A Memorandum of Understanding is signed in Denmark between S&T Commission of Shanghai Municipality and Central Denmark Region
After discussions between officials and experts both from Shanghai and Central Denmark Region (CDR), a new Science MoU is signed in Denmark on 25th May. This MoU replaces the Letter of Intention which was signed in March 2008 and strengthen the scientific cooperation between Shanghai and CDR.
According to the MoU, these areas are highlighted: Information Technology (ICT), Health/Life Science and Renewable Energy/Environment. ICT as the first theme was initiated in September 2008 when an IT delegation from CDR visited Shanghai. In late May when the agreement was signed, an IT workshop took place at the same time. A team of Chinese experts in ICT area went to CDR with the officials and had a three-day workshop with Danish experts. Assisted Living and Digital Urban Living are the focus topics. Experts from both sides inspired each other and came up with exciting projects on which they will collaborate on. The 3-minute-presentations of the four project proposals can be viewed here.
Assisted Living may broadly be described in terms of support for healthy, safe and active living. Assisted Living addresses a number of different challenges that generally centres on providing support for the aging population, people with disabilities, people in need of rehabilitation and people with chronic diseases. However, while assisted living is focused on people with special needs some of the technical solutions might be equally applicable by a broader group of people.
In the context of support for the aging population, information and communication technologies (ICT) have often been used to compensate diminished capabilities or monitor the health of a person. This increasingly important area is just one of several areas where Assisted Living is spinning off new business opportunities.
Urban Computing is the integration of computing, sensing, and actuation technologies into everyday urban settings and lifestyles. Those settings include streets, squares, malls, shops, buses and cafés, but also concert halls, museums, libraries, municipality buildings — i.e. any space in the public or semi-public realms of our towns and cities.
Only in the last few years have researchers paid much attention to technologies in these spaces. Urban Computing is bringing pervasive computing out of the traditional built environment such as smart houses or rooms and into the city. The potential applications of Urban Computing range from location based information systems about buses, parking places etc., over displays for commercials and news to more aesthetic and experience oriented applications for entertainment like urban games.
Urban Computing will be affecting the way people make use of urban space, and offers exiting new business opportunities.
Workshops for the other two areas, Health/Life Science and Renewable Energy/Environment., will be held in the next two years.
During the 3 days while the official delegation from Shanghai Municipality were in Denmark, they visited the IT city of Katrinebjerg and the Alexandra Institute to get an impression of the strong position ICT constitutes in Central Denmark Region and how the emphasis on bridging the gap between the ICT corporate sector, research and education has proven very successfully.
The officials also visited the Interactive hospital in Horsens and experienced how pervasive technologies have been deployed in a hospital via interactive surgical units, telephones and plans.
And the visit to the Danish Institute of Agricultural Science in Foulum as centre of biomass and plant research in Denmark, collaborating with many companies was successful and the officials enjoyed both the presentations about bio energy and climate and the visit to the biomass testing center.