Christian Becker-Asano
19th Annual German-Japanese Colloquium
Social Understanding in Human-Robot Communication
Note: This image is generated by AI (Nano Banana).
The 19th German-Japanese Colloquium 2026 (DE / JP) is jointly organized by Stuttgart Media University, Germany, and The University of Tokyo, Japan, by Prof. Dr. Christian Becker-Asano and Prof. Yusuke Sugano. We bring together young experts of Artificial Intelligence, Social Sciences, and Robotics from Germany and Japan to exchange theories and ideas on how to enable robotic systems to communicate socially appropriate with humans. We will discuss the cultural differences and commonalities in both countries and the resulting challenges and opportunities to realizing social robots. Another aspect will be the technological side of this problem ranging from the types of sensors to be used to the question of which algorithms are most promising for creating a software framework that enables real-time processing of verbal and non-verbal channels in union.
Eight researchers from Japan and 13 from Germany will join the event, which will take place from March 9 until 11 at Stuttgart Media University in Germany.
Talks and discussions on the first day of the event (March 9th) are public. If you are interested please register here.
Program March 9th
08:30 Registration
09:00 Welcome and opening remarks
- Prof. Dr. Boris Kühnle (Rector, Stuttgart Media University)
- Mr. Ken-ichi Bessho (Consul General of Japan in Munich)
Session I (Chair: Prof. Dr. Yusuke Sugano)
09:30 Social robots / Android Science
- 09:30 - Dr. Jauwairia Nasir (University of Augsburg, Germany)
- 10:00 - Prof. Dr. Yoshihiro Nakata (University of Electro-Communications Toyko)
10:30 Coffee break
- 11:00 - Prof. Dr. Stefan Kopp (Bielefeld University)
- 11:30 - Prof. Dr. Christian Becker-Asano (Stuttgart Media University)
12:00 Lunch break
Session II (Chair: Prof. Dr. Christian Becker-Asano)
13:00 Eye-Tracking / Sensor input
- 13:00 - Prof. Dr. Atsuhi Nakazawa (Okayama University)
- 13:30 - Prof. Dr. Thies Pfeiffer (Hochschule Emden-Leer)
- 14:00 - Prof. Dr. Yusuke Sugano (Tokyo University)
- 14:30 - Prof. Dr. Koji Inoue (Kyoto University)
15:15 Coffee break & Group photo
Session III (Chair: Prof. Dr. Stefan Kopp)
15:45 Psychology / Sociology
- 15:45 - Prof. Dr. Juliane Richter (Stuttgart Media University)
- 16:15 - Prof. Dr. Astrid Rosenthal von der Pütten (RWTH Aachen)
- 16:45 - Prof. Dr. Yukie Nagai (Tokyo University)
17:15 Introduction of JSPS International Programs
- Mr. JSPS-Office Bonn (JSPS Bonn Office)