Dr. Belbachir is a research director at NORCE, CTO at DIH Oceanopolis, member of the Norwegian committee for HEU Cluster 4, director at eu-robotics Aisbl and member of ADRA task force for coordinating the SRIDA 2030 and contributing to HEU work programme 2025-2027. He got a PhD (2005) in computer science from TU Vienna (Austria). From 2000 to 2006, he was the technical manager of Austrian contribution to ESA-Herschel infrared observatory. He was at AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH (2006-2014) as a senior scientist with focus on bio-inspired vision where he co-invented bio-inspired 360° panoramic 3D camera for robotics. He is the editor of the book Smart Cameras Springer in 2009 (English) translated into Chinese by China Machine Press in 2014. His research interests include artificial vision, lifelong/continual learning and computing and AI including general-purpose and generative AI for industrial applications and robotics. He has over 140 publications, 3 granted patents and 2 TV documentaries (Euronews and TV2 Norway). He is in the steering committee of IEEE Embedded Vision. He successfully raised over 100 M€ awards as national, EU and oversea grants. He is actually coordinator of the 11 M€ project COGNIMAN contributing with AI-based robotics for flexible manufacturing. Recently, he got engaged in a number of research and innovation activities related to Re-manufacturing and De-manufacturing where he is focused on building AI-powered robots for effective and flexible manipulation and recovery of critical and valuable raw materials from waste streams. Finally, he has experience in consulting SMEs and LEs on innovative products and processes.
Dr Belbachir is the vice general chair for the ADRA Forum 2024 in the Netherlands, the general chair for the ADRA Forum 2025 in Norway and the general co-chair for the eurobotics Forum 2026 in Norway.
