Boeing gives $1.25 million to launch new tech institute
Vancouver Institute for Visual Analytics brings together industry, SFU, UBC
By Gillian Shaw, Vancouver Sun
The Vancouver Institute for Visual Analytics, bringing researchers from the University of B.C. and Simon Fraser University together in collaboration with industry partners, launched Monday with a $1.25-million investment from the Boeing Co.
The creation of the institute here helps propel Vancouver to the forefront of innovation in visual analytics, an area that combines visualization with analysis techniques to turn the massive and growing amounts of data being produced into knowledge that can be used to answer questions and solve problems.
"There is a great opportunity for bringing people together not only across universities but with companies," said Fred Popowich, director of the new institute that will be based at SFU but includes researchers from both universities. "We all know how much data is out there and it is growing quickly.
"People develop tools to deal with this data. It is also knowledge, you have to understand the data and understand the solution -there is data at the bottom and you want to get to solutions at the top -it can't just come from companies alone and it can't come from universities alone.
"The Institute is a good environment to bring the two together."
At the heart of the work is figuring out how to transform data into actionable knowledge; the Institute will provide a place for industry partners to collaborate with the academic world.
As an example, Popowich points to electronic financial transactions.
"How do you determine what is strange behaviour on your credit card," he said. "We need computer enhancement of the data so the computer can do some of that initial analysis and bring things to our attention."
Visual analytics can help create solutions in a number of areas, from banking to health care, transportation, public safety and others. People can use their computers to work visually with data, transforming it into something that can be understood and acted upon.
In 2008, Boeing made an initial investment of $1.4 million for visual analytics research and the current investment will provide a core sustainable base for the research institute, said Tracy London, director, Advancement Office of the Dean, Faculty of Applied Sciences at Simon Fraser University.
Popowich, who received his PhD in cognitive science from the University of Edinburgh, is a faculty member of the School of Computing Science at SFU and associate dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences.
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