Salmonella, Source: NIH
The world’s research universities are crucibles of innovation, yet universities face significant challenges when it comes to shepherding their research breakthroughs into the marketplace. It’s a painstaking process–akin to finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Until now, that is. By harnessing the power of Big Data, North Carolina State University and IBM have collaborated to create a highly automated system for matching university-invented technologies to potential business opportunities.
Here’s how it works: NC State officials identify promising inventions that are contained in their research database. Then they launch a search of the Web for pages containing pertinent information–clues that could lead the university to companies that might be interested in licensing its technology and taking it to market. The program uses a handful of sophisticated IBM software tools that were created to handle so-called Big Data challenges–data sets with millions of pieces of information drawn from multiple sources. BigSheets, a specialized search engine, makes it possible to get insights from very large data sets easily and quickly. IBM Cognos Content Analytics focuses on unstructured data, the kind that isn’t stored in formal data bases. And IBM LanguageWare is a text analytics tool that understands the context around words, and is capable of decoding scientific jargon.
The university ran a couple of pilot projects to test the system. One involved new strains of Salmonella that faculty researchers are developing for use in vaccines. It took less than one week to search 1.4 million Web sites, including blogs, social networks, and sites containing scientific papers, and come up with a short list of potential business partners. Using manual search methods, the investigation would likely have taken months–and might not have uncovered some promising leads. “The kind of searches we do are very difficult to to replicate with people,” says Chris Spencer, an emerging technologies strategist in IBM Software Group.
Over the course of 2009, IBM opened centers in Berlin, Beijing, London, New York, Tokyo and Washington D.C. to advance the frontier of analytics: namely turning big data into new intelligence, predictive capabilities and insight.
To sup
port those physical solution centers we launched the Analytics Virtual Center (AVC) at the start of 2010, and welcome you to visit it, especially as we come up on the one year anniversary of the launch of our business analytics initiative.
The AVC underscores a central tenet of Smarter Planet — how digital and physical worlds — databases and drydocks, petabytes and powerplants — are weaving themselves together. Through it, people can extend their physical presence, voice and ideas to a new digital dimension that isn’t constrained by geography.
Simply Easy
The AVC is a web-based and voice-enabled collaboration complex that we built on the web.alive platform, which is now part of IBM partner Avaya’s portfolio. It features a simple set of intuitive controls, quick avatar customization and 3D spatial audio. Many of the hundreds of visitors have found the environment easier to use than other virtual worlds. In fact, most people find themselves “in world” and talking naturally with others within minutes.
While the environment’s navigation and architecture are purposefully minimalist, the facility supports some sophisticated tools, including a full-function “web surface” that can display any web content, including video, animation and Web-based services such as writeboards. Additional wall surfaces can display presentations, documents, photos and graphics.
In addition to an auditorium and six meeting rooms that can be made private for confidential discussions, the AVC includes a rooftop “garden” with six kiosks for different displays, projects or topics. We’re also using the rooftop for an “innovator in residence” program that is open to analytics-related projects or initiatives from academia, startups, NGOs and other organizations seeking to innovate around analytics.
Of course, the AVC is also available for business development and client meetings. And we expect to also put it work as a vehicle for recruiting new talent to IBM, especially for people with expertise in various areas of analytics, simulation, predictive modeling and other aspects of “big data” innovation in areas including energy, smarter cities, healthcare and transportation.
To discuss or schedule a tour, meeting, event, the innovators-in-residence program or how you might like to work with us via the Analytics Virtual Center, we’ve set up a tool with the new Tungle.me appointment service.
You can also leave us a voicemail via Skype.
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Steve Hamm in
“The point of cities is multiplicity of choice,” said Jane Jacobs, the champion of cities who penned the breakthrough 1961 critique of urban renewal, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. We think it’s a good idea to give a multiplicity of people who are interested in the future of cities opportunities to learn about it and do something about it. That’s why we’re conducting a virtual Smarter Cities event on Feb. 23 (10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Eastern U.S. Time) as we mentioned here on this blog a few days ago.
This Smarter Cities phenomenon is really taking off. We’ve held major terrestrial events in Berlin and New York, and plan another in Shanghai this summer. We’ve also staged dozens of mini-events in cities throughout the world. So going online is an obvious next step. Anybody who wants to participate is welcome. Register on ibm.com.
The event will start off with a handful of speeches delivered by government and business leaders who are up to their elbows in making cities work better. They include Bev Perdue, governor of North Carolina, and Joseph Rigby, chairman of utility giant Pepco Holdings. Our own Bridget van Kralingen, IBM general manager, North America, will launch the event with an update on our Smarter Planet initiative. (One tidbit: A little more than a year after launching the initiative, we have 1200 partnerships with clients worldwide–a faster uptake than we expected.) Gov. Purdue will talk about a test project in Charlotte aimed at revolutionizing the way highways are built. Using a public-private partnership model, North Carolina is teaming up with developers who will not only perform the design and construction of the new highway sections, but will invest some of their own money, as well. If this approach works in Charlotte, Perdue plans on rolling it out across the state.
After a lunch break (you’re on your own for that), there will be breakout sessions focusing on education, public safety, transportation, government, energy, and healthcare. As somebody who attended university in Pittsburgh, I’m particularly interested in hearing from Dr. Daniel Martich, the chief medical information officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. UPMC is reinventing itself as a laboratory for innovations in healthcare technology and new approaches to delivering care.
For participants, there will be plenty of opportunities to weigh in. There will be a question-and-answer session after the major addresses and interactive discussions during each breakout panel. Participants will type their comments and questions on their computers.
Who knows, maybe the next Jane Jacobs will emerge out of one of these events. The pool of brainpower is certainly getting big enough to make that possible.
Posted by
Adam Christensen in
As readers of this blog will remember, over the past year, we’ve spent a lot of time convening leaders from the public and private sectors to discuss the future of our cities. We started in Berlin in June, then, in November hosted another Smarter Cities forum in New York City. In between these major international sessions, we’ve been hosting dozens of local fora in cities around the world. We’ve had mayors, governors, CEO and a whole host of civic and federal officials participate in the conversations. In fact, we’ll be convening another large meeting in Shanghai in early June.
But, physical events are necessarily limiting in their access and participation. Thus, to address that issue, we are going to be hosting the first ever Smarter Cities Virtual Event on February 23. The event will allow anybody to participate live, online, in discussions addressing the weighty issues our cities face, including transportation, education, energy, public safety and more. This is not just a webcast of the same content. Rather, they will be interactive sessions probing deeply on these big topics.
I’ve included a sampling of the agenda below (more details can be found on the registration page on ibm.com). We’ll be sharing some major recaps from the event here on the blog next week. You can also follow along on Twitter @smarterplanet and the event hashtag (forthcoming). But if you are interested in participating in the conversation live, register now.
Here’s a sampling of the agenda:
Main tent:
- Bridget Van Kralingen, IBM
- North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue
- Joseph Rigby, President & CEO, Pepco Holdings
As in all of our Smarter Cities conferences, the “main tent” sessions are followed by interactive breakout sessions probing much deeper into the major systems that comprise a smarter city. The Virtual Smarter Cities Forum will host the following:
- Smarter Energy, moderated by Guido Bartels, IBM and Todd McGregor, PHI
- Smarter Transportation, moderated by Gerry Mooney, IBM; Pat McCrory, Moore & Van Allen, (and former Mayor of Charlotte, NC); and Bob Kingston, McCarran Airport, Las Vegas
- Smarter Government, moderated by Nicole Gardner, IBM; Barbara Ramsey, Oklahoma Employment Security Commission; and Don R. Edwards, Alameda County Social Services Agency
- Smarter Education, moderated by Mike King, IBM; J.L. Albert, Georgia State University; and Sharon P. Pitt, George Mason University
- Smarter Public Safety, moderated by George Cruser, IBM; Stephen Hollifield, City of Richmond Police; and Pat McCrory, McCrory & Co. (and former Mayor of Charlotte, NC)
- Smarter Healthcare, moderated by Patrick Boyle, IBM; Daniel Martich, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center; and Asif Ahmad, of Duke University Health System
We hope to “see” you next week.
Posted by
Karl Roche in
This week we heard Sam Palmisano talk about educating people for future jobs, not past jobs. With unreal timing IBM Ireland is attending and taking an active part at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition in Dublin (14 – 16 Jan).
Now in it’s 46th year, the exhibition is the culmination of a competition that encourages and recognises second level students from right across Ireland, with 500 student exhibitions around 40,000 student visitors.
In addition to the Smarter Planet stand, IBM is taking part in the “Learning Technology for the 21st century” and will be presenting a “Smarter Planet Award” for the project that best exemplifies making intelligent use of data collected from the real world – which is at the heart of making a smarter planet.
Do check out what the Ireland team are doing over on their blog where they are already posting videos and updates from the event as well as the winners of the special award. Or get along tomorrow if you are in the area.
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Guest in
Following is a guest post from W. “RP” Raghupathi, a professor Schools of Business for Fordham University:
This week in New York City, Fordham University and IBM gathered leaders from academia, government, health care and the venture capital community to discuss a coming wave of new jobs that will demand candidates possess strong, analytics-related skills.
Most current job opportunities focus on using analytic skills to gain insight into business data are simple and reactive – requiring the development of basic reports on information residing in databases and data warehouses. However, with the innovative analytic technologies now available, businesses have a great, new opportunity to gain deeper insight and understanding of the relationships and the patterns within the data, allowing them to make better business decisions proactively, in real-time.
This is especially true in today’s world of sustainability, in which businesses, non-profit organizations and government are driving new initiatives such as smart grid and intelligent transportation. These new opportunities are creating jobs where analytics can play a significant role. For example, smart grids require the analysis of data from different locations, as well as from the grid within, so analytics can help gain insight into where power is needed or where the power might be in surplus. Likewise in transportation, analytics plays a role in building intelligence into roads and toll systems to improve upon traffic and congestion issues. In the healthcare industry, the trend towards personalized healthcare means the more specific information a physician has about the patient, the higher quality of care they can provide to a patient on an individualized basis. Analytics also helps in the remote monitoring of patients where all data can be analyzed at a centralized location enabling, for example, senior citizens to be monitored remotely for their vital signs.
Fordham’s curriculum and information technology combined with IBM’s technology and analytics expertise made available to us through the academic initiative have helped us not only teach the skills, but work deep business analytics technology and apply them to real world scanerios. When our students graduate, they have a solid set of skills and practical experience to take up jobs in sectors such as power, healthcare, transportation, as well as non-profit agencies where they can apply analytics to some of the world’s most challenging business and societal issues.
We are excited about this effort and look froward to seeing positive results from this collaboration.
W. “RP” Raghupathi is Professor of Information Systems at the Schools of Business for Fordham University
Posted by
Adam Christensen in
With Day 2 of the NYC Smarter Cities Summit now getting underway, we move to breakout sessions in the morning (Healthcare, Public Safety, Education, Transportation, Government Services and Energy & Utilities). For background on each, I’d recommend looking at the respective “Categories” to the right of this page and perusing through the Smarter Planet pages on ibm.com.
And just like yesterday, many will be Tweeting through the day. Follow along below and join in by following @smarterplanet and tagging your tweets with #smartercity.
Posted by
Adam Christensen in
Day 1 of the Smarter Cities Summit is underway right now in New York City. Below is the live conversation. Join in by tagging your tweets with #smartercity, and check back later for an in-depth analysis of Day 1.
In light of the University Jam a couple of the interns at IBM (Daniela Retelny, Michelle Morrison and I) put together a short video reflecting the results from the jam as well as another survey we conducted independently among a group of college students.
Below are the wordles used in the video
Solutions students would like to see in their cities (Jam data)
Solutions students would like to see in their cities (survey data)
First word that comes to mind when students think of their cities (survey data)
Be sure to check out some of the other blog posts talking about the Jam including one on this blog from Jai Menon, IBM vice president and vice chair of IBM’s Academy of Technology.
College kids around world ‘jam’ for sustainability
University jammers foresee an intelligent, interconnected planet
Posted by
Adam Christensen in
Following is a guest blog from Dr. Lee M. Miringoff and Dr. Barbara L. Carvalho from Marist College. Results of the Marist-IBM study can be found here on ibm.com.
President Obama said this week that education is key to the U.S. regaining its competitiveness. Speaking to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C., he said that four out of 10 jobs will require at least some advanced education. He also pointed to health care reform and adopting energy efficiency processes as critical to the future of our country.
