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SyracuseCoE Presents a Research and Technology Forum with IBM's Jurij Paraszczak

On Monday, Feb. 14, Jurij Paraszczak, Director of Industry Solutions and Smarter Cities at IBM, will discuss "Building a Smarter City through Information Communication Technology and Mathematics" at a SyracuseCoE R&T Forum. The forum will take place at 4 p.m. at the Syracuse Center of Excellence Headquarters, Rm 203 (727 E. Washington Street, Syracuse). Light refreshments will follow.

Abstract

The condensation of some 85% of the global population to within 200 miles of a coastline alone presents a sufficient challenge for cities to deliver just basic services to the city's citizens. Climatic changes which are melting the permafrost of military airfields in the arctic while creating unheard of routes over the polar ice cap are also adding to pressures being exerted on these coastlines. Coupled with the inexorable growth of population it is clear that the current approach in the delivery of city services - from clean water and electricity to the delivery of space for traffic and buildings requires radical restructuring.

The compression of population has another effect - it couples the activity of individuals more closely and emergencies impact larger numbers of citizens - sometimes with unexpected consequences. Cities therefore need to be able to rapidly respond to disruptions orchestrating an orderly and optimized response. For example, knowledge of rainfall provides an opportunity to predict not only road flooding but also the impact on subterranean effects on subways and steam pipe leaks.

We will review the state of the possible in the improvement of the delivery of city services and show examples where predictive models coupled with an appropriate modeling and data acquisition environment can significantly mitigate the stress on cities - essentially rendering them "smarter."
 

Jurij is Director of IBM Research Industry Solutions and the   leader of the Research Smarter Cities  program focusing on helping cities manage the complex set of demands placed on their infrastructure  by their constituents and on the optimization of  flows of energy, people and water through this infrastructure.

As the IBM Research lead for Smarter Cities Jurij is responsible for aligning the 10 Research Laboratories around Smarter Cities opportunities emerging around the globe. 

In this role he is also responsible for integrating research capabilities in, materials and processes,  IT innovation, modeling and optimization to implement  sustainable solutions with IBM’s customers in industries as diverse as retail, telecom, automotive, electric power, government.  In addition Jurij manages a team of specialists who help develop Research innovations in ICT into customer solutions for all industry verticals.

Previously Jurij was Chief Technology Officer of the IBM Venture Capital group and also Director of Technology for the IBM Research Emerging Business Group, where he was  responsible for identifying and harvesting all sources of innovation for IBM’s solutions and products from a the global Venture  community and the Research Division, Prior to these roles, Jurij worked in Digital Media as the CTO and in IBM Research working variously in telecommunications systems,  chip design and materials science focusing on the design and use of materials for semiconductor devices

Jurij has over 55 publications in various areas of telecommunications, technology and systems and over 18 patents in a wide variety of fields including communications, plasma chemistry, microlithography, materials manipulation and chip fabrication, packaging systems, media delivery and characterisation, Jurij has a broad experience to draw on to help span a wide variety of disciplines and to synthesise new approaches to old problems. He obtained his PhD and BSc from the University of Sheffield, UK.