Building A Smarter Planet With University Collaboration: Empowering People Through Information Integration

We are all now connected - economically, technically and socially. Our planet is becoming smarter. Infusing intelligence into the way the world literally works - the systems and processes that enable physical goods to be developed, manufactured, bought and sold, services to be delivered ... everything from people and money to oil, water and electrons to move, and billions of people to work and live. All these become possible via information integration scattering in many different data sources: from the sensors, on the web, in our personal devices, in documents and in databases, or hidden within application programs. Often we need to get information from several of these sources to complete a task. However, this can be a difficult or time consuming endeavor. This talk describes some information-intensive tasks, choosing examples from such areas as healthcare, science, the business world and our personal lives. It will discuss the barriers to getting information together and delivering it to the people that need it, in a form they can understand, review key research on information integration and information interaction, indicate how the combination may enable real progress, and illustrate where research challenges remain.