Keynote Speakers
First keynote: Jun Rekimoto
Sensonomy: Large Scale Sensing and Integration of Real and Virtual.
Recent commoditization of mobile digital devices and networking brought us to use them as a very large-scale sensing platform. We call this possibility “Sensonomy”, which is an integration of collective intelligence (also known as “folksonomy”) and pervasive sensing. As many users own mobile devices with sensing facilities, a collection of sensing data from these devices becomes quite important, and integration of them can be used in a very different manner. Such feature could be a new way to create intelligent systems and interfaces. As a realistic example of them, I will introduce a city-scale indoor and outdoor positioning system called PlaceEngine, and how its database can be evolved by using the idea of Sensonomy. I would also like to discuss computer-augmented memory and lifelong computing based on our platform.
Jun Rekimoto is Professor of the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies in the University of Tokyo and Director of the Interaction Laboratory in Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
Second keynote: Kentaro Toyama
Technology for Global Socio-Economic Development.
On the same planet where there are 1.4 billion Internet users, a far less fortunate 1.4 billion people survive below the World Bank’s definition of the poverty line. The same technology that has transformed our lives-the lives of the wealthiest people on the planet-also remains out of reach and irrelevant for the poorest. How do you design user interfaces for an illiterate migrant worker? What value is technology to a farmer earning $1 a day? Can a mobile phone provide financial services to a person without a bank account? The young field of “information and communication technology for development” (ICT4D) asks these kinds of questions in the expectation that computing and communication technologies can contribute to the socio-economic development of the world’s poorest communities.
In this talk, I’ll introduce the Technology for Emerging Markets group (http://research.microsoft.com/research/tem) at Microsoft Research India, where a team of social scientists and technologists explores solutions in the context of agriculture, education, healthcare, microfinance, and other domains of development. I’ll present some samples of our work, particularly with mobile phones, and also discuss the lessons we’ve learned in trying to apply technology to global development. While technology alone rarely supplies the answer to the deep problems of poverty, it can make a difference as long as we retain equal measures of skepticism about the brash claims of technology and optimism about its true potential.
Kentaro Toyama is co-founder and assistant managing director of Microsoft Research India (MSR India), which opened in Bangalore in January, 2005. In addition to his responsibilities to MSR India overall, Kentaro leads the Technology for Emerging Markets research group, and is a co-founder of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD). Prior to MSR India, Kentaro spent seven years at MSR in Redmond (WA) and Cambridge (UK) working on computer vision, multimedia, and geographic information systems. In 2002, he took personal leave from Microsoft to teach mathematics at Ashesi University in Ghana. Kentaro earned his Ph.D. in computer science at Yale University and received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard University.
Third keynote: Peter Moeckel
Innovation in User Interface Development at Deutsche Telekom
Research in the field of usability is crucial to develop methods and tools to incorporate usability and user experience aspects right from the early stages of the development process of telecommunications services. User groups and their contexts are analyzed and new forms of interaction are implemented to make using current and future devices, services, and applications more intuitive. Key areas in this respect relate to multimodal user interfaces, intelligent system architectures as well as to understanding and incorporating the customer
preferences. This makes for a more pleasant and personal user experience.
In this talk, I will describe the most important requirements related to usability aspects of telecommunication services and devices from the perspective of a large telecommunication company. I will present insights from user research and show the latest trends in research and development as well as new challenges in innovation development. Finally, I will show some examples from our research projects dealing with new multimodal interfaces for telecommunication services. Thus, the user is enabled to naturally interact with the system using voice, touch, motion, and gestures.
Peter Möckel has been the Vice President responsible for Deutsche Telekom Laboratories (T-Labs), the corporate research and development department of Deutsche Telekom, since 2004. T-Labs focuses on technology issues for Deutsche Telekom AG, operating within a time scope of two or more years. The purpose of T-Labs is to identify new opportunities at an early stage, to research them and to develop any topics identified as promising to a stage shortly before market launch. The T-Labs philosophy is founded on open innovation and includes an international team with an extensive informal network of researchers. Prior his engagement at T-Labs, Peter Möckel worked in corporate strategy for Deutsche Telekom AG, first in managing strategy for the online market, later also for the ICT market, and finally as head of corporate strategy development. Before joining Deutsche Telekom, Peter Möckel worked as a consultant for Booz, Allen & Hamilton. Peter studied computer science, graduating with a B.A. (Hons) and an M.A. from Cambridge University, England, and with a Diplom in computer science from RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
