Shwetak Patel is a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle.
On Monday, computer scientist and entrepreneur Shwetak Patel will offer unique insights into the world of ubiquitous computing as part of Elon’s Voices of Discovery lecture series.
Take the cellphone in your pocket, which has the potential to function as a spirometer and providing accurate information about air flow in a patient with chronic pulmonary disease, or sensors that can track mobility or activity patterns useful in home health or rehabilitation research.
Or take your monthly water or electrical bill. A move to ubicomp would use data gathered from embedded sensors and microprocessors to create a very detailed analysis of energy use in your home that provides appliance-specific information or having access to water use data at the fixture level.
The days of receiving an energy or water statement each month that merely tells you your total use have ended, as the ability to parse out energy and water use data enables you, the home owner, to really understand your personal use of resources and to make decisions or changes based upon that data. This information would be obtained by sensors associated with the existing electrical and plumbing infrastructures of your home.
Patel, who is a Washington Research Foundation endowed professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, has helped create the ubicomp world and will continue to shape in the future. He directs the university’s Ubicomp Lab and in recent years, his research interests have included the areas of sustainability sensing, wireless sensing and user interface technology. As Patel puts it, “The primary theme of my group’s research has been to discover and build sensors and sensory systems that solve hard problems by leveraging existing infrastructures and resources.”
Patel’s entrepreneurial achievements include founding Zensi, Inc., a residential monitoring company and co-founding SNUPI, a wireless sensor company. Zensi, Inc., which was acquired by Belkin International, Inc., focused on making energy and water monitoring systems commercially accessible, with products such as ElectriSense and HydroSense are currently in use in the U.S.