Dirk Balfanz

Dirk Balfanz earned a Diplom degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Dortmund in 1992 and received his doctorate from the Technical University of Darmstadt in 2002 with a thesis on the automated generation and use of geo-metadata.

From 1993 to 1996, he worked in digital wireless communication at BOSCH Telecom. He participated in standardizing the DECT standard with ETSI and specifically worked on implementing the first DECT-based phone systems at BOSCH Telecom. In 1996, he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics as a researcher focused on metadata technology for geographic information systems (GIS). He conducted projects related to geodata management and retrieval and supported the standardization of the ISO 19115 standard for geographic metadata. From 2001 to 2006 he was head of the research department “Mobile Information Visualization” at the Center for Graphical Data Processing (ZGDV e.V.) in Darmstadt. Leading a team of computer scientists, designers and engineers, he directed research and development in the field of mobile, context-sensitive multimedia data processing and visualization. He managed European and German research projects. From 2003 to 2008 he was director of the “MAP Forum”, the legal successor of the former German research project “MAP – Multimedia Workspace of the Future”, which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Labor. From the end of 2006 until mid-2016, Dirk worked at CAS Software AG in Karlsruhe. Until mid-2011, as Head of Innovation and Research Management, he was responsible for the strategic acquisition and management of European and German research projects as part of the company's innovation strategy. After 2011, he was Managing Director of the CAS Education business unit, which develops and provides Campus Management solutions for universities.

Since September 2016, he has been Scientific Managing Director of the Centre for Cognitive Science at Darmstadt University of Technology.

• Salikutluk, V., Schöpper, J., Herbert, F., Scheuermann, K., Frodl, E., Balfanz, D., Jäkel, F. & Koert, D. (2024). An Evaluation of Situational Autonomy for Human-AI Collaboration in a Shared Workspace Setting. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) (accepted)
• Salikutluk, V., Frodl, E., Herbert, F., Balfanz, D., & Koert, D. (2023). Situational Adaptive Autonomy in Human-AI Cooperation. CHI’23 Workshop on “Automation XP23 – Intervening, Teaming, Delegating Creating Engaging Automation Experience”
• Rothkopf, C., Balfanz, D., Galuske, R., Jäkel, F., Kersting, K., Macke, J., & Mohler, B. (Eds.) (2018). KOGWIS2018: Computational Approaches to Cognitive Science. Proceedings of the 14th Biannual Conference of the German Society for Cognitive Science, September 3-6, 2018, Darmstadt.
• Balfanz, D. (2017). Rhetorische Situation und Neue Medien. In: A. Scheuermann & F. Vidal (Hrsg.), Handbuch Medienrhetorik. de Gruyter Mouton.
• Balfanz; D. (2017). Autonome Systeme. Wer dient wem? In: W. Schröter (Hrsg.), Autonomie des Menschen – Autonomie der Systeme. Humanisierungspotenziale und Grenzen moderner Technologien (S. 137-150). Talheimer Verlag, sammlung kritisches wissen, Band 71.
• Graf, R., Balfanz, D. & Juling, W. (2017). Ausgewählte Gestaltungsaspekte bei der Einführung von Campus-Management-Systemen. In: M. Lemmens (Hrsg.), Wissenschaftsmanagement – Handbuch & Kommentar. Lemmens Medien.
• Balfanz, D. (2014). Die digital persona. In: W. Schröter (Hrsg.), Identität in der Virtualität – Einblicke in neue Arbeitswelten und „Industrie 4.0“ (S. 68-89). Talheimer Verlag, sammlung kritisches wissen, Band 62.
• Sobol, S., Balfanz, D., & Hefke, M. (2011). Die SLIM-Methode: Unterstützung innovationsförderlicher Wissensarbeit am Beispiel der CAS Software AG. In: S. Jeschke (Hrsg.), Innovation im Dienste der Gesellschaft: Beiträge des 3. Zukunftsforums Innovationsfähigkeit des BMBF (S. 215-222). Campus Verlag.
• Balfanz, D. & Sobol, S. (2011). Integriertes Innovationsmanagement – Fallbeispiel CAS Software AG. In: J. Howaldt, R. Kopp & E. Beerheide, Innovationsmanagement 2.0 – Handlungsorientierte Einführung und praxisbasierte Impulse (S. 199-227). Gabler Verlag / Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden.
• Balfanz, D., Müller-Gorchs, M. (2010). Berücksichtigung von Akzeptanz und Akzeptabilität in F&E-Projekten. Erfolgsfaktoren technischer Innovation. In: D. Balfanz & W. Schröter (Hrsg.), Gestaltete Virtualität: Realität der neuen Medien in der Arbeitswelt – Standortbestimmung und Perspektiven (S. 34-54). Talheimer Verlag, sammlung kritisches wissen, Band 49.
• Balfanz, D. (2009). An SME-centric and Integrative Innovation Management Core. In: Proceedings of the XX ISPIM Conference – “The Future of Innovation”, Vienna, Austria, 21-24 June 2009.
• Balfanz, D., Klein, M., Schmidt, A. & Santi, M. (2008). Partizipative Entwicklung einer Middleware für AAL-Lösungen, Anforderungen und Konzept am Beispiel SOPRANO. GMS Medizinische Informatik, Biometrie und Epidemiologie, Band 4, Nr. 3.
• Choi, Y.-J., Yoo, S. J., Choi, S.-M., Waldeck, C., & Balfanz, D. (2006). User-Centric Multimedia Information Visualization for Mobile Devices in the Ubiquitous Environment. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4251/2006, “Knowledge-Based Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems”. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.
• Yoo, S. J., Choi, Y.-J., Choi, S.-M., Waldeck, C., & Balfanz, D. (2006). Ubiquitous Multimedia Access with a Multidimensional Information Browser. In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4239/2006, “Ubiquitous Computing Systems”. Springer Berlin / Heidelberg.
• Balfanz, D., Slavík, P., & Sporka, A. J. (Eds.) (2005). Mobile Work Employs IT (MoWeIT). In: Proceedings der MoWeIT 2005: Mobile Work Employs IT – Mobile Computing Meets Knowledge Management. Prag.
• Balfanz, D., Grimm, M., & Tazari, M.-R. (2005). A Reference Architecture for Mobile Knowledge Management. In: Online-Proceedings des Dagstuhl-Seminars 05181: Mobile Computing and Ambient Intelligence. Wadern.
• Grimm, M., Tazari, M.-R., & Balfanz, D. (2005). A Reference Model for Mobile Knowledge Management. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Knowledge Management 2005. I-KNOW ‘05 (pp. 54-62).
• Waldeck, C. & Balfanz, D. (2004). Mobile Liquid 2D Scatter Space – A Visual Interactive Information Space (ispace) for Displaying Large Amounts of Information and Allowing Simple Vision-based Knowledge Discovery on Small Screen Sizes. In: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Information Visualization (pp. 494-498)
• Balfanz, D. & Finke, M. (2004). A Reference Architecture Supporting Hypervideo Content for ITV and the Internet Domain. In: Computers & Graphics 28 (2004), 2
• Encarnação, J. L., Balfanz, D., & Shrimpton, D. (Eds.) (2004). Special Issue on “Video Technology and Interactive Broadcasting”, Computers & Graphics 28 (2004), 2
• Balfanz, D. & Wichert, R. (2003). ARVIKA – Funkanbindung für mobile Augmented-Reality-Systeme. In: VDI/VDE-Gesellschaft Mess- und Automatisierungstechnik: Funkgestützte Kommunikation in der industriellen Automatisierungstechnik (S. 189-198). VDI Verlag, Düsseldorf.
• Balfanz, D., Schirmer, J., Grimm, M., & Tazari, M.-R. (2003). Mobile Situation-awareness within the Project MAP. In: Computers & Graphics 27 (2003), 6 (pp. 893-898).
• Grimm, M., Tazari, MR., Balfanz, D. (2002). Towards a Framework for Mobile Knowledge Management. In: Karagiannis, D., Reimer, U. (Eds.), Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management. PAKM 2002. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 2569 (pp. 326–338). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
• Balfanz, D. (2002). Visuell unterstützte, automatisierte Generierung und Nutzung von Geo-Metadaten [Doctoral thesis, Technical University of Darmstadt]. Stuttgart: Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, Computer Graphik Edition 07).
• Balfanz, D. (2002): Automated Geodata Analysis and Metadata Generation. In: Proceedings of SPIE Conference on Visualization and Data Analysis, Vol.4665 (pp. 285-295)
• Finke, M., & Balfanz, D. (2002). Interaction with Content-Augmented Video via Off-Screen Hyperlinks for Direct Information Retrieval. In: Proceedings of The 10-th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision'2002, WSCG 2002. Journal of WSCG, Vol.10, No.1 (pp.187-194)
• Wichert, R., Finke, M., & Balfanz, D. (2001). An Interactive Video System for Live Coverage Transmission using Real Time Video Hyperlinks. In: V.V. Kluev & N. E. Mastorakis (Eds.), World Scientific and Engineering Society (WSES): Proceedings of the WSES International Conference on Multimedia, Internet, Video Technologies 2001 (MIV 2001) (pp. 2541-2545)
• Balfanz, D., Finke, M., Jung, C., & Wichert, R. (2001). An Interactive Video System supporting E-Commere Product Placement. In: V.V. Kluev & N. E. Mastorakis (Eds.), World Scientific and Engineering Society (WSES): Proceedings of the WSES International Conference on Multimedia, Internet, Video Technologies 2001 (MIV 2001) (pp. 2551-2556)
• Hein, O., Balfanz, D., & Göbel, S. (2000). Aufbau eines verteilten Metadateninformationssystems für Geodaten mit dem Kommunikationsprotokoll Z39.50. In: Christian-Albrechts-Universität: 12. GI-Workshop Grundlagen von Datenbanken 2000. Tagungsband (S. 41-45). Kiel: Christian-Albrechts-Universität.
• Balfanz, D., Göbel, S. (1999). Bridging Geospatial Metadata Standards towards Distributed Metadata Information Systems. In: C. Miller & R. Musick, IEEE Computer Society: 3rd IEEE Metadata Conference 1999