A*STAR chairman Lim Chuan Poh said the collaboration will also allow A*STAR to marry its strengths in areas like speech recognition and cryptography with Illinois' world-class capabilities. -- ST PHOTO: LIM WUI LIANG
A TOP US university which counts YouTube's co-founders and Microsoft's chief software architect among its alumni has set up a digital sciences research centre at Singapore's Fusionopolis.
Called the Advanced Digital Sciences Centre, the campus is the University of Illinois's first research facility outside the United States. The university is ranked top five in many engineering disciplines and 15th among all public US universities in federal money spent on research.
Its first project is a programme that will enable computers to operate with a 'sixth sense' so that users are given information that is relevant, the university and A*STAR announced in a statement on Thursday.
The outcome is likely a device that can provide timely and related information and in a high-resolution multimedia platform, across a secure setting. For example, fire-fighters trapped in a burning building using mobile devices fitted with the programme will be informed of the best escape routes. The information of escape routes would have been derived by 'sixth sense' from analysing the existing blueprints and infrastructure of the building.
The centre will be staffed by 19 full-time and visiting Illinois faculty. They include world-renowed researchers in Information Technology (IT), Professors Benjamin Wah, Ravi Iyer and William Sanders.
Prof Wah will serve as a full-time Director in Singapore. Some 40 A*STAR doctoral scholars are expected to be trained at the centre. Post doctoral and graduate students will also be attached to the centre. The programme is expected to nurture research collaboration between Illinois and A*STAR researchers.
'This Illinois-Singapore collaboration is a bold commitment to building a better future, and is most striking especially at a time when the current global financial crisis might cause others to retreat or scale back their intentions,' said Illinois Chancellor, Richard Herman .
A*STAR chairman Lim Chuan Poh said the collaboration will also allow A*STAR to marry its strengths in areas like speech recognition and cryptography with Illinois' world-class capabilities.
'The physical presence of a top university like Illinois will add Singapore's attraction as a world class international research hub. It will create more opportunities for Singaporeans to pursue research,' Mr Lim said.
