Barcelona (E), March 2013 - How can technology help find solutions to the challenges of today's world? Are we prepared to handle the large amount of data that surrounds us? Can ICT and Internet help us become more sustainable and more competitive? To coincide with the Mobile World Congress 2013, The Open University of Catalonia (UOC) has launched a debate on whether we are prepared to make smarter use of technology. This is being done through a new edition of the Open Thoughts blog, where international personalities from academia, business, and the cultural world will answer the question "Ready for a SMARTer world?"
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The blog is led by the program Internet Computing & Systems Optimization - Algorithms for Solving Realistic Hybrid Routing, Scheduling and Availability Problems (ICSO-HAROSA). It is being undertaken by the UOC's Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3). The main lines of this program's R&D&I are the optimization of complex systems using hybrid algorithms and parallel and distributed computing on the Internet.
Angel A. Juan and Daniel Riera, program coordinators, are associated professors in the UOC's Department of Computing, Multimedia, and Telecommunication Studies. Angel Juan has published the first post of the blog about "e-research" and the trend toward online collaboration models in research and consulting companies, extending beyond the national and continental borders.
The second contribution is by Aleix Valls, director of the Mobile World Centre and the Mobile World Festival. Valls thinks about the impact of mobile technology and the recently opened Mobile World Centre, which seeks to disseminate information about how this technology is helping to improve our lives. This space is an initiative of the Mobile World Capital, another of the organizers of the Mobile World Congress, which was held in Barcelona 25-28 February.
Open Thoughts is an annual initiative of the UOC's Research and Transfer Support Office (OSRT), and it had its first experience in 2012 with a blog about gender and ICT. Last year, twenty international personalities answered the provocative question "What if Steve Jobs had been a woman?" In the same way its last edition was a success, OSRT hopes that the new blog with the question "Ready for a SMARTer world?" will receive the same warm welcome.
The blog is published in English.
