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Eames Demetrios, director of the Eames Office
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Eames Demetrios can remember visiting his grandparents, the husband-and-wife design duo Charles and Ray Eames, at their studio when he was a boy to watch them work on Powers of Ten, the classic educational film they made for IBM in 1977.
Today, as director of the Eames Office, Demetrios is devoted to preserving and extending the legacy and work of his grandparents. In addition to creating some of the most iconic furniture designs of the 20th century, they made more than 15 films and designed 30 exhibits for IBM in a relationship that began in 1953 and spanned three decades.
Demetrios considers it his mission to communicate Charles and Ray’s visionary ideas to as wide an audience as possible: “As beautiful as the objects are that Charles and Ray created, the ideas behind them are just as beautiful and just as important and relevant today.”
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By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Bill Reichert, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures
When venture capitalist Bill Reichert talks about his criteria for choosing tech start-ups to invest in, you may be surprised to find that ROI (return on investment) is but a small part of the conversation.
Instead, Reichert — who is managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, a leading early-stage venture capital firm in Palo Alto, California — points to other qualities that he considers essential to a start-up’s success.
By focusing more on an entrepreneur’s passion, vision and desire to do good in the world than on hard numbers and spreadsheets, Reichert and his peers represent a new paradigm for responsible investing.
“Perhaps the top indicator of success for an entrepreneurial team is that it’s motivated by some higher goal, beyond ROI,” Reichert said.
“ROI is key in every business plan, but what we look for from entrepreneurs is something that gives them a bigger goal than just being a little bit cheaper, a little bit faster, a little bit more economic for their potential customers,” he said.
That bigger purpose can be just about anything: helping people, building a sustainable business, cleaning the environment…you name it. “But whatever that motivation is, we know that’s what’s going to make for a successful company,” Reichert said.
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By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Jason Hlady leads the World Community Grid team at the University of Saskatchewan
When Jason Hlady sees a computer that is turned on but not being used, just sitting there, idling away, he can’t help but think of the possibilities…
That dormant machine could, at that very moment, be running computations to help cure cancer or fight AIDS. It could be solving algorithms that might lead to clean water solutions, or reduce world hunger, or accelerate any number of other worthy research projects.
Hlady, a high performance computing coordinator at the University of Saskatchewan, wants to cut waste and tap the potential of idle computers across the university. To that end, he is leading the drive to get faculty and staff to connect to the World Community Grid — a global network that pools unused computing power and repurposes it for humanitarian research.
As leader of the university’s World Community Grid team, Hlady encourages colleagues to install software that connects their computers to the grid and runs research computations on the machines when they are on, but idle.
“When a computer sits idle, all that energy is just going up a smokestack,” Hlady said. “By joining the World Community Grid, we’re able to put otherwise wasted computing power to good use, helping solve some of the major problems facing our world today.”
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By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Igor Jurisica, Ph.D, uses the power of World Community Grid to conduct his cancer research.
When Igor Jurisica started doing cancer research 11 years ago, he worked with about a dozen colleagues using a handful of scientific workstations in a small lab in Toronto, Canada.
How times have changed.
Today, Jurisica, a senior scientist at Princess Margaret Hospital, Ontario Cancer Institute, conducts his research with the help of nearly 300,000 people spread across 100 countries running his calculations on over 900,000 devices. Continue Reading »
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By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Ashifi Gogo, Sproxil CEO
For Ashifi Gogo, commercial success and social benefit are inextricably linked. In launching his cell phone-based drug authentication service, Sproxil, in emerging markets, Gogo saw great opportunity to combat a major problem and make a real difference. He also saw a great business opportunity.
“I had long been upset by the lack of global start-ups with solutions that make an impact in developing nations,” Gogo said. “With our technology, we had an opportunity to operate in emerging markets and solve a critical social problem while doing well commercially. For me, the two sides have always been self-combined.” Continue Reading »
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Kevin Reed, an IBM IT architect, has played a central role in developing and running World Community Grid
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
As a child, Kevin Reed was surrounded by scientific research, growing up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, home to one of the U.S. government’s largest national laboratories. Clearly it made quite an impression. Today, as an IBMer in the Midwest, Kevin is devoted to helping make groundbreaking research possible in some of the key humanitarian fields of our time — and to involve potentially millions of ordinary citizens in the effort.
Kevin has spent the past seven years helping build and run World Community Grid, IBM’s volunteer computing initiative that pools unused processing power (PC downtime) donated by computer users worldwide and makes it available to public and not-for-profit research initiatives. Kevin and his team are helping accelerate visionary research on AIDS, muscular dystrophy, world hunger and more.
“This program allows researchers to look at many problems more extensively and complete research quicker than they ever could with conventional cluster computing resources,” Kevin said. “Plus, it engages the public in scientific research in a way where they are actually participating in it and making a real difference.”
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Enda Keane, cofounder of Treemetrics
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Enda Keane’s honest-to-goodness spark of inspiration came during an ordinary day on the job at his graphics company in 2005 when he happened upon a 3D image of a tree for the first time ever.
Suddenly, before his eyes, lay the solution to a problem he had been pondering for over 15 years.
Prior to starting a graphics firm, Keane had studied forestry at University College Dublin and worked in the industry for a decade. From early on he had been troubled by the inaccurate manual techniques foresters use to measure trees.
“As a forester, I was always thinking, ‘There must be a better way to do this,’” Keane said. “The instant I saw that 3D tree, I realized: This is it!” Continue Reading »
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By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
When it comes to fixing America’s schools, Nancy Grasmick, Ph.D. — who served 20 years as Maryland State Superintendent of Schools and guided the public education system to great success and recognition — can sum up her advice in a single word: Technology.
“I feel that we’re in a very fortunate time in education with the use of technology and that it will be the catalyst for great positive change in our nation’s schools,” said Dr. Grasmick, who retired in June as the nation’s longest serving appointed superintendent. “I believe technology offers us answers to many of our current problems and provides us with the critical path to educational excellence in the future.”
If there’s anyone whose opinion on this matter carries weight, it’s Dr. Grasmick, who has methodically used technology since the mid-1990s to help raise student performance, narrow the achievement gap between various racial and socioeconomic groups, and improve practically every element of the state’s education system.
Under Dr. Grasmick’s leadership, Maryland public schools have been ranked the nation’s best by Education Week magazine for the past three years. While many factors contributed to this achievement, Dr. Grasmick said that technology was integral to Maryland’s success.
“In Maryland, technology is absolutely embedded in everything we’re doing,” Dr. Grasmick said. “We’ve made it the centerpiece of our long-term strategy to transform education, and the payoff has been remarkable.”
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Zia Yusuf, CEO of Streetline, Inc., a provider of innovative parking solutions
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
Ask Zia Yusuf what he does for a living and he’ll likely say, “I’m in the parking business.” More precisely, he’s in the business of trying to put an end to parking as we know it and utterly transform one of the most familiar and frustrating acts of daily life.
According to Yusuf, an estimated 30 percent of traffic in cities is caused by people driving around in search of parking. As CEO of San Francisco startup Streetline, Inc., Yusuf is working to deploy sensors in cities around the world to guide drivers to open parking spots and help municipalities better manage their parking and traffic resources.
Yusuf’s ultimate goal is nothing less than to change how people work and live across the world. “Pointing drivers to available parking will save them time, alleviate congestion and reduce carbon emissions,” Yusuf said. “It means happier drivers and greener cities.” Continue Reading »
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Dan Iancu, the newest Stanford Graduate School of Business assistant professor in Operations, Information and Technology
By Richard Silberman, Writer/Researcher, IBM Communications
For a PhD who spends his days writing complex algorithms and running computer models, Dan Iancu sums up his life’s work quite simply: “I try to find better ways to do things.”
As a Goldstine Fellow spending a year doing research at IBM, Iancu is developing models to enable better decision-making in complex operational settings — from finance and healthcare to commodities acquisition and electricity smart grids. His drive to develop more efficient processes might have something to do with his childhood in communist Romania, where he experienced scarcity and economic disparity firsthand.
“I was occasionally able to get one Pepsi or a can of Coke and you would not believe the type of happiness it would give me,” Iancu said. “Doing without taught me that even the smallest changes can make a big difference, and that things can often be done more efficiently or equitably than what the status quo dictates.”
Bad scenarios, good outcomes
During his fellowship, Iancu is continuing research he began for his doctoral thesis in operations research at MIT. He is developing powerful methodologies to help managers make better decisions in the face of great uncertainty and risk. Iancu’s innovative approach to risk analysis is a key factor that distinguishes his work.
“Most decisions are based on lots of uncertainty — things you do not know at the moment or cannot measure exactly,” Iancu said. “For instance, you may be unsure of how many customers you will have, or exact costs, or precise timing.”
“The idea is to build mathematical models that capture this uncertainty and lead to robust decisions that mitigate risk and help ensure good outcomes, even in the worst scenarios.”
Research rooted in the real world
Iancu is engaged in some highly abstract work — but always with an eye on the real world. “I believe in practical applications grounded in good theory. I want to see my work solve real problems,” he said.
Much of his research at IBM involves finding optimal ways to manage inventory and procure commodities. “Billions of dollars are still wasted annually in inventory costs because it’s very, very hard to manage it well. You always have either too much or too little,” Iancu said. “I’m trying to change that.”
Iancu is also helping develop a more efficient electricity smart grid for IBM. The goal is a grid that can optimally dispatch energy so to satisfy customer demand, minimize the cost of production — and even incentivize customers to use less energy.
In all his research, Iancu is helping find smarter ways to acquire and allocate limited resources. Some of his work is already finding its way into internal IBM software solutions and, ultimately, much of it may prove useful in various client solutions.
Dan Iancu on the MIT campus (outside the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences)
Next stop, Stanford
Iancu received his undergraduate degree from Yale, masters from Harvard and PhD from MIT. Next stop, after his fellowship ends this week: Assistant Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he’ll continue his research and teach first-year MBA students.
One of the key values Iancu carries with him from his childhood, which runs through his work and he hopes to instill in his students, is a strong sense of fairness. “This may sound idealistic, but I like to think that if my research helps a business operate more efficiently and cut costs, at least some of the savings could be passed on to the customer,” Iancu said.
In Dan Iancu’s world — where mathematical models yield less risk, greater profit and a more equitable resource distribution — everyone can come out ahead.
The Goldstine Fellowship is an opportunity for post-doctoral students to spend a year at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York pursuing their own research in pure and applied mathematics and in theoretical and exploratory computer science. The fellowship provides an opportunity for researchers to work with IBM teams and apply their theories to real data and real problems, and to mingle and exchange ideas with some of the smartest minds around the world in IBM’s labs. As resident department members at the Research Center, Goldstine Fellows enjoy all the privileges of IBM researchers.
