NICTA’s Techfest will showcase over 30 technology demonstrations, including highly secure operating systems for drones, vision processing systems for Australia’s bionic eye, map-based access to open spatial data, and unique 3D GPS tracking software featuring synchronised sound and video.
The Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, Federal Minister for Communications will open the event.
NICTA’s Techfest is a once-a-year opportunity to meet Australia’s leading data scientists, tech researchers, engineers and students delivering the next wave of technology innovation. Also featured on the day will be some of the companies NICTA has created which are now contributing to Australia’s burgeoning start-up scene - Audinate, Saluda Medical, Ambiata, Incoming, Trademark Vision and Yuruware (now part of Unitrends). In addition, the Digital Careers team will host a variety of physical demonstrations, coding and systems design challenges aimed at school-aged students.
National Map
Presenters: Bill Simpson-Young, Kevin Ring, Keith Grochow.
National Map is a sophisticated web-based map viewing system developed by NICTA for the Department of Communications in conjunction with Geoscience Australia. The National Map provides map-based access to Australian open spatial data which is retrieved directly from data services from a wide range of Government agencies. The latest version features an interactive demonstration which includes live access to many open data services from all levels of government.
Secure Drone
Presenter: Gerwin Klein
NICTA is part of a large software security project funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and is working to invent ‘unhackable’ software to solve emerging security problems for cyber-physical systems, such as aircraft, cars and medical implants. Together with project partners Rockwell Collins, Galois, the University of Minnesota and Boeing, NICTA is developing technology that raises the bar for safety and security of these systems.
Immersive 3D GPS tracking experience using Oculus Rift
Presenters: Chris Cooper and Craig Sketchley
Doarama is a 3D GPS track visualisation system with photo and video synchronisation, demonstrated with the latest Oculus Rift (SDK2) virtual reality headset supported within a web browser.
Bionic Eye
Presenter: Nick Barnes
NICTA has developed successful vision processing for the bionic eye as part of Bionic Vision Australia, a strategic research initiative by the Australian Research Council. A simulator will show what patients may see using NICTA's vision processing with a new retinal prosthesis device, which is planned to undergo patient trials this year as part of a new NH&MRC project grant with the Centre for Eye Research Australia and the Bionics Institute.
Vending machine analytics game
Presenters: Matt Robards and Menkes van den Briel
Emerging from the Coca-Cola Firehose hackathon, visitors to the Vending Analytics stand can play the space-to-sales optimisation game. This game demonstrates the challenges around how to best configure vending machines, so that the number of visits to the machine, for stock replenishment, are minimised. Fewer visits save time and ultimately money, which makes managing a fleet of vending machines more profitable.
VibroMat
Presenter: Nick Barnes
NICTA's VibroMat is a device to assist people with low vision with mobility. The VibroMat represents visual information captured by a camera worn on the head as tactile stimuli on the back. This is the first time the new VibroMat device will be publicly demonstrated.
Power Grid game
Presenter: Dan Gordon
NICTA is exploring the structure of power networks. This research looks at the impact of multiple sources of power generation being distributed through the grid and the move to meshed networks. Complicated ‘mesh’ models can behave in surprising ways. In this demo, users are invited to change the structure of the network to try to obtain the best and most efficient generation and transmission of electrical power, while supplying the varying electricity demands of customers.
Live Web traffic incident detection and monitoring using social media
Presenter: Hoang Nguyen
Management Centre (TMC) has collaborated with NICTA to develop this system that leverages Twitter as a channel for transport network monitoring, incident and event management. Demo provides a real-time overview of the comprehensive traffic
incidents picture in NSW, with the live web interface based on NICTA Subspace and 3D Cesium Bing map.
The NICTA Evacuation Planning project
Presenter: Caroline Even
This project provides emergency services with tools to plan and schedule large scale evacuations. This visual demonstration shows how it can plan and simulate the evacuation of 80,000 people in a couple of minutes, enabling better planning and response capabilities.
