Summary of the Turing Centennial Year at the University of Bergen

The year 2012 was the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. The University of Bergen, the Departments of Informatics (Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences) and of Information Science (Faculty of Social Sciences) collaborated to host a series of popular scientific talks in order to promote the field of computer sciences and artificial intelligence. The Turing Centennial Year was funded by the Bergen Universitetsfond.

The following is a summary of what happened:

Let us calculate! — From Leibniz to Turing
— Thore Husfeldt, Friday, 22nd of June at 18.30 Tivoli, Kvarteret
From Informatics to Storytelling and Back
Christos Papadimitriou, UC Berkeley — Friday 24th of August at 18:00 Egget, Student Centre
Scoping the Mind with Turing’s Chess Machine
Kenneth W. Regan, Tuesday 11th of September, 18:00 Teglverket, Kvarteret.
Can Machines be creative enough to invent their own language?
Luc Steels, Monday 5th of November Egget, Studentsenteret

The last talk was co-hosted together with Horisonter. We also thank UPop at Studentersamfunnet for helping organizing the Chess event.

The Turing Committee was:

  • Professor Jan Arne Telle (Institutt for informatikk)
  • Professor Thomas Ågotnes (Institutt for informasjonsvitenskap)
  • Førsteamanuensis Michał Walicki (Institutt for informatikk)
  • Konsulent Steinar Heldal (Institutt for informatikk)
  • Stipendiat Pål Grønås Drange (Institutt for informatikk)
  • Stipendiat Erik Parmann (Institutt for informatikk)