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From sports to health care, business and more, sensor web technology is transforming how we live, work, play
February 19, 2013
Dr. Barry Smyth will present the 2013 Delta Omega
Lecture at noon on Friday, Feb. 22,
at the Russell House Theater.
Dr. Barry Smyth of Dublin, Ireland, an internationally recognized leader in technology development, will be the featured guest speaker for the 2013 Delta Omega Lecture at noon on Friday, Feb. 22.
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will begin at noon in the Russell House Theater and is sponsored by the Arnold School of Public.
The title of Smyth’s talk is “From the Sensor Web to Big Data: How the World of the Sensor Web Is Transforming How We Live, Work, and Play.”
Smyth holds the Digital Chair of Computer Science at the University College Dublin. He is the director of CLARITY: The Centre for Sensor Web Technologies, a Science Foundation Ireland-funded Centre for Science and Engineering Technologies.
Richard Bruton, the minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in Ireland, said, “CLARITY is an excellent example of the benefits of investing in Irish innovation. Through this initiative, over 120 top-class researchers in Ireland are collaborating with more than 60 companies worldwide from startups and SMEs to large multinationals.”
And while the phrase “sensor web technologies” may not be part of everyday language for many people, sensor web technologies have practical applications in sport, energy, health care, business and industry and the social web, said Smyth.
“We use a very broad definition that accommodates the very traditional type of sensors that one might expect (measuring temperature, light, air and water pollution, etc). But in addition we also consider what we call ‘online’ sensors that allow us to learn about the world from what people are doing online,” he said.
“For example, we can ‘sense’ user interests by monitoring what people do online, the reviews they right for the products they purchase, and this can help us to build better online stores that better fit individual user needs.”
In his talk for the Delta Omega Lecture, Smyth said he will provide an overview of CLARITY, including the research that is done. “I’ll talk about the very different types of people that are part of the center and the different application areas that we target. And I’ll take a few examples of the sensor web in action by discussing some specific developments from CLARITY researchers,” he said.
The CLARITY Centre involves public-private partnerships, which also are central to the development of USC’s Innovista research campus.
Smyth said the industry-academic collaboration has been successful for CLARITY.
“First, we have developed a culture of scientific entrepreneurship by encouraging researchers to think about how their research might be applied in the real-world,” he said. “As a result, our outputs are measured not just in terms of conference and journal papers but also patents, licenses, and spin-outs.
“Second, the Irish government has provided a strong set of supports for the commercialization of research, ensuring that researchers with a commercialization opportunity have the early stage funding that they need to move it forward.”
Smyth’s research has focused on recommender systems, services that attempt to learn about a person’s needs and then present a more personalized online experience based on these needs.
“For example, Amazon uses recommender systems to suggest new products to purchase based on my past behaviors. I suppose what drew me to the Sensor Web is the opportunity to learn more about users, by harnessing information drawn from lots of different sensors and sensor types, and then use this information to build even more powerful recommender systems,” he said.
A Fellow of the European Coordinating Committee for Artificial Intelligence, Smyth is also a co-founder, director and chief scientist at ChangingWorlds Ltd. His research covers a broad set of topics within artificial intelligence.
Smyth recently was featured in a “UCD Faces of Research” video. His profile is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=LinD3yCMa-Q.
Visit www.clarity-centre.org to learn more about CLARITY.
