Singapore, 14 June 2016 (Tuesday) - Singapore Management University (SMU), one of Asia’s leading universities, through its School of Information Systems (SIS), and PS Solutions Corp (PSSOL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Japan headquartered telecommunications and Internet company, SoftBank Group Corp., have entered into a software licence agreement. The license provides PSSOL world-wide exclusive rights to use an SMU developed software module which implements high-speed processing of geofence* queries, and the application of the software module to solutions that require sophisticated spatial data analysis in real time.

The algorithms to determine the location via a geofence are already well established technological abilities. However, processing many simultaneous geofence queries on large-volume incoming streams of data, at high speed, is technically very challenging, and therefore, it is difficult to achieve high efficiency in processing big data at lower cost for commercial use.

A team of researchers at SMU SIS, led by Associate Professors Kyriakos Mouratidis and Baihua Zheng, collaborated with PSSOL for research and validation, and successfully developed an algorithm to process many simultaneous geofence queries on large-volume incoming streams of data, at very high speed, and in a highly efficient manner. Through this agreement, SMU grants PSSOL the software license for commercial use of the said algorithm.

This license agreement is an excellent example of mutually beneficial industry-university collaboration, where SMU’s deep academic knowledge in terms of the use of geofence function meets PSSOL’s vision of new business creation.

Professor Steven Miller, SMU's Vice Provost (Research) and Dean (School of Information Systems) said, “Our two SIS faculty members had both been doing academic work and high quality academic publishing in the area of high performance spatial data management and analytics methods for many years, and were delighted to hear about a specific real-world business problem that would benefit from their prior work.

It was an excellent example of how the university group and the industry team can productively work together. We will also be delighted to see new projects where high quality academic work can be used to contribute to real-world economic value creation in partnership with a company.”

Masanori Ueno, PSSOL’s Director of the Board said, "PS Solutions develops and offers several IoT solutions that can be utilized in various fields. One such instance is "e-kakashi", which collect agricultural data from the sensor network installed on an agricultural field, and visualize the data to share the cultivation method and know-hows. Also, "Setouchi Karen”, a rental electrical motorcycle solution, installed with IoMT (Internet of Moving Things) technology connecting to mobile communication network, is another example. We expect that this technology could be applied to IoMT domain, or for drones (unmanned aerial vehicle), by determining whether a monitored object would enter or reaches to a dangerous region or a particular area and that triggers next dynamic action. We will further collaborate with universities or other research institutes having advanced technologies, and will enhance research and development for new value creation."

* A mechanism to determine whether an object is within a region by setting up a virtual perimeter (fence) on a map, and automatically call a preset procedure if it is.

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For more information, please contact

Teo Chang Ching (Mr)

Senior Assistant Director

Corporate Communications

Singapore Management University

DID: 6828 0451

Email: ccteo [at] smu.edu.sg

Masafumi Doi (Mr) / Minami Arai (Ms)

Public Relations Dept.

PS Solutions Corp.

Email: pr [at] pssol.jp