Dean Rodolphe el-Khoury was invited to share his work on “embedded intelligence” as a guest speaker at Effat University’s 15th Learning and Technology Conference. Effat University, Saudi Arabia’s first private non-profit women’s university, hosted the two-day conference with the theme “Internet of Things...Embedding Intelligence."
Dean el-Khoury’s discussion “From Smart Bricks to Smart Cities,” explained how the internet and the web have opened a new world that is mainly accessible through the screens of dedicated devices, He proposed an alternative scenario where intelligence and web access is integrated into the built environment, engaged directly with all the senses. The University of Miami School of Architecture is prototyping this future, one object at a time, in a world of objects that communicate, respond, and smartly react to our presence and needs. The Dean’s presentation surveyed the works of RAD-UM, a research lab at U-SoA dedicated to embedded technology from responsive household objects and connected buildings, to a smart city designed from the ground up in Mexico’s Yucatan Province.
In addition to attracting leading educators and students, the conference united business leaders, technology experts, policy-makers and government officials from within, as well as from outside the Kingdom. “We have been organizing the Learning and Technology Conference annually since 2002 and this year is especially important at national and regional levels because the Internet of Things (IOT) has transformed the educational landscape and paved the way for enriched learning experiences.” commented Dr. Haifa Jamal Al-Lail, president of the university.
