daytaOhio Grand Opening to Feature Technology Demos, A 'Deal-Making' Conference to Kick Off Project Development

Business Wire, Oct 27, 2006

DAYTON, Ohio -- daytaOhio, a non-profit corporation that supports a consortium of organizations working to solve the complexities of large-scale data management issues, will swing open its doors today during the dedication of the Krishan and Vicky Joshi Research Center at Wright State University. Wasting no time, representatives of industry, government and academia will spend the afternoon at an invitation-only conference to identify up to four data-intensive projects for daytaOhio to tackle in the coming months.

The dedication at 10:30 a.m. will be followed by an open house with demonstrations of the conferencing features of the center, including a 3D, stereo-interactive visualization laboratory, the first of its kind in Ohio.

The daytaOhio mission is to bring together world-class researchers in data management innovation with entrepreneurs and industry to promote the commercialization of new technologies and create new, high valued jobs for Ohio. The Joshi Research Center will allow the WSU College of Engineering and Computer Sciences to help train engineers and computer scientists with the entrepreneurial skills needed to move into the commercial sector with both technical and business acumen.

The Joshi Research Center, which houses daytaOhio on its second floor, gives daytaOhio the capability to perform on this promise of economic growth. daytaOhio anticipates that up to 500 jobs will be created in the next three years. The center provides well-designed office space, office "hotels" or cubes for visiting partners' project leaders and conference facilities, powered by Barco-produced simulation technology, where members can collaborate in a thoroughly creative environment.

"We are elated to finally be in our new quarters so that we can ramp up our project work," said Paul Cashen, president of daytaOhio. "We now have the space and equipment to launch projects that will create hundreds of new jobs as our applications are commercialized by partner companies or as collaborators go off to form new companies under-girded with the technology they develop here."

The facility is equipped with intelligent presentation systems and large-scale, immersive, virtual reality technology for collaboration, analysis, and decision making. Called the Barco I-Space and CADWall systems, the visualization room provided by Barco Simulation of Xenia uses a total of six high-fidelity projectors for active 3D stereo visualization.

The Barco CADWall is the first installation in the U.S. using Barco's new XDS-1000 system, which allows the CADWall to simultaneously display numerous sources of video, data, and network resources from two different workstations in multiple windows in mono and stereo on a room-size projection canvas. This system is scalable, allowing it to expand to include many more projectors for higher-resolution imaging.

The Barco CADWall can handle the large-scale viewing of data from up to 20 people in various locations.

Examples of types of projects that daytaOhio now can support for business include data-intensive systems for oil and gas exploration, improved blood and tissue matching national databases and faster searching and analysis with massive databases of information. Similarly, daytaOhio will tackle technology development for government services.

"Many of the tools and techniques developed for business sectors can deliver equally profound benefits to government and the military. Projects we already have identified as promising include sensor-based security systems, medical care delivery in extreme environments and aerospace simulation and modeling," Cashen said.

daytaOhio has identified supply chain management, bioinformatics and capabilities planning as initial data intensive areas in which Ohio can set itself apart through the use of commercially ready advanced data management and analysis techniques.

In January 2007, Dr. Amit Sheth of the University of Georgia will take up residence at the center as the LexisNexis eminent scholar, joined by researchers who will direct upcoming daytaOhio projects.

Dr. Sheth is the keynote speaker at the luncheon preceding the afternoon deal-making conference, "From Research to Reality."

daytaOhio has invited researchers and industry and government representatives to come up with four collaborative project ideas. The general research areas they will delve into include "Management Networking to the Next Level," "Supply Chain Management and RFID (radio frequency identification)," and "Visualization Applications" and "Sensor Technology."

daytaOhio will provide cash awards of up to $25,000 to the four winning teams - or one dollar for every two in funds raised from other sources - to purchase assets or equipment. Project awards will be announced sometime following the conference.

About daytaOhio

daytaOhio is an independent, world-class center for advancing research and commercialization of data intensive information technology. Wright State University is the lead research collaborator and houses daytaOhio in the Krishan and Vicky Joshi Research Center. daytaOhio has targeted a $50 billion market opportunity and is driving technology job creation, economic development, global market research and world-class commercialization growth models. The State of Ohio provided $12.6 million to establish the organization as part of its Third Frontier Project managed by the Ohio Department of Development. daytaOhio's 35 industry, academic, government and non-profit partners have pledged more than $34.5 million in support for the center.