HEIDELBERG, Germany—There are few higher educational institutions in this world that are older—and, some argue, more esteemed—than Germany’s Heidelberg University. But there aren’t any others that host an annual gathering of the most celebrated mathematicians and computer scientists of their generations.
Many of those who descend on the banks of the Neckar River each September are recipients of the Turing Award—sometimes known as the Nobel of computing. These luminaries designed the internet’s architecture, developed cryptographic methods for secure online transactions, invented large-scale artificial intelligence systems and provided conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that made deep neural networks a critical computing component, among other accomplishments.
Heidelberg, Germany
Susan D’Agostino for Inside Higher Ed
In some ways, the Heidelberg Laureate Forum is a story of human connections. Like the 46 affiliated Nobel laureates who have mentored students at this university that awards approximately 1,000 doctorates per year, the 32 Heidelberg laureates present at
