MIMOS & UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK (UNIMAS) TO ESTABLISH CENTER OF EXCELLENCE IN SEMANTIC TECHNOLOGY

From Left: UNIMAS Dean of the Faculty of Human Sciences and Cognitive Development Dr Shahren Ahmad Zaidi Adruce; UNIMAS Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Innovation) Prof. Dr. Murtedza Mohamed; MIMOS President & Chief Executive Officer, Dato’ Abdul Wahab Abdullah; and Head of Knowledge Technology Cluster, Dr. Dickson Lukose at the MoA signing ceremony.

Kuala Lumpur, 4 April 2008 – MIMOS and Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) today signed a Memorandum of Agreement to establish a Centre of Excellence in Semantic Technology.

Semantics is the study of meaning; while Semantic Technologies include software standards and methodologies that are aimed at providing more explicit meaning for the information at one’s disposal.

Currently, MIMOS is working with UNIMAS’ Faculty of Computing Science and Information Technology on Language Technology productisation initiatives for commercialization of language-based technology.

UNIMAS was chosen as it has the critical mass in artificial intelligence (A.I). It is the only university in Malaysia with A.I departments in two separate faculties namely The Faculty of Cognitive Science and the Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology.

“Semantic technology is the core to the next-generation Web 3.0 development which promises knowledge to be an integral part of our daily lives. In our efforts to ensure Malaysia is recognized as the first Web 3.0 society in the world, MIMOS is spearheading the development of the Centre of Excellence in Semantics Technology (to be established in partnership with UNIMAS) aimed at nurturing domain experts in semantics technology, thereby making the Knowledge-society a reality,” said Dato’ Abdul Wahab Abdullah, President & Chief Executive Officer, MIMOS.

The Centre of Excellence in Semantics Technology is part of MIMOS endeavours in driving universities towards the National Technology Roadmap aimed at serving as a compass for researchers in translating their work into benefits from the strategic, social and economic aspects towards achieving the national aspiration of K-nation.

MIMOS’ Semantic Technology Platform has the potential to deploy intelligent applications in the following areas:
v Business (Data Integration, Data mining, Business Intelligence)
v Banking and Financial (Predictive analysis)
v Speech (Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing)
v Healthcare (Clinical Decision Support System, Medical Expert System)
v Automotive (Self-driving, Safety –driven intelligent controller)
v Automated Programming
v Meaning Based Search Engine

MIMOS as the premier applied research centre in frontier technologies is well positioned to develop semantic technology platforms for Service Oriented Architecture (SoA) and Web services as the backbone for the indigenous industries.