Organisers

Jitka Čejková studied chemical engineering at University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, where she successfully defended her doctoral degree in 2010. She currently works as Associate Professor in the Chemical Robotics Laboratory at UCT Prague. Her research focuses on how chemical engineers can contribute to artificial life research. Artificial life is the study of artificial systems that exhibit the behavioural characteristics of natural living systems. She focuses on the investigation of organic droplets with life-like behaviour and recently she proposed to call such droplets “liquid robots”. She is active in science communication both in the Czech Republic and abroad. She focuses primarily on popularization of research in the area of artificial life and the etymology of the word robot, which comes from Czech.  She is the editor of MIT Press book Karel Čapek's R.U.R. and the Vision of Artificial Life.

Olaf Witkowski is the Founding Director of Research at Cross Labs, and an Executive Officer at AI company Cross Compass Ltd. His laboratory works towards a better understanding of the universal principles of intelligence in any substrate, the origins and future of intelligence in the universe, evolvable protocols between agents, and mathematical theories of awareness. He co-founded multiple research and technology ventures worldwide, including Cross Labs in Kyoto (hybrid intelligences), YHouse in New York (emergence of consciousness in the universe), and CSAS in Kathmandu (AI and the Self). He is also a lecturer in information sciences and Artificial Life at the University of Tokyo, and an affiliated researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Hokkaido University. He was elected Vice President on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL) since 2021.