Open Factory Day 2025: Experience technology, understand research

Around 1,000 guests learnt about practical research

The university president, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Krahl, and the mayor, Markus Baier, also visited the event and were impressed by the demonstrations on show.

Around 1,000 guests seized the opportunity to visit the SmartFactoryOWL.

Making energy visible: The ergometer displayed the real-time power consumption of AI models.

One smile, please - and the AI turns it into a work of art: the photo box was one of the day's great stops.

Autonomous, safe and sustainable: NeMo.bil showcased future mobility solutions.

Soldering like the pros: In the IA Lab, guests were able to lend a hand and connect electronic components themselves.

Communicating research diversity in an understandable way

Hands-on stations, demonstrators and exciting insights into research: the Open Factory Day 2025 attracted around 1,000 visitors to the SmartFactoryOWL on 17 May. Together with Fraunhofer IOSB-INA, the Institute Industrial IT (inIT) of Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe (TH OWL) presented a wide range of contributions on artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and Industry 4.0 - in a practical, interactive and understandable way.

As part of the TH OWL Open Day, inIT and Fraunhofer IOSB-INA jointly organised an Open Factory Day at SmartFactoryOWL, bringing current research to life for the general public. There were numerous interactive stations where visitors of all ages could join in, try things out and have discussions.

Among other things, guests were able to experience how AI generates individual portraits, how VR games are created from student theses and the potential and risks of deepfakes and generative AI. At other stations, energy-efficient AI models were visualised on the ergometer, modular production processes were demonstrated and autonomous vehicles were presented — all with the opportunity to engage in direct dialogue with researchers, students, and other partners.

Networking research, teaching and society

The Open Factory Day made it clear how research and teaching at the Innovation Campus Lemgo are becoming accessible and tangible for the public - and how important formats of exchange are in order to strengthen the dialogue between science and society.

“The Open Factory Day is an impressive demonstration of what can be achieved when we combine our expertise and make science accessible to people of all ages. The great response and positive feedback from visitors confirm and encourage us.”
– Jasmin Zilz, inIT office

Thanks to all those involved!

Many thanks to all the contributors and partners who helped make the day a success through their contributions, commitment and support.

Further information

NeMo.bil: https://nemo-bil.de

Institut für Kunststoffwirtschaft OWL: https://www.iku-owl.de

SmartFactoryOWL: https://smartfactory-owl.de

Fraunhofer IOSB-INA: https://www.fraunhofer.de

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