After a brief introduction to the DMI's main research areas by Prof. Volker Roth, the participants also gained an insight into the everyday working life of a PhD student: Claudia Grundke, a PhD student in the Artificial Intelligence research group, presented her research and answered the participants' initial questions.

During the practical part of the event, the kids and teens explored the world of programming together with Dr. Nadine Fröhlich and Till Küng. Nadine is the head of the PrimaLogo project at DMI, which aims to teach the basics of programming in a kid-friendly way, and Tim works as a Primalogo instructor—so they both bring a lot of experience to the table. Regardless of their prior knowledge, all participants were quickly able to familiarize themselves with the XLogo programming language and write their own cool programs.

An additional highlight was the humanoid robot DiMI, which the participants had the opportunity to encounter for the first time. They were able to shake hands with it, control it themselves, and even ask it questions. David Lengweiler, a PhD student in the Databases and Information Systems research group, explained how the robot works to the participants. “It wasn't that easy to teach her – yes, DiMI is officially female – to say her own name. But with a little fine-tuning, it worked,” he reports.

Future Day aims to break down gender stereotypes and open up new perspectives for young people. The group had plenty of questions: How were the first computers programmed? How much do computer scientists earn? Is the day-to-day work fun? What is the working environment like? Important questions to all of which they received first-hand, clear and authentic answers.