NTU to develop smart technologies to enhance workplace safety and courtroom procedures

MCLEAN, VA and SINGAPORE--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Smart technologies, such as sensors to improve workplace safety and artificial intelligence to aid courtrooms, could emerge from a new research partnership between Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and The MITRE Corporation from the United States.

MITRE is a not-for-profit organization that operates federally funded research and development centers in the U.S., providing the US government with engineering, technical and scientific expertise in areas of defence, aviation, homeland security, U.S. courts, healthcare and cybersecurity.

NTU and MITRE signed two research agreements today at MITRE's McLean campus in Virginia, U.S., signed by NTU Provost Professor Freddy Boey and MITRE's Senior Vice President Lillian Zarrelli Ryals.

The joint research partnership aims to develop innovative technologies to support Singapore's Smart Nation ambitions and improve safety in workplaces, and in Judicial Engineering, which aims to improve productivity and processes for the Singapore courts.

Prof Boey said the tie-up brings Singapore a step closer to achieving its Smart Nation vision as the country develops new technologies to tackle critical challenges such as labour shortfall and a rapidly aging workforce.

"This new partnership brings together MITRE's strengths in smart technologies and judiciary engineering with NTU's expertise in systems engineering as well as our track record in sustainable and intelligent technologies," said Prof Boey.

"Partnering with the best global players like MITRE for interdisciplinary research is important as NTU continues to develop innovative solutions relevant for Singapore and Asia."

MITRE's Senior Vice President Ms Ryals said, "MITRE looks forward to strengthening its relationship with NTU by entering into new research partnerships focused on judicial systems and personnel/workplace safety. NTU's extremely strong technical expertise, combined with MITRE's systems engineering acumen, will aid both organizations in tackling the most difficult global problems in these domains."

The partnership between NTU and MITRE will look into area of Judicial Engineering, where NTU researchers will work with Singapore's courts to study how technology can help to improve court operations and to increase the productivity of the courts.

New technologies to be explored include artificial intelligence and machine learning, court analytics and decision support systems as well as cybersecurity.

The second thrust of the tie-up will be a focus on secure smart technologies such as sensors, diverse data sources, analytic technologies, and decision support tools.

These smart technologies aim to improve workplace and personnel safety through providing critical safety information gathered through sensors, analytics and other data sources.

For example, smart sensors could gather data on the number of employees in an office building and large installations like the airport and seaport, so as to generate the ideal work environment in terms of oxygen levels, brightness of lighting and ambient temperature based on demand in an area.

In the event of an incident such as a fire, the information picked up by the smart sensors could also help fire safety officers ensure the safe evacuation of everyone.

About Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

A research-intensive public university, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has 33,500 undergraduate and postgraduate students in the colleges of Engineering, Business, Science, Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, and its Interdisciplinary Graduate School. It also has a medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, set up jointly with Imperial College London.

NTU is also home to world-class autonomous institutes - the National Institute of Education, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Earth Observatory of Singapore, and Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering - and various leading research centres such as the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N) and the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight (ACI).

Ranked 13^th in the world, NTU has also been ranked the world's top young university for the last three years running. The University's main campus has been named one of the Top 15 Most Beautiful in the World. NTU also has a campus in Novena, Singapore's medical district.

For more information, visit www.ntu.edu.sg

About The MITRE Corporation

The MITRE Corporation is a private, not-for-profit organization that operates research and development centers for the US government. We provide technical expertise in defense, systems engineering, aviation, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, enterprise modernization, and healthcare. With 70 locations around the world, MITRE collaborates with partner nations, the international community, academia, and research institutions to strengthen national and global security.

In 2015, MITRE opened MITRE Asia Pacific Singapore (MAPS), its first international research and development center in Singapore. Learn more at www.mitre-ap.sg