GridOrbit - Elevator Pitch

Hello All,

As a good salesman is to be able to push his product in a few lines, researchers are expected to present their work in a few lines as well. The hypothetical case is to be in the elevator and meet that famous professor you want to pay a visit in his lab. He asks you something like "so, what is you research about?". In that case you could choose talking about your research in general, or a very particular project you are running.

As I am starting my second year as a PhD student, I don't really have a very well defined research question, therefore I cannot talk about my research in general as it would play against myself. But what I can say is about the project I am working on at the moment. So, here I go with my elevator pitch:

We are working on GridOrbit, an awareness public display that visualizes activity in a community grid system for executing bioinformatics analysis in a biology laboratory. A community grid system relies on users that donate CPU cycles to the grid. The goal of GridOrbit is to provide awareness of the research taking place in the biology laboratory using the grid, promoting contribution of computing power to the grid, and thereby mediate its appropriation. GridOrbit visualizes the activity in the grid, shows information about the different active projects, and supports a messaging functionality where people comment on the projects. Our work explores the usage of interactive technologies as enablers for appropriation of infrastructure.

I will try it next time when I meet a cool professor.

Regards,
Juan David

From Technology Transference to Technology Creation

I have got multiple friends who are coming back home to Colombia after a work season abroad. And since I plan to do so sometime in the future, I am very interested in hearing about their "coming back" home, and specially the job market. Most of them are very disappointed after their first weeks because of the rather "boring" job opportunities compared to what's available abroad, but they eventually give up their old expectations and merge into the labor market.

In this post, I put forward my opinion on what the technology situation is, and some potential triggers for going from Technology Transfer to Technology Creation.

Colombia has for many years been very good at producing software developers and systems engineers. That's very good because people are very competitive in the job markets, both locally and abroad. Technology and knowledge in mainstream software development from worldwide industries and research centres are eventually studied, learned, and adopted by Colombian companies and universities. Therefore we see very high quality software development companies, and very little threats from global competitors (off-shoring development is not really a threat when the price differences don't justify all the management trouble). We will call this a successful transfer of technology. However, this transfer focuses mostly in the adoption of upcoming or already established software technologies or practices, and almost never in research topics and innovation. The technology transfer is very successful, but the tech industry is yet very service oriented, instead of product oriented. We keep tailor making more of the same (ERPs, CRMs, WebApps, basic electronic components, etc), but never really go out with innovative products that can reach scale economy.

And it's this lack of innovation what makes jobs so boring for the returnees.



If we look at the image for technology adoption (I don't remember where I got it from), I would say we are still somewhere between Early Majority and Late Majority. What I really mean is that we not only don't produce technology, but we don't embrace it early enough (I would love to back up this argument with some real fieldwork, but that never kept a blogger from writing).

This lack of innovation is the result of almost nonexistent venture capitalism, and technology research. My claim is, for reversing the current brain drain, and making it more appealing for returnees, there should be more investing in basic research and venture capital available. Well, I know that's a lot to ask for a developing country, but it's an investment that really pays off (specially since the leadership for such a move are already more than willing to do it).

Regards,
Juan David

What is a Doctoral Colloquium?

Some weeks ago, I took part in the Doctoral Colloquium of the Pervasive 2009 conference. For getting into it, I had to write a 8 pages paper describing what I have been doing and the expected results. Everything looked nice and easy, it was going to be a plain presentation and simple discussion. However, before going on the trip I had some doubts growing bigger and bigger into my head, as to what was the protocol for such an event. What was I expected to say about my project? Was it project centred? Thesis centred? I don't event know what my thesis is going to be about!!! So I freaked out.

That's when I rushed into my supervisor, Jakob Bardram, who those questions replayed with some advised, that I, honestly, didn't really got. Anyway, to Japan I took off.

I can say a Doctoral Colloquium looks pretty much like this:



... and not only one professor, but many of them. And they don't care!

So, after having reflected over what went wrong over and over again, here I sketch out a few pieces of knowledge that can be useful:

- As a PhD student try to go to a Doctoral Colloquium early in your studies, and by early I mean during the first year.

- There is a big difference between your projects, your research and your dissertation. In a few words the research is your general topic, as an example we can think of "soccer tactics". That's a very broad topic where I lot of researchers have worked, and there is probably a dedicated research community. Your projects are particular experiments within the field, like user studies, or a new method for doing something, or a system given to the users, etc. These projects look at very specific things within your research. Your dissertation, however, is your key ideas and what you will hopefully contribute to the community. This dissertation will hopefully establish connections between your different projects. Coming back to our soccer example we could say a dissertation could be on "efficiency of multi-tactics approach for second league matches".

- At the Doctoral Colloquium you are, hopefully, with some of the most qualified scientists in your research community. And they don't want to hear so much about your projects, as about your dissertation. So, that's the key: focus on your dissertation. Try answering the question: What is it that you want to contribute to the field?

- Later on, I learned that a good Doctoral Colloquium presentation would divide the time approximately like this (the percentages represent the time spent at each item):

1. 5% - Present your thesis (right, you do this after greeting, and introducing yourself, your affiliation and your adviser). This is a one-liner.
2. 50% - Why are you doing it? This will require you to talk about state of the art, and how you project differs from what others have done. A good trick here is praising some good work from other people, outline their features, and introduce the big "BUT" or "HOWEVER".
3. 20% - What are you doing to explore/test/prove your thesis? In this part is where you, very overly, describe the project you've done/are doing. Not much details, just the overall picture.
4. 25% - What are the stoppers? The dark-areas? The foreseeable problems? This is very important because it serves two purposes: first, you feed the egos of the attendees by making them feel wise and needed (that's why they attended the symposium). Second, you can get a lot of very wise and needed advise on how to carry on your research. How to focus you experiments, and what to pay really attention. This is the real value of the Doctoral Colloquium.

Regards,
Juan David

Grid Awareness MDE - Poster

Hello All,

Next week I will be attending the Ubiquitous Computing Spring School at the University of Nottingham. According to the programme it's going to be such cool experience (they even asked us to bring our swimming suits for the pool at the hotel's spa).

They also asked us to bring a poster for our PhD researches. Therefore I made mine:



You can download a PDF version of it here: Download >>

Regards, and enjoy it!!!

2009 Early Goals Reached

Hello All,

OK, I know I have been pretty quite lately with this blog, but today I will tell you what has been keeping me busy. First of all: University. I have just been notified that my PhD work has been accepted for the Doctoral Colloquium at Pervasive 2009 in Nara, Japan. You can just imagine how badly happy I am about this good news: first, because it shows that there might be someone actually interested in all the things I am doing; second, because I will fulfil another one of my childhood dreams, namely, to visit Japan. That's gonna be so cool. By the way, my PhD research is about bringing a lot of elements from the Pervasive Computing field into the molecular biology lab. I would be very happy if you take a look at the submitted paper for the conference and let me know what you think. Download Here >>

The second thing keeping me busy is, once again, all those thoughts about politics, economics, developments, etc. So I decided to write an article and submitted it for the Saint Gallen Symposium 2009, in Saint Gallen, Switzerland (I already applied and made it to Saint Gallen 2006). The outcome is that this year I will also be invited to Saint Gallen as a participant. That's definitely a cool experience, with all the putsch it can be. Please take a look at my contribution, it's a good piece of state-of-the-art development policy. Download Here >>.

Last, and maybe least, is that my two good friends Andres Castaño and Juan David Gonzalez, and me, are launching a new blog in Spanish called called "Al Dia Movil" http://blog.aldiamovil.com/ about mobile technologies. It's not aimed at the tech-savvy but rather to entrepreneurs and business decision makers. I hope all of you that can read Spanish sign up for the feed.

OK, that's it for now. Any questions? Let me know!

Richard St. John: 8 Secrets of Success

Another great TED speech.



Regards,
Juan David

Grid Awareness as Persuasive Technology

Grid computing as been "the power behind" many applications. Grid solutions have covered services from file sharing, to web serving, to high load algorithm execution. Grid architectures have been traditionally those of server farms and clusters. However, recent works try to use P2P networks in the construction of grids with highly distributed and heterogeneous computers. 

The MiniGrid project explores the possibilities of using grid technologies, with a P2P architecture, in the everyday workings of a molecular biology lab. Our efforts focus in the usage of the MiniGrid for executing parallel versions of DNA analysis algorithms.

The P2P nature of the MiniGrid leads us to the problem of having a peer base big enough for the grid to offer a substantial advantage in terms of processing power. However, peers are managed by people, and this people need to be approached in order to have them join the grid. For this purpose I am exploring an interdisciplinary solution. Dragging elements from the Persuasive Technology and the Pervasive Computing fields, our Grid Awareness system proposal intents to persuade a research group to use the MiniGrid.

The Grid Awareness system (the name might change) is a Multi-Display Environment (MDE) that builds on concepts from calm technology to show the level of activity of the grid at a given time. The system has a standalone screen, a public touch screen and a web interface. The target organization is a molecular biology research group made up of 30 researchers. The aim is to have the researchers use the grid due to the persuasive mechanism of the MDE system.

The system will tap into the P2P network of the MiniGrid and continuously gather data about the grid usage. This data is later converted into graphics that reflect the level of activity in the grid. Initially, the Public Screen and the Web Interface components of the MDE will be deployed without using the grid. The researchers will see the drawings both in the corridors of their lab and on the web page, and they will have no information as what the drawings mean. After a week or two an initial group of 2 researchers will start using the grid services. As they use the MiniGrid the activity is reflected in the MDE system. Along with the new images a leaflet explaining the reasong for changes in the screen is made available, and instructions for how to join the MiniGrid. The MDE has to be designed and deployed in such a way that the researchers are motivated to join the MiniGrid so their activity is also reflected in the MDE.

Now, I will describe what the persuasive side of such a system is, according to Fogg's perspectives to Persuasive Computing:

1. Intentionality Perspective: The grid awareness system described before would inherit both endogenous persuasive intent and exogenous persuasive intent. The endogenous intent is inherited due to own intent as technology designers to persuade the researchers in the group to use the MiniGrid services. The exogenous intent is inherited because of the desire and sponsoring of the group leaders to have the system persuade the researchers to use the MiniGrid.
   
   
2. Functional Triad Perspective: The Grid Awareness system leverages the tool and medium persuasive technology areas. The system works as a tool as long as it allows the users to interactively monitor the state of the grid and get information about its usage and their participation in it. The system also works as a medium because it provides visualization mechanisms, promotes the understanding of cause/effect relationships and motivates by providing a "feeling" of the MiniGrid.
   
   
3. Level of Analysis Perspective: The Grid Awareness system is targeted at the organizational level, due to being the research group as a whole the beneficiary of the adoption of the MiniGrid.

Conclusions

This blog posts presented the Grid Awareness system that I am working for as part of my PhD. The system is grounded in concepts from Pervasive Computing and Persuasive Computing. And in the near future I will be publishing here more details regarding the design and implementation.