Please do join us for the next instalment in the compelling Sargent Centre Seminar Series on Monday 20th June, where we are excited to welcome Dr. George Koutitas presenting ‘How AR/VR and Digital Twins are shaping manual labour’.
The seminar, followed by a Q&A, will be taking place from 3-4pm on Microsoft Teams.
A summary of ‘How AR/VR and Digital Twins are shaping manual labour ’
This seminar will discuss how Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) Technologies can help shape the future of manual work. For the purpose of our investigation, two use cases will be presented based on recent applied research at Texas State University and Augmented Training Systems Inc. The first use case concerns the sector of first responders and we will discuss how AR/VR helped improved the training of the AmBus team in Austin Texas. We will showcase how AR/VR technology helped improve muscle and cognitive learning of the team by presenting experimental results from 3 teams who received traditional, VR and AR trainings. The second use case will cover the area of accident prediction in material handling scenarios and the discussion will focus an industry 4.0 setup. We will present how a digital twin avatar whose motion is triggered by a Motion Capture system (MoCap) can be a catalyst of accident prevention.
About the speaker – Dr. George Koutitas
George Koutitas (PhD) is a digital transformation and innovation enthusiast with a multi-cultural experience in Corporate, Entrepreneurial and Academic sectors in EU and USA. He holds more than 14 years of research and business experience.
In 2018, George was the co-founder of Augmented Training Systems Inc, a state–of–the–art AR/VR platform that helps Cities improve the training of first responders and reduce cost for training. In 2014, he co-founded Gridmates Inc, which is the world’s first cloud platform for Smart Energy Donations and Energy Gift Cards. Utilities around the world use Gridmates to improve their social responsibility programs.
Between 2016 to 2020, Dr. George Koutitas has served as an Assist. Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Ingram School of Engineering, Texas State University and as the Director of the XReality Research lab.
After 6 wonderful years in Austin Texas, George has returned back to his hometown in Thessaloniki, to serve as a Director in Architecture and Innovation Lab at Pfizer’s Center for Digital Innovation focusing on Digital Engagement and Machine Learning.
Dr. George Koutitas holds a B.Sc. degree in Physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece, an M.Sc. degree (with Distinction and prizes from ‘Nokia’) in Mobile and Satellite Communications from the University of Surrey, UK and a PhD in Electrical Engineering under EPSRC scholarship from the Centre for Communications Systems Research, UK. His post-doctoral research was in Smart Grids and Optimization algorithms under an EU funded program. George is a member of IEEE and IET. He is the inventor of 1 US non provisional patent (pending) and has published more than 60 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals, books and international conferences that received more than 1400 citations from the international scientific community (h_index=20).
George believes that great achievements in life arrive when someone thinks out of the box, performs inspirational leadership with Agile, Design Thinking and Hands-on mindsets and of course by working hard and looking forward. Sometimes in life we should prefer to follow the hard and narrow path because it always guides us to our destination.
Please do get in contact if you have any queries, and please do share this with any colleagues or peers who may find this of interest.