Every year, Telluride, a small mountain town in Colorado, attracts an international roster of scientists from several disciplines for three weeks of intensive discussion and exchange of ideas about neuromorphic engineering, a rapidly expanding research field that promises to bridge the gap between the lifeless silicon of computer chips and the very much lively brain-based biological systems. This year is not an exception: the Telluride workshop is now in full swing and will continue until July 19.
What is special about this year’s edition is that the workshop, organised by the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering, celebrates its 20th anniversary and the sense of historical perspective is more perceptible than ever. The workshop was founded in 1994 by Christoph Koch, Terry Sejnowsky, Rodney Douglas and others. Merely five years before that, the concept of neuromorphic engineering was for the first time introduced by Carver Mead and many discussions at this year’s workshop revolve around what has been achieved in the past years and what future contributions we can expect in the next 25 years.
One of the major goals of the workshop is to reduce the distance between senior and junior researchers in the field of neuromorphic engineering, and this year students participating in the workshop have a chance to interact with some of the most important contributors to the field. The workshop includes numerous background lectures on a variety of topics in systems and cognitive neuroscience, practical tutorials, hands-on projects and interest groups. There are six topic areas this year ranging from human auditory cognition and neuromorphic Olympics to embodied neuromorphic architectures of perception, cognition and action.
Other priorities of the workshop include the encouragement of collaborative activities emerging from the workshop and the promotion of neuromorphic engineering as a self-sustaining research field.
The event is sponsored by some of the biggest players in neuromorphic research worldwide including the Convergent Science Network Project, which, among other things, contributed eight scholarships for European applicants. You can always learn more about the application requirements and other activities supported by CSN HERE.
Neuromorphic engineering was included in this year’s top 10 Breakthrough Technologies report published by MIT Technology Review. Read this article to learn why neuromorphic engineering matters and how brain-based computer chips are preparing to revolutionise computing as we know it.
