Klaus Peter Jantke

Timeline

1. By 1979

   Mathematics at Humboldt University

   He studies mathematics at Humboldt University of Berlin from 1970 to 1975, and his diploma thesis in mathematics and theoretical computer science wins the Karl Weierstrass Prize in 1976. His doctoral thesis under Helmut Thiele, on universal methods for recognizing general-recursive functions, earns the university's Humboldt Prize.

2. 1984–1987

   Professor in Leipzig

   His 1984 habilitation thesis sets out a general approach to problems of inductive inference. After serving as deputy director of Humboldt University's data center from 1985 to 1987, he becomes full professor of theoretical computer science and basic research in artificial intelligence at Technische Hochschule Leipzig in 1987, at age 35.

3. 1986–1994

   The AII workshop series

   In 1986, he edits the proceedings of the Analogical and Inductive Inference workshop at Wendisch-Rietz, which opens the world's first conference series in algorithmic learning theory. He presents "Monotonic and Non-Monotonic Inductive Inference" at ALT in 1990. When AII merges into the Algorithmic Learning Theory series in 1994, he co-edits the Algorithmic Learning Theory proceedings with Setsuo Arikawa.

4. 1996–1998

   From Stirling to DFKI

   From 1996, he works as an SERC research fellow at the University of Stirling, a visiting professor at Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute and at Fujitsu Research Labs in Numazu, a full professor at Kuwait University and the Hitachi Software endowed professor at Hokkaido University. In late 1998, he becomes a principal researcher at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), where he leads projects in IT security, machine learning and e-learning and later sets up its e-learning competence center as first director.

5. 2005–2007

   Germany's first computer games professor

   From 2005 to 2007, he heads the Multimedia Applications department at Technische Universität Ilmenau's Institute for Media and Communication Science, where he builds teaching and research on digital games. In 2006, he becomes Germany's first professor of computer games, and he introduces the Ilmenau taxonomy for digital games and the research games Jostle and Gorge.

6. 2007–2016

   Children's media at Fraunhofer IDMT

   He founds the first German Games Master Class in Leipzig in 2007, and from 2008 the Children's Media department of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT) runs it in Erfurt. He heads that department from 2008 to 2016. In June 2012, the department is named one of 365 Selected Places 2012 in the Land of Ideas competition for its research on media technologies for children and young people.

7. 2016–2024

   Chief scientific officer at ADICOM

   In 2016, he becomes chief scientific officer at ADICOM, and from 2019 to 2021 he serves as a consultant to the Sino-German Industrial Design Center. In April 2024, he and colleagues publish work on deontic reasoning in time travel prevention games, virtual training environments for industrial accident prevention.

8. Since 2025

   Training games at ADAMATIK

   Since 2025, he is affiliated with ADAMATIK GmbH in Weimar. In March 2025, he coauthors a paper with Hans-Holger Wache, Ronny Franke and Oksana Arnold on time travel prevention games in which AI guides trainees to stories of success. A March 2026 paper by the same group introduces prospective experience patterns for designing the game AI that guides each trainee.