Teaching and research on AI in small and medium-sized enterprises strengthened

Sven Beiker is an automotive engineer from Germany with several years of experience as a research and development engineer for the car company BMW. For the same company, he has also worked in Silicon Valley, before moving on to Stanford University where he led the research centre, Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS).

For the past ten years, he has run a consulting firm in the same industry and also teaches at Stanford.

– Today, I work with startups, companies, and organisations that are engaged in autonomous connected electric vehicles.

How did you end up at the University of Borås?

– I met Jonas Waidringer, who is a teacher and researcher at the University of Borås, who thought I should take a closer look at AI for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and I found it very interesting.

What will you be doing at the University of Borås?

– Initially, I will be teaching students at the Industrial Engineering programmes about how to use AI for various tasks related to supply chains, logistics, sales, product development, and innovation. I will also be conducting research on this topic together with other researchers at the university and various regional companies.

What is your research about?

– Everyone talks about AI today, and it can seem like a universal solution, but many small and medium-sized enterprises have specific challenges and perhaps more obstacles to applying AI methods and solutions to their processes for production, logistics, sales, and innovation. We are looking at what these specific obstacles are and how to overcome them.

Why is this important?

– Overcoming such obstacles is important for regional small and medium-sized enterprises, which form the backbone of the national economy, to remain competitive in an increasingly digitalised world with contestants from all over the globe.

– Our work also helps policymakers and society at large to better prepare for the changes that AI brings to the labour market, education systems, data privacy, and cybersecurity, to name just a few areas.