NUS’s Living Lab makes university a petri dish for tech startups and researchers

The National University of Singapore has been positioning itself as a leader in innovation, and their efforts have been reflected in a recent MIT study that ranks them among the world’s elite.

To further spur its march towards becoming Asia’s Stanford, NUS has today announced the launch of Living Lab, an initiative that will turn the university’s Kent Ridge campus into a giant petri dish for tech startups, researchers, and larger companies.

The university has installed location, vehicular, video, and environment sensors around key areas in campus. It is also making available a variety of assets, including mobile communication infrastructure, data sets, maps, building blueprints, and APIs. Finally, businesses seeking research support can tap on the expertise of the IDMI, an interdisciplinary research institute.

The list of APIs can be seen here, and I will update this article once I hear from them what data sets are available.

Several pilot projects by IDMI are already in the works. Through Living Labs, it is testing out technologies that estimates crowd density using cameras, enables indoor navigation, and enable flu outbreak detection.

Interested parties can check out a business matching session that will be held during InnoFest 2013 to find out more.

Photo: Umberto Salvagnin