Project ImREAL on BBC digital planet
Could virtual training really replace face-to-face human interaction in career development? There are all kinds of schemes to perfect simulated training environments for the workplace – get a computer programme to create a virtual mentor to help employees with scenarios like conducting job interviews, and you save money on expensive human trainers – particularly significant for the voluntary sector. A nice idea in theory, especially in these financially precarious times, but are machines really good enough at chiming with human behaviour to be effective as trainers? A team of researchers from across Europe is trying to crack that through an initiative called ImREAL. Dr. Vania Dimitrova from the University of Leeds School of Computing tells us more about the project.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00cx67g/Digital_Planet_11_01_2011
http://www.imreal-project.eu
Sónia Hetzner 
Just a note, Sonia 🙂
Dr. Vania Dimitrova is a Bulgarian 😉
http://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/people/computing/staff/v.g.dimitrova
She’s a good researcher indeed. I do not know her in person, but have some reference clues about. She used to collaborate (& have joint articles) with another young Bulgarian lady who, in the mid ’90s, was my student at the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics of Sofia University – Ms. Lora Aroyo (my LinkedIn contact). Lora is a very good AI researcher that 1 year after my MSc. at UTwente began her PhD study at the same Faculty of Educational Science and Technology (currently – Faculty of Behavioural Sciences) of the University of Twente, The Netherlands. Lora is enjoying now a prosperous AI research & Project management careers at Dutch universities – Twente, Eindhoven, and currently at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
So, it is a small world :-).