Event:

Marc-Oliver Gewaltig, EPFL, Co-director HBP "Neurorobotics Platform"

In 2013 the Human Brain Project (HBP) started as one of two EU FET Flagship projects with the goal to integrate neuroscience data from around the world to understand the brain and its diseases and ultimately to emulate its computational capabilities.
Over the course of 10 years, the HBP will create an integrated system of six ICT platforms, dedicated to Neuroinformatics, Brain Simulation, Medical Informatics, High Performance Computing, Neuromorphic Computing, and Neurorobotics. These platforms will lay the foundation for a new kind of ICT based brain research.
Three of the HBP platforms are dedicated to investigating novel, brain-derived technologies for future computers and computer science. The High-Performance Computing Platform will use brain-derived principles to design the next generation of super-computers. The Neuromorphic Computing Platform investigates how brain-derived principles can be directly embodied in new computing hardware. Finally, the Neurorobotics Platform will allow researchers to use and explore brain models in simulated closed-loop robotics experiments.
In this talk I will give an overview of the Human Brain Project. I will then describe in more detail the research for the Neurorobotics Platform. Along the way, I will summarize the challenges and opportunities the Human Brain Project offers to neuroscience in general.