We are excited to present our distinguished keynote speakers for PerCom 2027
Albrecht Schmidt, LMU Munich
Talk title: The World Is the Computer: From Pervasive Computing to Ubiquitous Symbiotic AI.
Abstract. Over the last 25 years, pervasive computing has transformed our relationship with computation, moving it from an activity centered on individual devices into an infrastructure embedded throughout everyday objects, environments, and activities. Computing and communication now surround us, continuously sensing, connecting, and responding to the world. The world has become the computer.
Ubiquitous symbiotic AI is the next stage of this evolution because it does not merely place computation everywhere or make it more intelligent. It makes computation an adaptive partner in human activity. Pervasive sensing gives computational systems the means to continuously observe the physical and social world, while generative AI and multimodal foundation models enable them to interpret, remember, reason about, and create representations of that world. When these capabilities are personalized and embedded in everyday environments, AI can participate in our ongoing experiences and augment how we perceive, remember, think, decide, and act.
In this talk, I will reflect on the evolution, and my personal journey, from pervasive sensing and computing to ubiquitous symbiotic AI. I will present our vision of AI Twins of Human Experience: highly personalized generative AI systems built around continuously captured human experiences, including information about the world and our physiological responses to it. We expect that such systems could extend memory, support metacognition, improve planning and decision making, stimulate creativity, and enhance social abilities.
Ubiquitous symbiotic AI represents a shift from computers that we use (and can still choose not to use) to artificial intelligence that lives with us: continuously available but also continuously observing, grounded in our environments, responsive to our needs, shaped by our individual histories, and able to support our actions. As these systems increasingly influence what we perceive, remember, think, believe, and rely on when making decisions, designing computing systems also means shaping human reality and affecting the capabilities of individuals and societies. The central challenge for the next 25 years is to develop symbiotic AI as a trusted cognitive partner while preserving human agency, privacy, autonomy, and control.
Short Bio. Albrecht Schmidt is Professor of Computer Science at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich, where he holds the Chair for Human-Centered Ubiquitous Media. He is also currently Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics. His research and teaching interests include human-centred artificial intelligence, intelligent interactive systems, ubiquitous computing, digital media technologies and digital technologies for human augmentation. He studied Computer Science in Ulm and Manchester, receiving his PhD from Lancaster University in 2003. Albrecht has served as conference co-chair of ACM UbiComp, IEEE PerCom, and the International Conference on Pervasive Computing, and was co-chair of the ACM SIGCHI 2023 conference. He was on the editorial boards of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) and IEEE Pervasive Computing and is the co-founder of the ACM conferences TEI and Automotive User Interfaces. In 2018, he was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy, in 2020 he was elected to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and in 2023 he was named an ACM Fellow.
Flora Salim, UNSW Sydney
Talk title: TBA
Abstract. TBA
Short Bio. Flora Salim is a full Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, where she also serves as the Deputy Director (Engagement) of the UNSW AI Institute. Her work focuses on multimodal machine learning and foundation models for time-series and spatio-temporal data, behavioral modeling with multimodal sensors and wearables, robust and trustworthy machine learning, and applications of AI and LLMs for smart and sustainable cities, and for mobility, transport, energy, and grid systems. She has received multiple nationally and internationally competitive fellowships, such as the Humboldt Fellowship, Bayer Fellowship, Victoria Fellowship, ARC Australian Postdoctoral Industry (APDI) Fellowship, and many accolades and awards, such as the Women in AI Award Australia and New Zealand (2022) and the IBM Smarter Planet Industry Innovation Award.
She is a member of the Australian Academy of Sciences’ National Committee for Information and Computing Sciences and an elected member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts. She is a Vice Chair of the IEEE Task Force on AI for Time-Series and Spatio-Temporal Data. She serves on the editorial board of ACM TIST, ACM TSAS, PACM IMWUT, IEEE Pervasive Computing, and Nature Scientific Data, and has served as a senior reviewer or area chair for NeurIPS, ICLR, WWW, and many other top-tier conferences in AI and ubiquitous computing.
Prof Salim is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S), co-leading the Mobilities Focus Area. She is also a Key Chief Investigator in the ARC Training Centre for Whole Life Design for Carbon Neutral Infrastructure, leading the Program on Machine Learning for Carbon Performance. She has worked with many industry and government partners, and managed large-scale research and innovation projects, leading to several patents and deployed systems locally and globally.
She is an Associate of ELLIS Alicante and holds an Honorary Professor appointment at RMIT University. She was a Visiting Professor at the University of Kassel (Germany) in 2019-2020 and at the University of Cambridge (England) in 2019.