SmartConference System

Development of new technologies brings people new possibilities such as smart spaces. Smart spaces can provide better user experience by allowing a user to connect new devices flexibly and to access all the information in the multi device system from any of the devices. Smart Conference system developed in the course of this project is the interactive system for conferences, meetings, symposiums, other similar events. The project is based on the open source Smart-M3 system which implements the concept of the smart space.

This system has been tested on the FRUCT 7 Conference (St. Petersburg, Russia), RUSmart 2010 (St. Petersburg, Russia), FRUCT 8 Conference (Lappeenranta, Finland), and FRUCT 9 Conference (Petrozavodsk, Russia). Also it has won the Russian Mobile VAS Award in 2009 and 2010.

Project Description

The conference room is equipped by two LCD projectors. The first screen is used for showing presentation and the second for showing agenda of the conference section. The room represents a smart space which integrates stationary devices, different external or internal services, and mobile devices of the conference participants. This allows providing an extended access to the information and services independently of their physical location. It is assumed that every conference participant has a personal mobile device (for example Nokia N810, N900).

Every event participant has the appropriate software installed on his/her mobile device which includes graphic user interface form and Smart-M3 based module for interaction with smart space. Also this software implements participants’ profiles and interfaces to access them. The profile provides to the system the information about the participants: personal information, presentation title, interests, presentation URL which is useful for other event participants.

The software possesses intuitive graphical interface developed for the Maemo OS based mobile devices. It allows managing by the agenda of the event, viewing information about participants, viewing participants presentations and changing information in own profile. Time management functions of the software allows to remind to the participants about the time remaining for presentation. When the time of the presentation is over the software asks the participant if he/she finished the presentation. If needed, the software provides the participant with additional time for the presentation.

Every participant who registers in the smart-space is assigned time interval for the presentation. List of the participants is shown in second screen and in participant’s mobile devices. The current presentation is highlighted. When presentation is started the LCD projector automatically shows it. Participants can change their presentation slides using their mobile devices.

The conference chairman has possibility to change the order of the speakers during the section (this is useful in case of one of the speaker is absent in time of his/her presentation), and also he/she has a possibility to close current presentation and run next presentation.

Timing and Deliverables

April 2009 - Initial plan. Requirements specification.

October 2009 – Development Maemo based interface forms.

November 2009 – Studying of Smart-M3 platform.

April 2010 – Organizing smart space section on the FRUCT seminar using developed software.

May 2010 – December 2010 – Testing the System on the conferences specification of the new useful features, its implementing, bug fixing.

Jan 2011 – April 2011 – Integration the Smart Conference System and Scribo System (PetrSU).

May 2011 – November 2011 – Development extensions and modifications to SCS.

Project Team

Contact person: Alexey Kashevnik , PhD, project leader, SPIIRAS

Developers:

Juras Valchenko, M.Sc. Student
Michael Sitaev, M.Sc. Student
Sergey Kokorin, PhD Student