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Finalists to battle it out at Fusionopolis for top prize of USD100,000 Global, 17 January 2008 -- A*STAR announced a global competition to develop technologies for a rich media search engine that will be smart enough to identify text, audio and video containing any word, even if that word, or search term, has not yet been tagged in the internet material. Millions of search engine users around the world stand to gain from such technologies that will help them navigate the rich material that is now on the Internet with the current Web 2.0 phenomenon and the proliferation of user-generated new media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Flickr. Called The Star Challenge 2008, the eight-month competition offers a cash prize of USD100,000 and is open to anyone located anywhere in the world, particularly top software engineers, leading researchers and search media enthusiasts who want to embark on discovering the next holy grail for the search technology industry. The competition is organised as part of the official opening of Fusionopolis, Singapore’s science & technology powerhouse to shape the lifestyles and economy of the future. When opened in October 2008, Fusionopolis will see the congregation of more than 1500 scientific talents from diverse scientific fields integrating their capabilities to jointly create the highly-complex technologies of the future. “This global competition is not just about running another digital or software competition,” said Mr Lim Chuan Poh, Chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). “Developing such search capabilities will radically change the way people interact with multi-media information, creating seamless and accessible platforms for people across different online communities. This is the aspiration of Fusionopolis - to bring diverse scientific capabilities together to push the boundaries of science and technology to shape future lifestyles and industries. The STAR Challenge is A*STAR’s invitation to top talent from any part of the world to come to Fusionopolis to experience and participate in our multidisciplinary R&D environment,” added Mr Lim. “The coming together of different scientific disciplines at Fusionopolis offers enormous potential to create new knowledge to tackle global challenges that can no longer be approached from a single discipline”, said Professor Charles Zukoski, the Chairman of A*STAR Science and Engineering Research Council and Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Internet search today is largely text-based. Results from current online search technologies originate mainly from specific “tagging” of materials on the Internet. ”Simply put, how successful you are in your search now depends on how extensively the information for which you are searching has been tagged by creators or users,” said Professor Chong Tow Chong, Executive Director of A*STAR’s Science and Engineering Research Council. “Now imagine a rich-media search engine intelligent enough to search millions of media files on the worldwide web and, for example, find all audio files that contain a specific word, say ‘exuberant’, in the lyrics even in the absence of any tagged information for ‘exuberant’,” Prof Chong said. The next-generation search engines will “know” how the word ‘exuberant’ sounds in a song, even in the absence of any tagged information for the word ‘exuberant’ in a song.” Such search engine technologies will help users navigate the large amount of rich media materials that are uploaded on the Internet including images, videos, TV shows and radio programmes but which are currently hidden behind hypertext pages. The multi-stage competition will see teams trying to outdo one another in creating algorithms that can search audio and video files for specific characteristics, objects and events at record time, in the absence of tagged information. An international advisory panel consisting of renowned experts such as Prof. Randy Katz (Berkeley), Prof. Linda Shapiro (University of Washington), Prof. Chang Shih-Fu (Columbia) and Prof. Wong Lim Soon (National University of Singapore) will oversee and validate this inaugural technology competition. The top five teams with the best search results will be flown to Fusionopolis from any part of the world for the finals to be held in October 2008. Registration is at http://www.thestarchallenge.sg and will close on 29 February 2008. About A*STAR: About A*STAR & Fusionopolis A*STAR is Singapore's lead agency for fostering world-class scientific research and talent for a vibrant knowledge-based Singapore. A*STAR actively nurtures public sector research and development in Biomedical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering, with a particular focus on fields essential to Singapore's manufacturing industry and new growth industries. It oversees 14 research institutes, 7 research consortia and supports extramural research with the universities, hospital research centres and other local and international partners. To be opened in October 2008, Fusionopolis is Singapore’s knowledge powerhouse that aims to push the boundaries of science and technology to create scientific breakthroughs and technologies that will shape the lifestyles and economy of the future. It offers a unique R&D environment, with a focus on science at the intersection of diverse fields to create the highly-complex technologies of the future. It also fosters a dynamic culture of collaboration between public sector and corporate R&D that will accelerate the development of ideas from “lab” to “life”. Fusionopolis is located adjacent to Biopolis, Singapore’s hub for biomedical research that throws up even more opportunities for a fusion of scientific capabilities. Six research institutes under A*STAR’s Science and Engineering cluster will be relocating to Fusionopolis from early 2008. For more information, please visit: http://www.a-star.edu.sg Media Contacts: Jimmy Lim Assistant Head, Corporate Communications A*STAR Tel: +65 6826 6344 Submitted by David Chin, Hill and Knowlton on Thursday, 17 January 2008 at 12:17 PM Category: Science & Research |
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