On the way to becoming a forum for AI – NRW expands cooperation with Deutsches Museum Bonn ©Deutsches Museum / Eric Alexander Lichtenscheidt
Fraunhofer IAIS and KI.NRW support the museum’s work as partners with AI exhibits and demonstrations, among other things
To mark the 30th anniversary of Deutsches Museum in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia is expanding its cooperation from 2025. The science and technology museum, which is currently hosting the Mission AI exhibition, is currently undergoing a fundamental change process to become a forum for artificial intelligence.
Experience, understand, help shape – that is the AI mission of Deutsches Museum Bonn. The current exhibition invites visitors to immerse themselves in the world of AI in dynamic experience spaces. Interactive and entertaining exhibits and demonstrations make the basics and current developments in AI understandable for children, young people and adults. In order to support the transformation into a forum for artificial intelligence, the Ministry of Regional Identity, Local Government, Building and Digitalization of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia is funding this project with two million euros a year, thus securing the existence of Deutsches Museum in Bonn, the only branch of the well-known Deutsches Museum outside Bavaria. The funding can help to further intensify the museum’s successful work.
“North Rhine-Westphalia is a leading region for digitalisation: the progress of the digital transformation has long since become one of the most important location factors here. The future of North Rhine-Westphalia and the entire Rhineland is also digital. As the core technology of digitalisation, artificial intelligence is at the heart of this development. The birth of artificial intelligence in Germany even took place in Bonn. An open dialogue with the public is of vital importance in order to exploit the full potential of Kl-based key technologies. Concerns need to be taken seriously in order to open up shared perspectives. The Deutsches Museum Bonn is an ideal nucleus for the central information, education and communication centre that our state of North Rhine-Westphalia needs to take people into the digital future,” says Ina Scharrenbach, Minister for Regional Identity, Communities and Local Government, Building and Digitalization of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
From museum to forum for AI
Deutsches Museum Bonn was opened in 1995 and sees itself as a place of intergenerational dialogue and lifelong learning. Since 2020, the museum has been undergoing a transformation – from a museum of new German inventions to a unique experience centre for artificial intelligence. Autonomous driving plays just as much a role as the use of AI in basic research and medicine.
Together with partners such as the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS, KI.NRW and the Google Future Workshop, Deutsches Museum is already making important contributions to digital education by teaching programming in both digital and analogue form. The range of school offerings, from low-threshold programming and computer science thinking to courses on AI and ethics, will be expanded thematically and further developed in terms of organisation. In addition, a practice-oriented training programme for public administration employees, for example, is to take place in the new forum.