IoT Things Event 4th and 5th February 2017

Taken from: Budding entrepreneurs have the chance to turn their ideas into reality

This weekend sees the second University of Northampton Internet of Things (IoT) event; a three-day event that will focus on entrepreneurship and technology, with participants having the opportunity to start up their own enterprise.

Taking place at the University’s Park Campus on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 February, with a follow up day on Saturday 4 March, the event will feature speakers from big industry names, such as Google Digital Garage, Catapult Transform Systems and Parallel Wireless.

The participants will take part in a series of workshops and will eventually be separated into ‘startup’ groups where they will be provided with basic technical equipment to get started setting up their own technology business based around the theme of transportation and logistics.

They will then be invited back in March to try to secure funding by presenting their ideas to a Dragon’s Den style panel, competing against the other start up teams.

Dr Triantafyllos Kanakis, from the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology at the University of Northampton, commented: “The rapid development of the Internet in recent years and the huge acceptance of technology by the consumer has fundamentally had an impact of all our lives.

“In previous years the time between major technological breakthroughs was between 10 and 15 years but now it is less than five years. Part of this is played by the Internet of Things, which due to its vast size, it is still impossible to predict its impact on the market.

“This event is a great way for students and budding entrepreneurs to learn first-hand about creating a startup business. The workshops and presentations will provide the knowledge they need to think about how to use technology to tackle projects, the art of business planning and how to reach customers. This is their opportunity to turn their ideas into reality.”

Find out more about the Internet of Things event and how to register

All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

PhD student awarded best paper for her revolutionary research in wireless communication

Taken from: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/phd-student-awarded-best-paper-for-her-revolutionary-research-in-wireless-communication/

Not only was PhD student Alyaa Al-Barrak awarded the best paper at a recent conference, she has also had an offer for her paper to be published in a digital library, which hosts documents  from some of the world’s most highly cited publications in the engineering and computer science field.

The eighth Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Conference was held at the University of Essex and is a great opportunity for researchers to meet and network with peers in the same field. Alyaa presented her research paper on wireless communication and the errors that can occur due to noise, reflection, diffraction, shadowing, fading and in particular the multipath phenomenon and the most widely used technique to correct it. Her paper was awarded first place out of 93 other papers, which has led to an inclusion in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Xplore Digital Library and an offer to publish an extended paper in a journal.

Alyaa said: “I was so pleased to be awarded the best paper at the conference and consider this a great achievement which has encouraged me to go further in this field. It has also provided me with evidence that I am delivering high-quality research and it will be a great addition to my CV.”

Robin Crockett, Alyaa’s Director of Studies, said: “Alyaa’s supervisors, Ali Al-Sherbaz, Triantafyllos Kanakis and myself are immensely proud of Alyaa. This is a major achievement and major recognition of Alyaa’s work from other researchers in the field of digital communications.”

Triantafyllos Kanakis, Lecturer in Computing, commented: “The solution proposed in this paper is revolutionary, drastically increasing the overall performance of a wireless system while saving expensive channel resources from retransmission.”

Ali Al-Shabaz, Senior Lecturer in Computing, commented: “The research outcomes of this work will have an impact on future technology and smart applications. The next stage of Alyaa’s research is expected to find more interesting results which will be worthy of publication in a journal with a high impact factor.”

All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with. Twitter: @scottturneruon

From a talking car to autonomous vacuum cleaners

Taken from: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/from-a-talking-car-to-autonomous-vacuum-cleaners-science-fiction-becomes-science-fact-for-dr-kanakis/

Pictured with the autonomous vacuum cleaner are, from left, Hasan Abo Dihin, Mohammed Al-Khafajiy and Dr Triantafyllos Kanakis

When Triantafyllos Kanakis was a child, one of the most popular television shows was Knight Rider, which starred David Hasselhoff as the crime fighter with a talking car for a sidekick.

“His character would talk to his car via his wrist watch,” said the Computing Lecturer, who teaches within the University of Northampton’s School of Science and Technology.

“At the time, that just seemed impossible to me, something you could only imagine. But what was then science fiction, is now science fact, as smart watches and wearable internet-connected devices are becoming commonplace.”

The relentless march of technology presents a huge opportunity for students at the University, who belong to the most tech-savvy generation the world has seen – and Dr Kanakis is helping to prepare them for a future where, seemingly, anything is possible.

“Right now, the Internet of Things (IoT) is a huge concept which, simply put, will mean that every device you can think of that can power up could potentially be controlled from the internet via a PC, laptop, smartphone, and so on.

“Therefore, IoT is the foundation of tomorrow’s smart homes, smart offices, smart cities, smart transport – smart everything.

“There’s so much potential to make life easier and improve our world, from health through to public transport.”

To help Computing undergraduates develop their skills in this area, Dr Kanakis and his colleagues from the University’s Computing Society launched an Internet of Things competition.

It challenged students to devise their own IoT project, build a prototype and pitch it as a high-tech business idea to a Dragons’ Den-style panel – all within a week.

On the panel was Dr Christos Tsotskas, from Catapult Transport Systems, who gave the students an overview of a project he’s working on which would see driver-less pods take to streets of Milton Keynes.

Dr Tsotskas also coordinated an ideas session on the business aspects of a hypothetical IoT project.

The contest saw one team developed the concept for a smart mirror, another devised a way to control lights from a mobile phone, but it was an autonomous vacuum cleaner that cleaned up on the day, taking first place.

Here’s a video of the vacuum cleaner, which was developed by students Hasan Abo Dihin, Mohammed Mohammed and Mohammed Al-Khafajiy:

“In a few years’ time, the Internet of Things will change our lives because almost anything will be able to be controlled by the internet to make life easier,” said Mohammed Al-Khafajiy.

“This competition was excellent – it allowed us to develop an idea, build a prototype and also made us think about how we could pitch our concept to a business.

“These are just the sort of skills we need to develop for our future careers.”

The Internet of Things competition was such a success, the Department of Computing, with the support of the Computing Society, plans to repeat it next academic year.

Pictured with the autonomous vacuum cleaner are, from left, Hasan Abo Dihin, Mohammed Al-Khafajiy and Dr Triantafyllos Kanakis.

If you'd like to find out more about Computing at the University of Northampton go to: www.computing.northampton.ac.uk. All views and opinions are the author's and do not necessarily reflected those of any organisation they are associated with