In recent years, cities, states, and national governments have been harnessing the power of the Internet to provide citizens with information and services, and to find out what their people think and want. These efforts began with simple Web sites, but now they can be much more sophisticated. The widespread use of social networking technology makes it possible for citizens to participate in government as true partners with their elected representatives and officials. At the same time, the availability of vast amounts of information, including everything from street-by-street crime statistics to on-time records for mass transit, means government officials and citizens can know with precision how well or poorly the systems we depend on to conduct our daily lives are functioning. In short, governments are getting smarter—and citizens are better off for it.
Unfortunately, not everybody gets an equal shot at connecting and getting the information and services they need. In emerging markets, hundreds of millions of people are illiterate or semi-literate. Even if they could afford a computer and an Internet connection, it’s unlikely they could use it to interact with government. Everywhere, blind and deaf people face similar access problems, and so do the elderly.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Access to government services and participation in civic life can be dramatically increased for this vast group of people. The solutions include mobile Internet connectivity, new voice technologies, and collaboration between technology providers and other interested parties aimed at making such access ubiquitous.
IBM has long been concerned about making it easier for people with disabilities to use computers and access the Net. We support the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines published by the World Wide Web Consortium. They include guides for making authoring tools, Web content, and browsers that support text-to-speech software, text-to-Braille hardware, and other aids to accessibility.
But much more can be done, and we’re working on it. IBM Research Fellow Chieko Asakawa, who is blind, is leading an internal effort to identify all of the technologies and experts within our global laboratories that can help advance the access capabilities of illiterate and disabled people. Our aim is to produce game-changing technology breakthroughs.
Asakawa is already a leader in the accessibility field. In 1997, her research group released one of the first Web browsers designed to read the content of Web pages aloud. In 2004, the team produced software that helps Web site designers improve their pages so its easier for blind people to navigate them, such as using a man’s voice for text and a woman’s voice for links. Now she’s leading a collaborative research project aimed at improving Web access for the illiterate and elderly. IBM’s partners in this effort are the National Institute of Design of India and the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at Tokyo University. Over the next two years, the alliance plans on developing an common user interface platform for mobile devices so they’ll be easier to use. The ideas and software the researchers produce will be freely available. “We believe our work will help invite people into the world, so they can fully participate,” says Asakawa.
Asakawa dreams big. She envisions a world where accessibility technologies are designed into the whole array of mobile and non-mobile communications devices from the get-go, rather than being seen as things that can be added on later. By giving every human being equal access to the full benefits of a digital life, we’ll have smarter governments—and a much smarter planet, too.
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Following is a guest post by Dr. Chandrasekhar (Spike) Narayan:
Environmentally sustainable plastics, smarter recycling methods, new ways to deliver medicine – these are all areas that could benefit from recent discoveries in green polymer chemistry by some of our scientists at IBM Research and Stanford University. The discoveries will be published in a paper in the American Chemical Society Journal, Macromolecules, on March 10th. You can find an abstract of the paper now at acs.org.
Recently, my colleague Dr. Thomas Theis wrote about how IBM Research is exploring new areas such as DNA sequencing and water filtration using our chip, materials and nanotech expertise.
Similarly, this chemistry breakthrough around sustainable plastics represents another example of how we are expanding beyond our traditional boundaries by applying lessons learned in the development of photoresists for advanced microelectronics.
In the process of solving the problem of how to make metal-free materials and processes for the thin polymeric films that serve as lithography materials for on-chip application, we began exploring other ways to apply this research beyond the traditional IT uses with our partners.
Through pioneering the application of organocatalysis to industries such as biodegradable plastics, plastics recycling and healthcare, this discovery and new approach that uses organic catalysts could lead to biodegradable materials made from renewable resources in an environmentally responsible way.
The following video sheds more light on the breakthrough:
Dr. Chandrasekhar (Spike) Narayan presently leads the Science and Technology Organization at IBM’s Almaden Research Center.
Every year, it seems like there are hundreds of thousands of medical conferences. And the topics are too many to name. These conferences are where scientists and clinicians can get together to share ideas, experiences and data. But on a smarter planet, that kind of collaboration can be constant and continuous, rather than limited to time and place.
Take research studies, for instance. Each time a research team launches a new study, they create a new database, and build from the ground up. But what if they could tap into a larger database that’s ready-made?
For the Australian healthcare community, that database exists. It’s called BioGrid Australia, an online service hosted by Melbourne Health that lets physicians and researchers use data from multiple sources—particularly outside their own organizations. This allows them to tap an exponentially larger pool of anonymous medical histories gathered by many institutions. And that means stronger—and more reliable—results.
Can genetic biomarkers give insight into a patient’s response to a particular drug? Do colorectal cancer patients with diabetes have a higher rate of recurrence? What is the best treatment plan for post-surgical cancer patients?
These are the kind of questions BioGrid is designed to help address. And in research, numbers count. Now, data from more than 80,000 patients and 25 million records from up to 25 years of research is available to authorized clinicians. BioGrid lets researchers increase the sample size of their studies—from less than 250 patients to more than 1,000 patients—and increase the statistical power of their findings.
BioGrid is virtual, but such resources can have physical homes as well.
A brick and mortar collaboratory is now under development in Taiwan. IBM Researchers will work with various entities—be them university, government, or commercial partners —to share skills, assets and resources toward a common goal. The facility will bring together expertise in the areas of healthcare services, privacy, data management, analytics and device management.
Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Oregon at IBM's Smarter Transportation Forum
Rather than provide only my own recap of the highly insightful sessions at last week’s Smarter Transportation event in Washington D.C., let me simply point you to the recap from Sean Barry, from Transportation For America, and give you direct access to all the videos of the sessions.
Barry points out two session highlights in particular on the T4America blog, the first from Dr. Leo Kroon of the Netherlands Railway and second from Gunnar Soderholm, of the Stockholm. We’ve talked about Stockholm quite a lot here on the blog, so I’ll focus Dr. Kroon’s comments:
“Kroon described the importance of rail in his “tiny country,” whose 16 million people make it extremely dense. According to Kroon, rail market share between some Dutch cities reaches 50 percent, an amount that would be unheard of in the United States. And rather than force anyone onto the train, Kroon says the Netherlands Railways “seduces” them instead, through continued technological improvement that makes travel convenient and a commitment to reliability and affordability.”
The concept of “seducing” travelers into transit is one we could do well to emulate elsewhere. Even here in New York City, where transit is quite effective and ridership is relatively high, I would hardly consider the riding the subway a seductive experience (though, it does have it’s own charm.
Cost and efficiency are critical pieces of creating a public transportation system that seduces ridership. But it’s beyond simple utility.
Think of premium brands: Apple, BMW, etc. They seduce you on a level above pure functionality. You pay more for the experience. I could find mp3 players far cheaper than the iPod with similar (sometimes better) functionality, yet I willingly pay more so I can have an iPod in my pocket.
What if we applied a similar approach to transit? I’m not naive about the realities we face, nor the challenges of this kind of approach. But surely there’s more we can do to entice transit ridership.
Click here for video archives of the entire event, which included remarks from the following:
- * Dr. Robert Bertini, Deputy Administrator, Research & Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), US DOT
- * Dr. Leo Kroon, Logistics Consultant, Netherlands Railways
- * Gunnar Soderholm, Head of Environmental & Health Administration, City of Stockholm
- * Judge Quentin Kopp, Member and Former Chairman, California High Speed Rail Authority
- * Tom Wright, Executive Director, Regional Plan Administration
- * Janet Kavinoky, Director of Transportation Infrastructure, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- * Michael Replogle, Global Policy Director, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
- * Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Oregon, 3rd District
Update: As noted in the comments below, I’ve corrected the Netherlands population number to “16″ million in the quote.
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If there’s one trend that underpins nearly every topic and post we’ve addressed here on this blog in the past 18 months, it is data. The reason we instrument the world is to generate and collect data. The reason we collect data is to analyze it. The reason to analyze data is to understand better the world around us. And the reason to understand the world around us better is to make decisions that improve that world.
It is all very simple, really, in a linear sort of rationale. The challenge, of course, is the inherent complexity at each of those steps.
Which is where human expertise, computing power and analytical software play a huge role. You can’t create a congestion charging system without software and sensors. You can’t create predictive models to understand the spread of infectious diseases without massive computing power. And you can’t apply it in the context of human behavior without a fundamental understanding of psychology, culture and politics.
Why am I talking about all of this? And what’s it got to do with the video above? If you live in the United States and happen to own a television, you are likely to come across a whole new slate of IBM TV advertising in the coming days that at a very high level does two things: 1) reinforces the point that data is fundamental to creating a Smarter Planet; and 2) highlights just a few of the thousands of IBMers whose day jobs are to think about data on a smarter planet.
Following are a few of the ads you’ll begin to see soon.
Featuring Julia Grace, IBM Researcher working on social and collaborative computing:
Featuring John Cohn, IBM Fellow and “Distinguished Agitator” (and a familiar face here on this blog):
Featuring Jeff Jonas IBM Distinguished Engineer and Chief Scientist, Entity Analytic Solutions, IBM Software Group:
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Following is a guest post from IBMer Lonne Jaffe:
At the HIMSS 2010 conference in Atlanta this week, the topic of improving collaboration in the healthcare industry will be front and center. At IBM, we believe software that can enable hospitals, physicians, patients, health insurance companies and others to share information, work together and collaborate more effectively is critical to decreasing healthcare costs and improving the quality of care.
For example, Boston Medical Center and caregivers across the Boston HealthNet are using collaboration software from IBM and IBM Business Partner Carefx in a new eReferral system, enabling primary care physicians to share information with specialists both before the referral and after the specialist visit. Previously, as is the case in many health systems, referrals were tracked by generating paper and faxes, often getting lost in the process. The result? The time to get an appointment with a specialist has declined from 90 days to less than 10 days in many cases.
Another way to improve collaboration is to get a more comprehensive view of the patient. IBM announced today it has finalized the acquisition of Initiate Systems, a software vendor that has played a key role in improving data integrity and collaboration across the healthcare industry. The software can sort through billions of patient records at a time, determining each unique individual from another with a similar name, so doctors can get an accurate and complete view of every patient. More than 1,700 healthcare organizations and some 40 health information exchanges (HIEs) across the world use the technology to uniquely identify patient records at all points of registration and care across various systems and different organizations.
This acquisition also brings to IBM technology for collaboration between physicians and hospitals, facilitating the flow of important information such as referrals and lab results. It is also another example of what we consider smarter healthcare – helping healthcare organizations everywhere capture, share, analyze and act on information in a connected, coordinated and systematic way.
Lonne Jaffe is Director, Public Sector Solutions, IBM Software
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For the nearly 40 percent of Americans that have no high speed Internet access today, the prospect of gaining access means not only connecting to the rest of the world, but making those things urban Americans take for granted possible: things like shopping online, working from home, and researching medical care options.
But consumers aren’t the only ones that will be impacted by proposed broadband legislation. What will universal access to broadband mean for the telecommunications industry?
IBM surveyed over 8,000 consumers and 60 senior executives from more than 40 communication service providers globally to examine how the industry should evolve in the next five years in the wake of increased competition in the service provider community.
The findings:
Fixed telephony will all but disappear in the next decade. Mobile broadband will come of age. The ways in which people communicate are shifting from point-to-point and two-way conversations, to many-to-many, collaborative communications.
This shift is fundamentally changing the way people and businesses around the world communicate, share information, and drive progress.Consumer usage of so-called “fixed voice telephony” (such as land lines still used in some homes) will decrease by 95% in the next 5-10 years; Consumer usage of mobile/wireless broadband will increase by 98% in the next 5-10 years.
The new mandate:
Pervasive broadband infrastructure will be a powerful source of new jobs and economic growth, due in large part to the telecommunications industry’s long-term investments in new services and business models that provide a constructive way to address a variety of public challenges, including healthcare, education, homeland security and workforce/economic development. For example, house-bound patients can be monitored by their physicians via Web-enabled devices that track heart or blood sugar rate.
The ways the telecommunications industry must prepare:
1. Prioritize customer experience investments. Of those service providers surveyed, 61 percent plan to invest more in customer and network analytics, enabling them to deliver more personalized customer experiences, reduce churn and better manage costs by understanding customer behavior, anticipating their needs, and analyzing usage patterns to improve operational efficiencies. Consumers stated they chose providers based on three factors: Cost (75%), Network (70%) and Service (58%).
2. Promote open platforms and ecosystems; they must provide universal access to all types of devices. Of those surveyed, understanding that ubiquity is key in the next decade, 70 percent believe an interaction model that allows access to content with any device (PC, TV, phone, etc.) from any provider will prevail.
3. Invest in, and support the development of, applications outside of the consumer space, driven by increased inter-connectivity and universal broadband access.
IBM provides products and services that create, deliver and manage new telecommunications, digital media and Internet-based services smarter, faster and at a lower cost. For example, through online electronic health records, remote monitoring of vital statistics and on-demand transmission of patient data, medical facilities and patients alike are finding that broadband can help save time, money and lives – especially when the communications infrastructure is extended to rural areas that aren’t served by a local hospital or clinic.
Realizing the potential of smarter communication technology will require the infusion of new capabilities and models into our systems to make it easier for devices to transmit and interpret data, provide more secure connections, and protect identities. The telecommunications industry is in a position to lead, by participating in the national dialogue, and taking important steps to extend the reach and application of broadband infrastructure for Americans.
Graphic courtesy of Johnson Controls, who is working with IBM on smarter buildings
Following is a guest post from Florence Hudson, an energy and environment strategy executive from IBM:
Buildings have always been much more than roofs over our heads. Over the last century, as towers of steel reached higher into the sky and homes sprawled farther and farther into the surrounding landscape, our buildings not only housed burgeoning urban populations and growing economies – they also served as symbols of modernity and progress. Unfortunately, today’s offices, factories, stores and homes are also symbols of something else – waste and pollution.
Today, at the big IBM Pulse conference, we made some announcements that highlight the focus we’ve been putting lately on one of the biggest pieces in building a smarter planet – the building sector. Why? Consider some of the following:
- * The building sector is responsible for more electricity consumption than any other sector, 42%, and 15% of all Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions.
- * In the U.S., buildings represent 72% of all energy usage and 39% of Green House Gas (GHG) Emissions (pdf). Yet, up to 50% of that electricity is wasted.
- * In New York City, buildings account for 80% of NYC’s Carbon Emissions.
- * By 2025, buildings will be the single largest energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gas on our planet.
The HVAC system, the lights, the water, the elevators, the power and cooling for technology, the heating and cooling for people: all contribute to making buildings a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions—and a leading energy user. Lights blaze and air conditioners hum in empty offices at night, and lawn sprinklers turn on even during a rainstorm. Commercial buildings lose as much as 50% of the water that flows into them.
A vision for smarter buildings
We can think about buildings differently – seeing homes not just as living spaces, but as living systems; seeing offices not just as static environments, but as dynamic ecosystems of people and intelligence. We touched on the concept of a building operating like a living organism in a recent blog post about five innovations we see affecting cities in the next five years.
In a smarter building, systems are not managed separately – they interoperate. Thousands of sensors can monitor everything from motion and temperature to humidity, precipitation, occupancy and light. The building doesn’t just coexist with nature – it harnesses it. Smart buildings can reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions by 10% to 50% or more and save 20% to 50% in water usage.
The agenda for smarter, sustainable buildings is a transformational agenda about creating and managing a new future for energy interaction and optimization that will serve as a model for both new and retrofit construction in the commercial and public sectors.
Instrumented, Interconnected, Intelligent
Putting the vision into tangible terms, I’ve put what we see as some of the major elements of Smarter Buildings into the context of the three “I’s” we often cite:
Instrumented
- * Smart Meters (electricity, water, gas)
- * Building management systems & building sensors (lighting, fire, environment, CO2)
- * Public safety and surveillance systems
- * IP-enabled devices – servers, PCs, actuators, control devices
Interconnected
- * Environments (fiber, wireless, public spaces, offices)
- * Sensors, sensor platforms & concentrators
- * Meters & building management systems
- * Systems (cost, space-use, portfolio management, facilities management)
Intelligent
- * “Enterprise-view” visibility of the building/campus/enterprise/city operations
- * Real-time analytics of sensor & meter data
- * Behavioral modeling of physical, natural & people systems
- * Visualization for user awareness & action
Not a future vision
It is important to note that this isn’t a futuristic vision. This is already happening today. For example, the St. Regis Hotel in Shanghai is the only 5-star hotel which is an Intelligent Building in the Shanghai region in China. We worked together with the St. Regis to integrate 12 sub-systems to create one intelligent building, with a ratio of energy costs to revenue below 5% compared to 8% for other five-star hotels in the Shanghai region – a 40% improvement.
“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.
Technology is supposed to flow to where we humans suffer, so I sometimes wonder why it hasn’t been used more effectively in airports. I was reminded of this today when I read J.D. Power’s newest report on customer satisfaction (or, more properly, dissatisfaction) with airports. There have been some important technology advances in airports, such as near-ubiquitous wi-fi access and plenty of check-in kiosks, but it seems like two of the biggest headaches could use some more technology help. Those frustrations, of course, are baggage handling and security checkpoints. This might be a good topic for discussion at our virtual Smarter Cities event coming up on Feb. 23 or our Smarter Transportation event in DC on Feb. 25. It also might be a good area for tech startups and VCs to press on.
Interestingly, Denver International ranked second behind Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County in the satisfaction index list for large airports. That must mean it got its early baggage handling system glitches worked out.
