By Dr. Henry Tirri
Dr. Tirri is Nokia's Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. In May he helped announce the launch of the $2.25 million Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE.
Over the years, Nokia's innovation has helped to shape the world as we know it. From the first handheld phones in the 1980s, to our PureView imaging technology launched just this year, Nokia has been at the forefront of mobile technology, enabling billions of people around the globe to become inter-connected in ever-increasing ways.
The next stage of computing innovation is taking advantage of the multitude of sensors packed into current and future handsets. Technologies such as accelerometers, touch sensitivity, light sensors, magnetometers, microphones, global positioning, and bandwidth awareness are already common on modern mobile devices, and even more types of sensors will be coming soon.
And yet, every day much of this incredible wealth of digital information about our daily lives and the world around us is going to waste.
We've only just started to explore the benefits of using this data - for example, collecting purchasing preferences, or utilizing aggregate location information to help ease traffic congestion - but there is so much more that can be done. The connectivity, intelligence, and ubiquity of the mobile computing technologies is unprecedented in human history, and we - as a company, and as a people - haven't yet begun to tap the incredible potential of that social data.
At Nokia, we are already investigating new types of sensors which could be integrated into the next generation of intelligent device, with the ultimate goal of using these advanced capabilities to improve the well-being of billions of people around the world. For example, chemical and biochemical sensors can be integrated into device surfaces, environmental sensors can be added to detect UV, humidity, temperature and gases, and cutting edge nanotechnologies can add a range of new functions, including new physical interfaces, and extended battery life.
We're incredibly excited by the potential advances in sensing technology and utilization of the huge amounts of data it will generate. This is why we're sponsoring the Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE. We want to facilitate and expedite research in an area that we believe is incredibly important to the world at large.
Nokia is a proud practitioner of Open Innovation, from our work with industry and governments to create new technology standards, to our collaboration with universities around the world tackling problems that would be difficult or expensive to try to solve alone. But the Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE is a unique and powerful new way of working. Incentivized competitions can bring about exciting advances in technology, having the power to not only drive huge leaps of progress in a short space of time, but one which can also help to create an entire ecosystem of innovators around the challenge itself, enabling new industries to be born.
We are truly thrilled to be launching the Nokia Sensing X CHALLENGE and look forward to the incredible work to come as a result.
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