3rd Annual Visit to IBM’s Industry Solutions Lab (ISL)

On May 1, 2007 a group of St. John's University faculty and technology representatives joined IBM in their Hawthorne facility.

"I loved the entire experience.  This is my third trip to IBM and each and every time they have provided us with great intellectual challenges and warm hospitality.  The aspect I particularly liked was David Cohen's presentation of "Services Science." Irving Wladasky Berger was a top notch key speaker sharing his executive comments with us.”
- Kathleen Voute MacDonald, Dean, College of Professional Studies

"One of the most exciting aspects of the visit was to learn about the potential for virtual communities for changing higher education, both in the face-to-face classroom and in distance education.  As these communities incorporate more and more of the characteristics of virtual reality, their power to affect learning will be increasingly powerful."
- James Benson, Vice Provost

IBM Hawthorne Briefing Agenda

8:15 a.m.Welcome to ISL 
Bob Stackhouse

8:30 a.m. St John’s Perspective/Objectives
Joe Tufano
Client speaks to areas of interest for the session 

8:45 a.m. Global Technology Outlook
John Mackay
IBM Research division overview of major technology trends in the IT industry - highlights emerging software, hardware, and services technology trends that are expected to impact the IT industry over the next 3-5 years 

10 a.m. Overview of Collaboration Technologies in eLearning
Kevin Singley
IBM Activities in creating innovative learning technologies to enhance student performance and increase learning through personalization and contextualization 

10:45 a.m. Computer Visualization Overview
Thomas Jackman
Overview of IBM Research projects aimed at achieving high quality rendering across a large number of pixels using commodity components rather than specialized, high-end components.  Scalable Visual Networking (SVN) - used to display a single graphics window across a large number of pixels, presumably an array of projectors or monitors, and Remote Visual Networking (RVN) which allows remote users to view a graphical application as it runs on a server and to collaborate with other remote users 

11:45 a.m. IBM Executive Comments
Irving Wladasky-Berger

1 p.m. Smart Surveillance System (S3)
Lisa Brown
Description of IBM Research’s S3 - a middleware offering for use in surveillance systems which provides video based behavioral analysis capabilities

2 p.m. Cell Processor Overview
Randy Moulic
Overview of the Cell Architecture which grew from a challenge posed by Sony and Toshiba to provide power-efficient and cost-effective high-performance processing for a wide range of applications, including the most demanding consumer appliance: game consoles.  

3:15 p.m. Services as a Science
David Cohn
Discussion of IBM’s work on a bold, new innovation, that's not a piece of cutting-edge hardware or software. Instead, IBM is leading the way to develop and introduce something for colleges and universities across the U.S. — a new academic discipline called "Services” Science.  Services now account for more than half of IBM's business, as well as over seventy percent of the U.S. economy. To support this new services environment, colleges need to provide an option to study the science behind this expanding and lucrative area.  Services Science can be defined as the application of scientific, management and engineering disciplines to a task that one organization beneficially performs with and for another ('services'). Creating a college degree program to support that science is the ultimate goal for the IBM team. 

3:45 p.m. 2nd Life
Christopher Murasso
Discussion of IBM’s involvement and activities around Second Life – a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. It consists of a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. It contains a Market Place which currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world unit-of-trade, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges. 

4:15 p.m. Technology Floor Demonstrations
Bob Stackhouse
Demo Tour  

4:45 p.m. Discussion/ Next Steps – Close out   
Jim Jagodzinzki

Dr. Paul M. Horn, Senior Vice-President and Director for IBM Research with Kathleen Voute MacDonald, Dean of the College of Professional Studies, at IBMs Industry Solutions Lab.