Delivered in DCU on 22 November 2010

1. Research for Ireland’s Future
Innovation, Marketing and New
Technology Foresight
Dr. Stephen Flinter, Science Foundation Ireland

3. About SFI
 Founded in 2000
 Statutory body in 2003
 Annual budget ~€155m
 Three core areas:
 ICT
 Life Sciences
 Energy

4. SFI Programmes
 Research Frontiers (>500 awards)
 €50k-€150k (p.a.)
 Principal Investigator (>100 awards)
 €150-€500k (p.a.)
 Strategic Research Cluster (20 awards)
 €1m-€1.5m (p.a.)
 Centres for Science Engineering and Technology
(9awards)
 €2m-€3.5m (p.a.)

5. SFI Process
 Open calls
 Investigator-driven
 Bottom-up selection
 Expert, international peer review panels

7. Watt’s Steam Engine (1775)

8. Stephenson’s Rocket
(1829)

9. Bell’s Telephone (1876)

10. Edison’s Light Bulb (1878)

11. Benz’s Internal Combustion
Engine (1896)

12. Marconi’s Transatlantic
Transmission (1901)

13. Powered Flight (1903)

14. Supersonic Flight (1947)

15. Space Flight (1957)

16. Commercial Supersonic
(1969)

18. Platform Technologies
 Processing
 Storage
 Display
 Communications
 Sensing

19. Moore’s Law
 The number of transistors on an integrated circuit
doubles every 2 years
 The processor speed doubles every 18 months

20. Moore’s Law

21. Multicore Processors
Intel Core i7 Processor

22. Storage

23. Reducing Cost of Storage
http://www.mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte

24. Samsung EcoGreen F2
HD103SI 1TB
 €69
 www.komplett.ie/k/ki.as
px?sku=479453

25. Samsung Spinpoint F4EG –
2TB
 €89.95
 http://www.komplett.ie/
Komplett/product/ZKB_
01COM/11_HDD/07_IN
THD35/productdetails/2
0066405/Samsung_Spi
npoint_F4EG_HD204U
I_Hard_drive_2_TB/HD
204UI/default.aspx

26. Flash Memory

27. iPod
 Introduced October
2001
 5 & 10 GB capacities

28. iPod Touch
 Introduced September
2007
 8, 16, 32GB

29. The Innovator’s Dilemma
 Clayton M. Christensen
(2000)

30. Displays: from CRT to LCD

31. Touch Sensitive Displays

32. Electronic Paper
Sony Prototype Flexible EPDAmazon Kindle 3

33. Guesture-based Interaction

34. Communications
 7.2mbps wireless (HSDPA)
 ~7mbps (WiMAX)
 20mbps wired broadband
 100mbps WiFi (802.11n)
 1000mbps LAN

35. Photonics
 Used to support
backbone networks
 40 gbps – 1.5 tbps

36. Cognative Radio
 Ultra wide band
 Multiple frequencies
 Software defined radio

37. Positional Sensors
GPS Sensor In-car Sat Nav

38. Chemical/Environmental
Sensors
Microfluidics array & phosphate sensor package – NCSR & Clarity CSET

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

41. Internet & World Wide Web
Pre-92 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Web 2.0Web 1.0

42. Web 3.0 – Semantic Web
 Ascribing meaning to
data
 Linked Data
 Connecting disparate
data sources
DERI sig.ma semantic search engine

43. Internet of Things
 Billions or even trillions
of connected devices
 Both wired & wireless
 Sensor web & semantic
web

44. Assisted Living
 Using sensor web to
monitor well being
 Fall detection
 Variations in daily
routine

45. Medical Devices
 Advanced signal
processing
 Real-time data analysis
 Connected devices
Neonatal brain monitoring at UCC

46. Location Awareness
 Mobile devices
 Multiple sensors
 Layer additional
information based on
location
Layar augmented reality

47. Data Analytics
 Measuring your
website
 …personal finances
 …business
 …warehouse
 …retail centre
 …

48. Data Mining & Visualisation
 Enormous growth in
volume of data
 Growing need to
analyse and visualise
data
Data visualisation – SFI Clique SRC

49. Conclusions
 Platform 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

50. Contact
stephen.flinter@sfi.ie
@sflinter (Twitter)
http://flinter.com/contact