May 2016, Bucharest, Romania
- Idu Interactive, you are creating projects in order to offer ”transformative experiences”. What do you mean by that and… how you do that?
“Transformative experiences” are experiences that have a long lasting impact on people.
We are working on systems, technologies, interactions… that enlighten visitors of museums, cultural heritage sites, and cities by helping them, in a smart way, to better connect with and understand knowledge spread (and sometimes hidden) within these environments. Maintaining and enhancing the interest and curiosity of visitors, and ensuring they have fun while discovering new things is another important focus for us.
In order to achieve such effects, we combine the most recent findings of various research fields, such as artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and evolutionary anthropology in order to develop applications with an understanding of their users, the context they are used in, and the knowledge they have to transfer.
- What are the projects you are going to present at Rocket Museum 2016?
At Museum Rocket 2016, we showcase the current version of KASSIS, the Knowledge Assistant. KASSIS is fine-tuned for museums and cultural heritage, and currently integrates what we sum up as a “smart design for knowledge transfer”. We have put a lot of effort in making it as simple and intuitive as possible. What we present is the first step of a long-term effort, and our research team is currently working on other very exciting stuff we hope to ship in fall.
- How and where from do you choose your clients – only from the art field?
Since we have launched IDÛ Interactive, we have participated to, or been invited to present in several events dedicated to the museum and tourism industries. The many discussions and exchanges we had helped us better frame and understand needs of our target customers. Many of our current clients and partners (museums and cities) are people we met during these events. We think they believe both in our vision and our team.
So we essentially focus on museum and tourism industries. But we also continue a few additional research projects, which includes a collaboration with a North American university to design and develop smart technologies for medical education.
- You are working on the idea of inserting artificial intelligence in education. Can you give us more details?
“Artificial Intelligence in Education” is an established research field (indeed a few researchers are working on it in Romania). To summarize, its goal is to develop educational technology able to understand the unique characteristics of a user, and to dynamically adapt its way of teaching in order to optimize learning. This is especially relevant when education/training is costly or when there is a lack of teachers e.g. because the topic is new/complex or because students are geographically-isolated.
Artificial Intelligence in Education is a complex interdisciplinary research field that requires broad technological mastery, as well as a strong understanding of many theories from the humanities, which is why there are not so many experts worldwide. Companies, especially in the US, already apply techniques from this field in domains such as classic education or military training, but IDÛ Interactive is the first and only one to currently focus on the museum and tourism industries.
Existing techniques from Artificial Intelligence in Education can strongly enhance museum and cultural heritage experiences: visitors are diverse (age group, cultural group), they have different expectations when going to museums, emotions they feel impact on their interpretations and interest, they may need tailored guidance, they may like more or less support… Research already investigates similar challenges. Yet, museum and cultural heritage settings are also very different from classic education, and this is something we keep in mind when we conduct our own investigations.
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On June 8 2016, Idu Interactive takes part into Rocket Museum Bucharest, Romania, the first event of its kind to introduce young creators and small businesses to culture experts and leaders.
Curated by We Are Museums, it will exhibit 20 selected regional and European startups who have developed ideas that can be a great fit for museums.
Details (in RO) here
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