Dr Pieter De Backer is trained as electrotechnical and biomedical engineer after which he pursued his medical degree and surgical specialization. Pieter leads the Surgical AI group at Orsi Academy, one of the worlds’ largest robotic training centres, situated in Belgium. His team focusses on computer vision applications for minimal invasive surgery training as well as the real-time integration of patient-specific predictive computer models. Pieter is an elected member of the AI committee at the European Association of Endoscopic Surgery (EAES), teaches in the Belgian interuniversity on Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and is responsible for the surgical AI activities at the Belgian federal initiative AI4Health.