Research meets Industry at the PhD Talks
The setting: Our second PhD Talk held at Optimax Energy.
The topic: Benchmark testing for language models.
The situation: The speaker explains why many benchmarks should be treated with caution. If a model has been trained specifically on the same questions it's later tested with, the results naturally look impressive. But that says very little about how well the model actually performs in the real world.
A good point, followed by an even better question from the audience: what had he used to measure the quality of his own model?
A short pause. A smile. Then the honest answer: an existing benchmark.
Moments like this are exactly why we started the Optimax PhD Talks. We believe that research deserves to move beyond the research bubble and into companies — but that requires businesses to listen with an open mind, and researchers to have the right stage. This matters to us especially because many of our own colleagues have a PhD themselves and later moved into the business world.
To provide a platform and opportunities for exchange for up-and-coming talent, we launched the PhD Talks. We regularly invite PhD candidates and researchers from Computer Science, Analytics, and related fields to present their work and discuss it with us. It's about the same kind of exchange that came up during the benchmark question: honest, direct, and sometimes uncomfortable. We create space for that through a relaxed, small-scale setting, rather than a large and rather anonymous conference. It's about connecting with people personally and being able to ask questions without any barriers. The events we've held so far show that this works — and that it's valued on both sides.
Participants from the business side, including our own employees, get a live look into the latest research topics, while the researchers get to test how relevant and applicable their work is in practice. Some of them are still at an early stage of their research, while others are close to finishing or have just finished their PhD.
What all the topics have in common: they encourage people to think along, speak up, and ask critical questions. They offer a chance to broaden your own perspective and learn something new. And since learning and sharing is one of our most important core values, this format fits us perfectly.
The first talks focused on software development and the use of AI. From different angles and at different levels of depth, our speakers Alina Mailach, Aleksandr Perevalov, Miriam Louise Carnot, and Jonas Wagner shed light on the topics of AI sovereignty and implementation.
Besides our own Optimates and other participants from the business world, our guests included professors, PhD candidates, as well as interested master's and bachelor's students, some of whom wanted to get a glimpse into what pursuing a PhD could look like.
The next PhD Talk is already in the works! Would you like to join us — as a guest, or maybe even as a speaker? Feel free to reach out to us at info@optimax-energy.de.
