Innovations at IBM Labs India
IBM has a large workforce in India. Located across cities like Bangalore, Gurgaon, Pune, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Mumbai, IBM India is rich with talent. IBM’s India Software Lab, India Research Labs and IBM Systems Development Labs have highly skilled work force who are the brain and spine behind IBM’s Innovations across the Globe. Last week, I got a chance to visit IBM and witness a few of these innovation projects and here a few which excited me.
Internet of Things (IoT) – Track and Trace Solution is an intelligent inventory management system. The inventory could be anything valuable or life saving instruments. These assets are tagged with an in-expensive Bluetooth or WiFi label and the system keeps an eye on their status. The system could alert the administrator if something has been moved out or has ran out. For Instance, in an operation theater, the critical instruments can be tracked and the surgeon could do an inventory check before entering the operation theater. If some supplies has ran out, then he can immediately order or arrange for it. Frankly this innovation can be used anywhere ranging from your home to army. Its infinite scope of application and ease of use got my attention.
Innovation that can touch live of people directly and help them live a better life, could be refereed to as a crown jewel. Apatani is one such innovation, that puts technology in the hands of a public health worker and help them deliver better solutions to the people directly. Apatani is a secure app that is installed on a handheld device, preferably a tablet. Equipped with Apatani, the health worker can gather information and details of people. It has intelligence built-in to sense and detect any need for medical attention. Also the required medical solution can be delivered at people’s doorstep with this technology.
You look at an object and your brain processes a lot of data about that object in fraction of seconds. That is exactly what the visual linguist is trying to do. It is an intelligent algorithm that not only identifies an object, but also come up with an explanation about it and also gives related objects. Practically it could be used in fields of medicines, agriculture, military, retail and also home needs. A farmer located in a remote village could click a picture of a diseased crop and the system could help him identify the disease and suggest remedies. The possibilities are endless and the Visual Linguist prototype is a step towards a larger journey.
Most lives are not lost in natural disasters, but due to inability to recover from such disasters. IBM labs have developed an analytics and prediction algorithm. The vision of this project is to be able to predict most natural disasters. Currently it can predict floods. The algorithm can also analyze big data and co-ordinate logistics and support to the areas affected by flood. This was purely out of the sci-fi movies. This project has a dashboard that can not just predict natural disaster, but also help the authorities to act swiftly and provide help to the areas affected by disasters.
Imagine having your car serviced and at the end of the service, the service adviser hands a list of parts that needs to be replaced at the end of certain period. Well, if this information can prove useful to you, imagine how useful this information would be for high cost flights. Predictive performance analytics for jet engines do just that. This algorithm keeps track of the flight usage and maintenance routines. Once it detects certain maintenance steps, the aviation managers can kick in and act swiftly. This can save millions for the companies.
These are just a few of the projects that I was able to get a demo. There were a lot of project noteworthy in the arena. These innovations are aimed at helping organizations to have better productivity and growth using the latest in the field of technology. These organizations and their products can make the lives of consumers much better than what it is today. I was glad to see that IBM India in works and its unremitting pursue for innovation and excellence.
