Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2008

News

Shot in the arm for intelligent machines

They may be fast and smart, but will 'intelligent machines' ever compensate for their lack of consciousness?

La Trobe University scientists in Melbourne have joined forces with colleagues in India, Singapore and Japan in a privately-funded venture to develop 'emotionally intelligent' information and communication technologies that can interact with humans in an emotionally intelligent manner.

La Trobe experts in business management and IT and information technology specialists from Singapore-based Aadyana Holdings Pte Ltd are working on emotionally intelligent systems for a range of applications — to improve recruitment and benchmarking decisions in human resources, patient assessment in pre and post-operative health care, and decision-making in managing critical events, security, biometrics and law enforcement.

The University has filed to patent its core technology as a 'Method and System for Monitoring Emotional State Changes'. Chief inventor and Associate Professor in Business, Dr Rajiv Khosla envisages the joint venture will also incorporate other technologies — developed and proven in the market by industry partners into humancentred systems, and business intelligence applications originally developed at La Trobe.

Dr Khosla says the emotionally intelligent recruitment and benchmarking system can generate 'organisation-based benchmarks and profiles to determine emotionally and culturally fit employees'.

The University — through its School of Business in the Faculty of Law and Management — and Aadyana Holdings will launch the joint venture company, Human Mind Innovations Pty Ltd, to research, develop and license their technology globally. The company also aims to develop a Research Centre of Excellence and promote research and training in emotionally intelligent and human-centred systems and technologies.

The partners intend their joint venture will initiate, nurture and develop strategic alliances with industry and research institutions in Australia, Singapore, India, Japan and USA.