Who is conducting research at HFT Stuttgart on which topic? What publications are available? And where can I find suitable contacts? Jo von E. now provides answers to these and other questions: the new chatbot on the university’s research and transfer pages helps make HFT’s research findings and expertise more accessible. The aim is to make research and transfer more visible, easier to find and easier to understand.
Finding research more easily
Finding research more easily
With Jo von E., users now have a new digital gateway to the research landscape at HFT Stuttgart. The friendly bot knows the university’s research topics, researchers and publications, and answers questions based on reliable sources. It also shows transparently how it arrives at its answers: it makes its search and reasoning process transparent and cites the sources used.
In this way, the bot creates a low-threshold entry point into the university’s diverse research and transfer activities — for members of the university as well as for cooperation partners, companies, municipalities, media representatives and interested citizens.
Reliable answers instead of simple keyword searches
One of the key challenges with chatbots based on large language models is the reliability of their answers. The project therefore uses the approach of Retrieval Augmented Generation, or RAG for short. Relevant and trustworthy information is first identified before the language model formulates an appropriate answer based on it. This strategy reduces the risk of incorrect or unsupported answers.
A face for research transfer
In addition to the technical development, the chatbot was also given its own character design. The chosen icon was a small, bearded chatbot that playfully recalls Joseph von Egle. As a result, the digital research assistant was given not only a function, but also a recognizable personality. Its name and face were created by HFT Stuttgart’s University Communications team.
The name Jo von E. thus combines technical innovation with a piece of university history — and makes this new gateway to HFT research friendly and easy to recognize.
Funded by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung
Jo von E. was developed as part of the HFT TransferBot project, funded by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung through the CZS Plus program. The project is led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Volker Coors, Vice-Rector for Research and Digitalization, and Prof. Dr. Ulrike Pado.
The HFT TransferBot is available on the research and transfer pages of HFT Stuttgart.
