Posted: 08/12/15
More than 2000 people from the world of business, science and research attended the annual Innovation Showcase at the Convention Centre in Dublin. The event aims to connect industry with the public research system in Ireland to foster innovation in Ireland. A range of resources exist that make it simple for industry to do business with research centres such as ADAPT.
At the event the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny TD, met with HERME, a robot that has been trained to have conversations with humans by researchers at the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology. HERME is equipped with cameras and microphones and offered the Taoiseach a robot’s-eye-view of a conversation with a human. Humans process a myriad of signals from their gestures and tone of voice, something that robots are not as good at processing. At ADAPT, researchers are building ‘companion machines’ that are capable of understanding and reacting to social behaviour. The research is led out of Trinity’s Speech Communication Laboratory by Professor of Phonetics and Speech Sciences, Nick Campbell.
Speaking at the event, Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English said: “Collaboration is the catalyst for successful innovation. We want to connect business with publicly funded researcher and the supports available to help entrepreneurs to grow their business and create jobs in Ireland. We want those who are new to research collaboration to explore all the option available to them and we want those who have existing connections within the research system to engage further and take advantage of all the supports available.”
The Innovation Showcase is organized on behalf of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation by Enterprise Ireland and supported by IDA Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland.
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