Cyprus’s RISE develops user-machine interaction solutions for business

RISE recently developed the Covid-19 contact tracing application which will be put to work in Cyprus within a few weeks of this publication. We’ll be able to identify if you’ve spent more than a certain amount of time within close distance of someone who has been infected,” explains Research Director Yiorgos Chrysanthou.

“The Research Centre on Interactive Media Smart Systems and Emerging Technologies (RISE), which we are rebaptising CYENS Centre of Excellence is an EU and Government funded  Research and Innovation Centre. As a Centre of Excellence, we’re working on academic research at the international level, of course, but at the same time, we are geared towards more applied research,  trying to find practical solutions for industry, both local and international.

We consider most applications that have interaction between user and machine to fall in our area of expertise. It’s essentially ICT expertise. But it’s also multidisciplinary, because we have experts on human factors, on psychology, on artificial intelligence and communications among many others. We use that in order to develop interactive applications that can then be applied in different aspects of the economy.

It is easy to show that our research interests and expertise find applications  in every single one of the smart specialisation areas that the government has chosen, for example, tourism, agriculture, transport, health, etc.”

Another good example of what RISE creates is the development a variety of applications for museums. For example, soon in the Leventis Municipal Museum, you will see a virtual exhibit for the Ledra Palace, an augmented reality and a virtual reality system that allows you to visit and get a sense of what the place was like at the time of its peak.

Much of RISE’s work can be applied to movies and films and gaming.

“We’ve been developing a lot of technology that relates to both movies and films, as well as games. Lately, the technologies for games and movies are getting closer and closer together. For example, we have been working for years on animation, and motion tracking. So we have a big Motion Capture Studio downtown, that is actually quite high quality, it could be production level quality.

We have 24 stereo cameras in a big space, and several motion capture suits, we can capture several people together. And we have the expertise to analyse and clean the data, and then rig the characters and produce a full 3d animation. which is something that is very highly sought off and very expensive, internationally. And I believe what we’re setting up here, could compete internationally. I mean, it’s not as big as the studios in Hollywood, but it is professional, and we’ve already used it for television productions.”

Another thing is that we’re in the process of setting up is a big LED wall that can be used for virtual production.

Still another area that we’ve been working on also is augmented reality. We have several AR headsets are also several VR headsets and many years of experience. And also, we have a lot of experience on 3D reconstruction, using computer vision and tracking, which is essential for proper augmented reality. So this could have different applications, and it’s an area that is exponentially growing internationally. For example, we are in talks with Cyta to develop an augmented reality system for them.

RISE works with business

RISE also works directly with Cyprus businesses to help them learn new technology.

“I think the fact that a lot of businesses are SMEs in Cyprus means they probably don’t have as much capacity to spend on experimental stuff and to do their own research. But I believe that once we start providing useful tools, they will also be interested in learning more – often these innovations enable SMEs to cut costs or provide novel services/products.

Our website offers a number of ways we can collaborate with industry, for example, preparing and submitting proposals to get funding from EU or local innovation calls. Or through the provision of consulting on the development and deployment of novel ICT technologies. A company could also fund a Ph.D student at a low cost. It’s possible to engage such a student for three years, benefiting at the same time from the expertise and experience of the academic advisors. For more information on the collaboration potential, please visit our new website (cyens.org.cy).

We will be running a number of trainings. The first example that comes to mind, is artificial intelligence (AI). AI could be a useful tool for most companies actually, it’s surprising how many different applications it has. And we run seminars to train enterpreneurs or technical staff about how these tools can be useful for their for their companies, and then they can come and experiment.”

As a Centre, we have a number of labs and equipment that can be accessible to anyone interested for use or rental. What is important is that we not only have the equipment, but we also have the expertise.

Educational applications.

RISE has also developed quite a number of educational applications.

“Just to give an example, one of our currently running projects , to be out soon, is a game like interactive application, but it’s geared towards high school kids to get them to learn about our cultural heritage.

And we provide artists with digital tools to help them create. We aim to bring together an eco-system of artists that want to experiment with digital tools. We can provide quite a lot of equipment facilities downtown, we will have a big makerspace. We can offer equipment that artists could use to develop innovative work. And soon we will be announcing an art and science festival.

We do have to give the municipality credit for its continuous strong support, both in terms of providing us space, but also funding to run such activities.