied Sciences. As co-organizers of Germany’s BVM Workshop, they speak to us about what we can expect to see at this month’s event. The BVM Workshop is Germany’s dedicated medical image processing (or Bildverarbeitung für die Medizin – henceBVM) conferencewhichhas been running annually for three decades. It was established back in 1993 with the aim to create a local medical image computing community and now plays host to experienced members alongside new and upcoming students. As the local organizer this year, Christoph had hoped to be holding a physical event in Regensburg , but as we all know, large in-person gatherings are still off the table, so like many other meetings, BVM is virtual this year. It is in fact its second virtual conference, as last year’s Berlin event had to be redesigned at the eleventh hour when the pandemic first hit. As the conference approaches its 30 th year, what is the secret to its success? “We have a strong focus on students,” Andreas tells us. “For them, it is a huge experience to go to a scientific conference and meet people they only knowfrompapers.Formoreexperienced members of the community, it is just great to keep up the community work and to see people you have been collaborating with for many years. It is just a wonderful event. I love it.” Compared to international conferences with a similar theme, such as MICCAI , BVM is a more modest affair, although this year the hope is that it will attract a bigger crowd from across the globe to its virtual rooms. The in-person event usually entices around 150 mostly local participants, with most papers coming “… create a local medical image computing community.” Andreas Maier

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