The Digitalization Platform should catalyze multidisciplinary research activities
Questions and answers to Tobias Oechtering - the new director for KTH Digitalization platform
Tobias Oechtering is a Professor in the Information Science and Engineering division of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science school. His own research is mostly theoretical in the area of information theory and statistical signal processing. Dealing with the fundamentals allows him to quickly adapt to new application domains, where he strongly benefits from the collaboration with researchers from the corresponding domains. Jointly with his PhD students, he currently pursue research in privacy, identification, learning, and wireless communications.
Why do KTH need a Digitalization platform?
KTH needs the Digitalization Platform. The platform should serve as an umbrella and it should be inclusive – everybody at KTH can participate. It also should serve as a first contact and to some extend shield the research centers that should be more exclusive. The main goals of the platform are to spread information, help to connect relevant people internally and externally, and enable activities. In the end, the platform actions should be of value for the researchers and the environment.
Describe the KTH Digitalization Platform?
KTH has a broad and deep research profile in the area of information and communication technology. However, digitalization is more. We currently see that digitalization is penetrating every façade in our daily life as well as every research domain. The digitalization platform should be the place that brings together the researchers from the ICT core domains and researchers from other domains pushing forward the research in the digitalization domain.
What do you want to achieve with the KTH Digitalization platform?
The platform should catalyze multidisciplinary research activities, build and maintain internal relations also within the ICT domain and enhance external KTH visibility and recognition. It should provide service to the researchers enabling activities to enhance and strengthen the research environment.
Any upcoming ideas?
The platform initially wants to support and coordinate actions on (long-term) data storage and data lab. We need to bring together those who have the data and those who have the expert knowledge to analyze it. In the ideal case, the data is made available to a larger group. This would give the potential for data driven innovation, but we could also use it in our education. Thus, everybody who believes in this vision should reach out to us so that we can coordinate related activities. I believe that this is a perfect example where the platform can help, but for success we need the participation of the researchers in our platform actions!
What are your goals and expectations for the job as the director for the digitalization platform?
I hope my work will produce some added value to the researchers and research environment. I am looking forward to this new exciting role after I previously worked as impact leader for my school for almost four years.
Text: Cecilia Aflodal