Off to World Mobile Congress

Next week the Mobile World Congress (formerly known as 3GSM) will be held in Barcelona. This is the largest conference of the year for the Telecommunications industry.

In the IBM booth the Research lab in which I work will be showing several demos.

One is a service creation tool specifically for telecommunications providers. It helps the providers create new services more quickly by providing them with graphical modeling tools, drastically decreasing the need for the developer to know all of the complex protocols such as SIP, diameter, etc. I know this doesn't sound very sexy if you are an end user, but believe me you will be very happy if the Telco providing your phone service could cut down the development time of new offerings from the typical 18 months to a couple of weeks. It will happen. It's just a matter of time, since the Google and Yahoos of the world have changed the way services are rolled out.

Another is called .... Good Samaritan: Telco + Health + Presence 2.0.

This demo shows how mobile phones, Presence 2.0 technology, and integration with health records can provide a Good Samaritan with information to aid people in critical situations. A motorcycle goes off the road into a ditch. Cars driving by have no idea that there is someone in need of assistance. A man falls on the sidewalk. Strangers approach to help but have no idea that his fall was caused by weakness and dizziness due to a decrease in his blood sugar level. With the Good Samaritan technology, patients receive immediate and more effective assistance from both bystanders and trained medical personal who arrive on the scene. The system automatically identifies people in the area who are available and willing to help, and provides them with a) the location information and instructions on how to reach the person in need b) The relevant patient history at the level of information and instruction appropriate to their level of training (if any). This is enabled by a dispatcher who has an electronic unified patient record. With a click of a button the dispatcher indicates the level of training (bystander, simple first aid, medic, paramedic, doctor) and current issue and the appropriate information is sent to the mobile device of the person providing assistance.

In addition to working in the booth and meeting with customers and ISVs, I also plan to scout out the latest technologies aimed at our children .... so stay tuned for more updates!