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CALL FOR PAPERS

2nd Workshop on
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES - KI-KMU 2021

Workshop at INFORMATIK 2021, Berlin & Online, September 27th - October 1st, 2021

Website: https://www.fzi.de/en/news/ki-kmu-2021/

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DESCRIPTION
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Large-scale enterprises are still the forerunners regarding the digital transformation. Nevertheless, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) start unlocking their digital potential and catch up. According to a study conducted by the KfW (2019), 38.8% of SMEs intend to implement at least two projects concerning digital transformation and additional 28 % are thinking about such projects.

Against this background, artificial intelligence (AI) plays an increasingly important role for SMEs because according to a study conducted by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (2019) the implementation of AI is a mandatory requirement for remaining competitive in the international market. SMEs can exploit their potential in various sectors such as the optimization of distribution and logistics, increased process efficiency or more targeted advertising. Also, an increase in sustainability can be achieved through the introduction of AI as a main objective or as a side effect of other optimization potentials, e.g. by reducing costs through increased process efficiency (economic sustainability), avoiding unnecessary consumption of resources, reducing waste or reducing environmental impact, e.g. by optimizing logistics processes (ecological sustainability). Technologies, such as intelligent automatization, intelligent sensor systems or intelligent assistance systems, are of great importance in this context.

The workshop “Artificial Intelligence for small and medium-sized Enterprises” aims at bringing together researchers and operators of AI, enabling a transfer of knowledge between both groups and making AI for SMEs tangible.

The workshop focuses on two key aspects: On the one hand, research approaches should be presented having a strong link to the challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises concerning the topic of AI or approaches concentrating on lightweight AI applications which can be easily implemented into SMEs. On the other hand, completed or ongoing projects can be presented allowing to catch a glimpse into the effects of AI in practice and showing which challenges occur during the implementation of AI.

The target audience are researchers and SME-operators of AI in different areas of application.


TOPICS
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Contributions to the workshop can address not only the technical side of AI, but also the ethical, economic, user-related, and organizational aspects and challenges of AI applications in small and medium-sized enterprises.

Possible topics and fields of application (the list is not exhaustive):

* Production
* Mobility
* Autonomous Driving
* Logistics
* Transportation
* Supply Chain Management
* Smart Factory
* Robotics
* Medicine
* Healthcare
* Energy
* Process automation and – optimization
* Human Resources
* Business Intelligence
* Predictive Analytics
* Prescriptive Analytics
* Predictive Maintenance
* Change Management
* IT-Security
* Machine Learning
* Artificial neural networks
* Text Mining
* Language Processing
* Simulation
* Visualization
* Ethical Aspects of AI
* UX and AI
* etc.

In addition, according to the conference's focus theme, we particularly encourage submissions that address the impact of AI on sustainability in SMEs.


SUBMISSION
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The submission of contributions can be made in the PDF format. The templates provided by the LNI should be used for the contributions. (https://gi.de/lni)

Contributions should not exceed the following limits: Full paper (10 pages), short paper (6 pages), Work-in-Progress-Paper (3-5 pages), practical experience report by the industry (3-5 pages)

Contributions can be written in English or German

Contributions shall be submitted via EasyChair online submission at https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=kikmu2021

Submissions will be reviewed by at least two programme committee members. The programme committee will comprise researchers as well as a substantial number of participants from industry, especially from SMEs.

Accepted papers will appear in the (electronic) Lecture Notes in Informatics (LNI), and have to be presented at the workshop by at least one author.


ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
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Natalja Kleiner, FZI Research Center for Information Technology, Karlsruhe
Alexander Dregger, FZI Research Center for Information Technology, Karlsruhe
Frauke Goll, FZI Research Center for Information Technology, Karlsruhe