From imagination to impact
High Impact Research Directions
David Skellern
CEO
Presentation overview
• About NICTA
• NICTA’s Research Directions
– Themes and business areas
– NICTA’s approach to research
• Some examples
• Strategic planning at NICTA
• Why strategic planning is important
About NICTA
Recruit commercial and
research staff from Australian
and global communities
NICTA
• National ICT Research
Centre of Excellence
• Not-for-profit Company
• $83m per annum including
- Australian Gov (~60%)
- Regional Gov (~15%)
Seven
university joint venture partners
contribute researchers and
students
Knowledge diffusion and
enhanced ICT skills base
R&D partnerships with
industry, research institutes
& universities
Spin-outs, licensing &
collaborations with
leading users & industry
NICTA Founders & Partners
(2002)
(2003)
(2004)
(2005)
NICTA Vision and Mission
Our Vision
is that our imaginative research drives Australia’s ICT future
Our Mission
is to be an enduring world-class information
and communications technology research institute
that generates national benefit
NICTA Objectives
Our People objective is to bring together world-class researchers and
professional staff, enhance their skills and build a culture of
entrepreneurship and achievement in use-inspired basic research,
enhancing Australia’s ICT capacity and capability.
Our Research objective is to carry out research that advances knowledge,
is recognised for its excellence and generates breakthrough, userfocused technologies.
Our Education objective is to work with universities to provide Australia with
ICT researchers who have deep technical expertise supported by strong
professional and entrepreneurial skills.
Our Linkages objective is to increase our impact and results by working
with targeted research, government, education, industry and domain
partners.
Our Commercialisation objective is to facilitate technology transfer and
create channels to market for NICTA research.
What Will Success Look Like?
National benefit from
NICTA research
outcomes
National benefit
through a stronger ICT
Skills base
Research expertise
and scale
Measurable industry growth &
competitiveness from NICTA research
outcomes
Stronger ICT skill base – NICTA alumni
One of the world’s top 10
ICT research centres by 2020
Business Model
NICTA People
705 people (June 09)
– 273 full-time PhD students
– 432 staff (373 FTE)
Staff (FTE) and students by sites - update
– 131 / 55: Sydney - Eveleigh Aust. Tech Park Lab & HQ
– 53 / 66: Sydney - Kensington Neville Roach Lab
– 69 / 62: Canberra: Canberra Research Lab
– 74 / 97: Melbourne: Victoria Research Lab
– 41 / 18: Brisbane: Queensland Research Lab
– 5: Adelaide: Office
090721
NICTA Overview
10
So how are we going after 6.5 years?
• 11 technology licence agreements
• 4 spinout companies
• 107 PhD graduates from NICTA partner universities
• Alumni in universities, industry and government
• 75 active patent applications
• > 3300 publications
• > 130 prizes and awards
NICTA’s role - How
NICTA’s unique partnership with universities:
• Produces high quality PhD graduates who have additional
professional opportunities and training through NICTA
• Maintains NICTA’s intellectual vigor through contributions
of world class university
researchers
• Achieves national benefit by harnessing disparate
university ICT researchers and building critical mass to
achieve international impact.
NICTA’s role - How
NICTA has a systemic approach to achieving significant
national outcomes from its research:
• Our use-inspired basic research approach ensures that
research is undertaken only after competitor and market
analysis confirm good prospects for impact.
• Our aim is to make step changes in knowledge that are
embodied in technology platforms to allow the research
to be more readily transferred into use across the
economy.
• Commercial considerations are imbedded into our
projects at the outset and ongoing entrepreneurial
support works to transfer research outcomes into
commercial results.
NICTA’s model: Use-Inspired Basic Research
Approach to Research
New
Knowledge
Pure basic
research
Existing
Knowledge
New
Technology
Use-inspired
basic
research
Purely applied
research &
development
Existing
Technology
• Our challenge is to develop long term projects that will both
advance knowledge and enable the development of
globally competitive products, processes or services.
ICT Capability
Themes
Researchers are grouped across the company by Theme:
Embedded Systems – developing ‘smart’ products
Networked Systems – technology that connects ‘smart’
products to form ‘smart’ networks
Making Sense of Data – making sense of large amounts of
data created by ICT systems
Managing Complexity - designing ICT systems that are fit for
purpose, cost effective and don’t have nasty side effects
Themes
• What they are
– Larger collections of research capability
– The line management structure of our research
– A good level of aggregation for joint strategic planning with partner
universities
• Why we have them
– A vehicle for long range (10 years) strategic planning...
– ... Which will hopefully engender larger, riskier higher payoff projects
– A home for Lab staff
• Who we encourage (insist!) they have around 30% unstructured unmanaged
time for research
• Great ideas start in a single person’s head...
Business Areas
Our Business Areas are the sectors in which we build
market knowledge and commercialisation
experience.
They are where we seek the majority of our use
inspiration.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Intelligent Transportation Systems
Safety and Security
Mobile Systems and Services
Software Infrastructure
Environmental Management
Themes and Business Areas
NICTA’s Research Directions
a selection!
Embedded Systems Research Areas
1
Embedded Systems Engineering
• GOAL: Model-driven process for fitting
architectures and designs to problems.
• Challenge: Combine with “Design by Composition”
approach for re-use.
• Virtual System Prototyping
Embedded Systems Research Areas
2
Secure, Reliable, Trustworthy
Embedded Software
• GOAL: De-facto standard for vendors of embedded
systems.
• Trustworthy microkernel-based operating systems
• Component-based systems constructed upon
microkernel.
• System services to higher-level layers, such as a
secure GUI.
• Distributed Systems & Multi-Core
Embedded Systems Research Areas
3
Dynamic Scene Understanding
on Visual Sensor Networks
• GOAL: World-leading computer vision systems for
dynamic scene understanding.
• Smart networked cameras with reconfigurable
architectures
• Computer Vision processing for bionic eye
• Combination of geometric and statistical methods
=>Moving Cameras + Moving Objects
Embedded Systems Research Areas
4
Wireless systems and Sensors on-a-Chip
• GOAL: Pervasive wireless systems and sensors.
• Single Chip WPAN in CMOS at 60GHz
– Integrated radio transceiver with phased antenna array
– Digital baseband, MAC processing
– WirelessHD, 802.11.AD (WiGig)
• Sensor technologies & applications
– Body Area Networking
– Implanted devices
Embedded Systems Research Areas
5
Reconfigurable Systems
• GOAL: Systems that adapt to changing
requirements.
• Reconfigurable systems with HW/SW agents.
Integrate 3rd party components.
• Breakthrough scalable architecure
Solving real problems creates impact
Impact comes from applying ICT to real world problems!
• Making the digital economy more accessible to
Australians.
• Help maximise the efficiency of Australia’s infrastructure
and logistics through advanced systems which speed-up
and simplify traffic, freight, port and airport operations
and will also assist streamlined delivery of emergency
services
• Maximising farm yield by developing and deploying ICT
systems which minimise the use of scarce water
resources
Strategic issues for NICTA – future outcomes
4. Safer food produced more efficiently for Australians and
as exports.
5. Computer technologies for enhanced health and wellbeing, including bionic eye and improved cancer
treatment.
6. Gain without the pain: effective service delivery to
government and business without the implementation
and cost
7. Hybrid vehicle control development in Australia driving
competitive global green vehicle manufacturing
Research for the Digital Economy
Broadband
Infrastructure
Smart
Devices
Digital
Services
Applications
& Content
Applications bringing together content and services, securely over the broadband network
 Fast and scalable social networking
 Personalised medicine
 Remote office applications
 Location aware media distribution
 Automatic update of in-car
navigation systems
 More crop for less water
 Efficient movement of goods
 Digital conveyancing and
mortgages
GENERIC DIGITAL ENABLERS eg
SECTOR SPECIFIC eg
• Context/Location
• Search
• transport, health, water,
• Cognitive
logistics, eGov, emergency,
• SOA
•
Systems
enterprise …
• Security
•
Collaboration
• Optimisation
• Cloud/Virtualisation (computing, storage …)
• Mobility
• Human body monitoring for sport and medicine
• Building confidence through mobile security - already in over
250 million mobile phones
• Content compression for mobile devices
NICTA
enabling new
applications in
the Digital
Economy
bringing everyday
services to the
Digital Economy
devices
delivering reliable
data for the
Digital Economy
• Increasing capacity and reliability of the existing Internet backbone
• Creating the next generation Internet with EU and US researchers
• Increasing wireless Internet capacity outdoors
• Developing wireless for home high-definition entertainment
inventing next
generation
Internet
infrastructure
Lending Industry Example
LIXI Valuations Reference Implementation
Internet
Internal
Workflow
Internal
Workflow
Valuation request
• Task Mgt
•Applications
• Task Mgt
•Applications
Backchannel
Valuation report
Lender
BPEL engine
Valuer
BPEL engine
Intelligent Transport Systems
Active Traffic
Management
Our 2020 Vision
A new, better informed
Traffic Management
Infrastructure
+
Better decision support
and incident management
A significant and
measurable reduction
in the
total social cost
attributable to
congestion.
If nothing is done, the total avoidable social cost of congestion
in Australia will exceed $20bn per annum by 2020”
– BTRE 2007
And that’s about 1% of GDP!!! (…and that’s reflected world-wide)
Smart Sensing
• Data Fusion ++
• Invariant feature detection
•
•
•
•
Headlights
Windscreens
Edges
…
• Shadow/reflection removal
• Low camera height
Classification, flows, speeds, queue lengths, incidents
with occlusion in extreme conditions (weather/light)
Control Optimisation
Smart Intersection Control
Dynamic Traffic Model
Optimise Control Plan
Control actions
(switch lights)
loop detectors,
cameras, etc
Sensors
Actuators
Albion Park Test Bed
• Major intersection of Pacific Hwy and Illawarra
Hwy
• Currently roundabout controlled
• Grid-lock in AM and PM peak hours
• All day grid-lock in
vacations
• Problem caused greater
traffic flows than original
design scenario
• Installed signals…
now…
• Further opportunities for
efficiency.
Cameras at Albion Park
Albion Park Test Bed
Entire Transport System Design & Optimization
Example: For Technologically and Economically Developed Countries
• Optimizing the control of vehicles, traffic & infrastructure to:
– Minimize – fuel intake, emissions, traffic impact on infrastructure costs
– Maximize – static & dynamic safety, energy conversion efficiency
– Guarantee – sustainability of energy use and impact on global climate change
Strategic Planning at NICTA
Strategic planning at NICTA
• Important for ensuring outcomes for our research
• Strategic planning occurs at three levels:
– NICTA Corporate Strategic Plan 2007-2011
– Research Theme Strategic Plans
– Project Strategic Plans
Theme Strategic Plans
• What
– 10-20 page high-level 10 year research visions
• Why?
– To develop longer range, higher risk, step-change projects
– Useful for relations with universities and other strategic linkages
– Connection with international linkage strategies
• Status
– Beginning to have some influence
– Fair to say its a hard sell
– But we are convinced it is the right thing to try
Why Strategic Planning is Important
Why strategic planning is important
Dr Michael Spence, Vice Chancellor University of Sydney
Talk of a “mission statement” in a university and
many of our colleagues will roll their eyes. Others will
hardly be so polite. But however difficult it may be to
articulate the primary purpose of an institution so
complex and diverse as ours, the process can be very
helpful. It helps to know our goals, and while they may
never be fully realised, and measurement is difficult,
to know how well we are doing in achieving them.
Why strategic planning is important
Strategic planning gives direction and
establishes co-ordinated effort. It also
minimises wasted effort and redundancy.
•
•
•
•
Arenas: where will we be active?
Vehicles: how will we get there?
Differentiators: how will we win in the market place?
Staging: what will be our speed and sequence of
moves?
• Economic logic: how will we obtain our returns?
Why strategic planning is important
NICTA’s Theme Strategic Plans:
• Specify the research areas where we want to achieve
impact
• Specify our goals within those areas
• How we will get there
• Provides a clear direction for our researchers.
• Ensures co-ordinated research effort
• Minimises wasted effort.
Why strategic planning is important
Strategic planning sets standards of success and
performance
• How will you achieve your objectives?
• How will you know when you’ve got there?
• What measures or targets will you use?
• Who are your competitors, and what is your
differentiator, or ‘edge’?
Why strategic planning is important
Strategic planning empowers people to make
decisions and take initiatives.
• Collective purpose and shared research direction
•‘Buy-in’ from team members
•Maintaining flexible parameters to empower researchers
Strategic plans also play an important role for
people outside the organisation or team.
Questions?
Research Overview
Themes
Disciplines
Business Areas
ICT used for…
Embedded
Systems
Networked
Systems
Making
Sense
of Data
•
•
•
Trust and Security
Reliable Operating Systems
Tools and Platforms for ES
•
•
•
Communications Stack
Sensor Network Platforms
Networking Technologies
•
•
•
•
•
•
Machine Learning
Reasoning
Knowledge Representation
Image Understanding
Data Understanding
HxI (Human-x Interaction)
Biomedical and Life
Sciences
Intelligent Transportation
Systems
Safety and Security
Environmental Management
Mobile Systems and Services
Managing
Complexity
•
•
•
•
•
Formal Methods
Software Design Process
Constraints
Control
Optimisation
Software Infrastructure
NICTA’s role - Why
Where is the Australian ICT sector now?
• ~9% (~$98B FY2007) of Australian economy
• Sector trade deficit of $21B (FY2007)
• Export performance $5.7B  0.18% sector worldwide,
including re-exports of over $1.4B
• Composed of Australian SMEs and relatively small
subsidiaries of MNCs
• There is no large Australian MNC ICT company
• 26500 companies
• < 1% (~260) have 100 or more staff
• 95% have < 20 staff