Research for Ireland’s Future

Innovation, Marketing and New Technology Foresight

Dr. Stephen Flinter, Science Foundation Ireland

About SFIFounded in 2000

Statutory body in 2003

Annual budget ~€170m

Three core areas: ICT Life Sciences Energy

SFI ProgrammesResearch Frontiers (>500 awards)

€50k-€150k (p.a.)

Principal Investigator (>100 awards) €150-€500k (p.a.)

Strategic Research Cluster (19 awards) €1m-€1.5m (p.a.)

Centres for Science Engineering and Technology (10 awards) €2m-€3.5m (p.a.)

SFI ProcessOpen calls

Investigator-driven

Bottom-up selection

Expert, international peer review panels

Watt’s Steam Engine (1775)

Stephenson’s Rocket (1829)

Bell’s Telephone (1876)

Edison’s Light Bulb (1878)

Benz’s Internal Combustion Engine (1896)

Marconi’s Transatlantic Transmission (1901)

Powered Flight (1903)

Space Flight (1957)

Platform TechnologiesProcessing

Storage

Display

Communications

Sensing

Moore’s LawThe number of transistors on an integrated

circuit doubles every 2 years

The processor speed doubles every 18 months

Moore’s Law

Multicore Processors

AMD Quadcore Opteron Processor

Storage

Reducing Cost of Storage

http://www.mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte

Samsung EcoGreen F2 HD103SI 1TB

€69

www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=479453

Flash Memory

iPod Introduced October

2001

5 & 10 GB capacities

iPod Touch Introduced

September 2007

8, 16, 32GB

The Innovator’s Dilemma

Clayton M. Christensen (2000)

Displays: from CRT to LCD

Touch Sensitive Displays

Electronic Paper

SFI CRANN Centre & Hewlett PackardAmazon Kindle 2

Communications7.2mbps wireless (HSDPA)

~7mbps (WiMAX)

20mbps wired broadband

100mbps WiFi (802.11n)

1000mbps LAN

PhotonicsUsed to support

backbone networks

40 gbps – 1.5 tbps

Cognative RadioUltra wide band

Multiple frequencies

Software defined radio

Positional Sensors

GPS Sensor In-car Sat Nav

Chemical/Environmental Sensors

Microfluidics array & phosphate sensor package – NCSR & Clarity CSET

Body Sensors

An Post cycle team at being fitted with Foster Miller sensor vest (Clarity Centre)

Internet & World Wide Web

Web 2.0Web 1.0

Web 3.0 – Semantic WebAscribing meaning

to data

Linked Data Connecting

disparate data sources

DERI sig.ma semantic search engine

Internet of ThingsTrillions of

connected devices

Both wired & wireless

Sensor web & semantic web

Assisted LivingUsing sensor web to

monitor well being

Fall detection

Variations in daily routine

Medical DevicesAdvanced signal

processing

Real-time data analysis

Connected devices

Neonatal brain monitoring at UCC

Location AwarenessMobile devices

Multiple sensors

Layer additional information based on location

Layar augmented reality

Data AnalyticsMeasuring your

website

…personal finances

…business

…warehouse

…retail centre

…

Data Mining & Visualisation

Enormous growth in volume of data

Growing need to analyse and visualise data

Data visualisation – SFI Clique SRC

ConclusionsPlatform technologies continue to develop at

exponential pace

New applications emerging to exploit platform technologies

Innovation happening at the integration points

Analyzing the data becoming increasingly harder

Sensor-based technologies next big thing

Contactstephen.flinter@sfi.i

e

@sflinter (Twitter)

http://flinter.com/contact