Researcher's Night 2016

The field of non-invasive Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) is gaining massive momentum as startups, companies and researchers are pushing hard. The race on BCI research is on improvement of the efficiency and the accuracy of the systems, while some of the first commercial efforts are testing the waters with several affordable devices already available to consumers. Professor Bin He, a pioneer in the field of Biomedical Engineering, talks about the ground-breaking research currently being done at the University of Minnesota in decoding brainwaves more accurately and reliably using non-invasive interfaces. We discuss the already impressive results of a  brain-controlled helicopter experiment, some of  the present challenges and the upcoming breakthroughs in the field of Brain Computer Interfaces. Interviewed by George Voulgaris for Tech Talks central.

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TTC #109 Your brain as the ultimate controller, Prof. Bin He

James Tagg, author of the book ‘Are the Androids Dreaming Yet?’ presented in front of an audience his own beliefs on the Singularity issue. He started out by answering his own question ‘Can a Machine think Creatively?’ and argued mathematically on how much artificial intelligence has progressed, which are the crucial parity point dates and why he doesn’t believe that machines can surpass the creativity of humans. The speech was conducted during a Heroes of Mobile event organised by its founder Helen Keegan, on the 2nd of March at the Talent Garden(TAG).


TTC #145 Are The Androids Dreaming Yet, James Tagg

Background, context, and poem text: http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/05/28/keeping-quiet-sylvia-boorstein-reads-pablo-neruda

Excerpted from https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/what-we-nurture-with-sylvia

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Sylvia Boorstein reads "Keeping Quiet" by Pablo Neruda

Marcello Melgara Responsible for International eHealth Projects, Italy /
Karima Bourquard, IHE-Europe Director of Interoperability, France

How does compliance with the European Interoperability Framework(EIF) help a National health system’s sustainability? At what percentage would you say your country’s NIF is aligned w/ the EIF when it comes to eHealth? What are the obstacles? Does your country have a published eHealth Strategy and what are its core objectives? In what percentage is it being implemented?


TTC #204 Interoperability & eHealth Strategies In Italy & France

Dimitra Liveri, Network and Information Security Expert at ENISA /
Marcello Melgara Responsible for International eHealth Projects

European eHealth companies have a huge potential to grow, by approaching an ever growing market inside and outside EU borders. Apart from the obvious innovation potentials in a broad number of health & patient care sectors, markets like that of the US, Latin America and China have come ‘closer’ due to international agreements. What kind of impediments will European eHealth companies have to overcome, in order to reach these markets effectively?


TTC #205 Extroversion of eHealth Companies

George Crooks, Medical Director for NHS24 and Director of the Scottish Centre for Tele-health and Telecare. President of the European Telematics Association (EHTEL) & leader of the Integrated Care Action Group of the European Innovation Partnership for active and healthy ageing for the European Commission

George Crooks responds to our questions on whether Scotland has a published eHealth Strategy and what are its core objectives. Also, how does compliance with the European Interoperability Framework(EIF) help a National health system’s sustainability? 


TTC #210 George Crooks on Scotland’s eHealth Strategy & Interoperability

Grab a cocktail, put on your favorite karaoke track, and let’s talk some more about disentangling audio data!

The Cocktail Party Problem

Centuries ago, Germany came up with a way to keep books that contained "dangerous" information without releasing them to the general public: The Giftschrank.
The word, a combination of "poison" and "cabinet," has a variety of meanings in different contexts. At its most literal, a Giftschrank is a space for storing controlled substances in places like pharmacies. Colloquially, it can refer to spaces reserved for all kinds of hidden and forbidden objects, ideas or stories.

203- The Giftschrank

So... about those bots. Bots bots bots. Bots!

In this episode of the botcast, a16z partners Benedict Evans and Connie Chan -- along with Chris Messina, longtime advocate of the open web and more -- pull apart various threads related to the topic of bots, mobile, and beyond: the (evolution?) from web to apps to messaging to bots; chat as an interface; “conversational commerce”; and so on. They also discuss why framing messaging through the lens of WeChat both reveals useful things (what works/ might not work) and not-so-useful things (such as seeking the “WeChat of the West”).

More importantly, how can we keep bots, and what they represent, in perspective -- beyond the fad? Especially when it comes to considering innovation on the 'web' vs. 'mobile' (remember the mobile browser!) and when it comes to removing friction (vs. adding limited interaction). What contexts (like customer service) are most useful for thinking about bots? And how can we even know, given it’s early days yet and we haven’t moved much beyond the command-line interface... 

Finally, as computing moves outside the classic work-centric paradigm to room- and urban-scale, how do we think about integrating online and offline, ubiquitous and “diffuse” computing through bots?

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a16z Podcast: Bots and Beyond

We had the pleasure to interview Dr. Athanasios Dimoulas in the past and it seems that this interview is as interesting as the previous one. Athanasios Dimoulas is the head of Epitaxy and the Surface Science Laboratory at NCSR “Demokritos” and he gives us an update with the latest developments of new novel materials in nanoelectronics. The explosion of big data and IoT has resulted in a great need for energy efficient smart devices. Dr Dimoulas shares some of the problems and insights with their research on these hard to develop materials like graphene, Weyl fermions and others. He then reveals how crystals could simulate a “particle accelerator” and test some of the fundamental principles and assumptions in high energy, elementary particle physics and cosmology. This could result in discovering new interesting properties and being able to integrate them faster in electronic devices, capacitors and transistors, in the hope of impacting emerging Quantum Technologies. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

Tech Talks Central @ ERN16

TTC #279 Nanomaterials Improve Speed, Computing and Storage Capacity in Smart Devices

Evangelia Diapouli, Postdoc Researcher in the institute of Nuclear Technology & Radiation Protection at NCSR "Demokritos", talks about their international environmental project which involves linking research discoveries with decision makers ie. state authorities. Their ‘EU Life Program’ funded project offers quantitative assessment for air pollutants, helping officials make informed decisions when it comes to effectively controlling emissions. The team is now continuing their work by researching how these specific concentrations of air pollutants are affecting our lives outdoors and indoors, every day. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #280 Quantitative Assessment of Pollutants for Emission Control

Sakis Triantafyllakis interviews Dr. Elena Dascalaki, senior researcher at the Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development of the National Observatory of Athens on the energy performance and environmental footprint of buildings. Dr. Dascalaki talks about her work at the Energy Conservation Group of the Institute where they study the behavior and energy performance of buildings, the challenges and the importance not only of developing new zero energy structures but also upgrading existing older buildings to have close to zero energy performance, a feat that is substantial especially considering the large amount of old structures all around Europe. Dr. Dascalaki tells us they were instrumental in helping develop the regulations for energy performance of buildings and says they are working on new strategies to upgrade and refurbish old buildings in Greece and Europe to meet the EU mandate that all residential buildings will have to be built or upgraded to be zero or near zero energy, relying solely on renewable sources by 2020. This project she says will be first implemented for all public buildings which will have to make the switch by 2019. Interviewed by Sakis Triantafyllakis for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #281 Super Performing Buildings Run On Zero Energy

Ioannis Raptis, Senior Researcher at NCSR “Demokritos”, discusses food safety. He starts out by mentioning several dangerous food scandals like the horse meat in over 10M burgers, the 3K patients fallen sick by e-coli in food, and the tainted baby milk in China. He continues by pointing out the disadvantages of the time consuming methodology used now to analyse food in the lab. The Food Sniffer (www.foodsniffer.eu), developed by his team as a prototype, consists of the sensing chip, the analysis reader and a computer which could mean a tablet or mobile. It’s advantages are it’s very small and can run with a single battery making it easy to use for analysis in the field. After producing the prototype they’re now planning to include the detection of more pathogens and even more miniaturization to make it even more portable. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #282 A Food Sniffer That Detects Pathogens In Production

Drakoulis Yannoukakos, Director of Research at NCSR “Demokritos” and Director of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, talks about hereditary ovarian and breast cancer. Their research involves hereditary factors that lead to cancer in very young women, between the ages of 30-35 and even younger. By analysing the family genome they’re trying to discover the molecular mutations that are responsible for the early onset of cancer, which although it could be blamed on environmental issues is not that often a cause in so young ages. Interviewed by Vicki Kolovou for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #283 Researching Ovarian and Breast Cancer in Young Women

Alceste Bonanos, a passionate astronomer and Assoc. Researcher at the National Observatory of Athens talks about two very interesting research projects realised by her team: the goal of the first one is to identify over a period of three years all variable stars ever observed by Hubble telescope and make a catalog of them; while the second (which is called Neliota and it is actually an ESA activity taking place at NOA) has to do with the observation and detection of the impacts of really small (with a mass less than 10 grams) objects (eg. debris, meteorites, comets etc.) hitting the surface of the Moon. For the implementation of this project, a rather outdated 1,2 m. telescope near Kiato, Greece, was recently upgraded and special instruments had to be developed. This project -only the 3rd of its kind in the world- will last until Nov ‘18. Interviewed by Yannis Rizopoulos for Tech Talks Central.

TTC #286 Looking at the Dark Side of the Moon… and Counting Hits!

The Tech Talks Central web radio covers all the hot topics and trends in the connected world and features interactive interviews with thought leaders, as well as movers and shakers of the tech industry.
It’s a joint venture between entrepreneurs working in the mobile and technology field and people who love the radio waves!

TTC #286 Looking at the Dark Side of the Moon… and Counting Hits!

Tech Talks Central

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