IBM is joining a collaboration between Mayo Clinicand New York City-based Delos Livingin downtown Rochester.
Using the power of the supercomputing system Watson, IBM has a created a series of data analysis applications to help Delos and Mayo handle data from their Well Living Lab.
Delos' Well Living Lab,based in the city-owned Minnesota Biobusiness Centeron First Avenue Southwest, is a closed environment where everything, including the 15 Mayo Clinic employees working in the office space, is monitored closely. The goal is to learn more about how factors in indoor environments, such as lighting, temperature and equipment, effect health and wellness.
"IBM's extensive technology stack and expertise in areas such as Internet of Things, sensors and data analytic capabilities, including Watson cognitive computing, made them an ideal cloud partner as all of these areas are critical to the future of Delos," stated Delos CEO Peter Sciallain the announcement of IBM's involvement. "We spend about 90 percent of our time indoors, which is why it is critically important to ensure that indoor spaces are not only livable, but also healthy."
IBM is using its cloud computing platform and applications co-developed with Delos for this project.
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"By infusing the lab with advances in cloud innovation, cognitive computing and the Internet of Things, we believe we can help identify insights that deepen and accelerate this important research," stated Shawn Murray, IBM director of the Bluemix Garage.
Delos has 15 employees who monitor 15 Mayo Clinic staffers who work in the lab. Scialla said the lab, which opened in 2015, is studying the effect of lighting on worker productivity. That is the first study being done.
The challenge, Scialla said in a recent interview with the Post Bulletin, is the lab generates "terabytes of data." That's where IBM comes in with its cloud platform to analyze the information to find trends.
"Then we'll be translating that knowledge for the industry to apply. That's going to be extremely valuable information," he said.