Noor Discusses Coming Intelligence Era in Keynote Address at International Symposium

Ahmed Noor, William E. Lobeck Professor of Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Engineering at Old Dominion University, recently gave the keynote address at the 7th International PhD and DLA Symposium at the University of Pecs, in Hungary.

Noor's lecture, "Pathway to Learning and Engineering Practice in the Coming Intelligence Era," was aimed at informing Ph.D. and D.L.A. (doctor of liberal arts) students about the trend toward digital convergence of computing, communication, mobile, robotic and interactive technologies with knowledge-based engineering.

Noor's belief is that this is ushering in a new era, which has been called the Intelligence Era (the post-information age).

"The 3-D immersive virtual world, which is the focus of the presentation, is one of the technologies that has the potential of making significant transformational impact on learning, product creation and engineering practice in the new era," Noor said.

The Pollack Mihaly Faculty of Engineering at the University of Pecs hosted the conference, which was organized on the belief that Ph.D. and D.L.A. students in engineering, architecture and information technology need a special forum, in addition to their academic programs, to present the results of their research.

The students shared the progress of their work, discussed their results to support future activity and were able to compare notes on Ph.D. and D.L.A. studies in various countries.

Noor was chosen as a keynote speaker because of his many years of research in the integration and application across disciplines of future technologies. Noor believes virtual worlds will provide opportunities for immersive experiential learning, and the seamless integration of virtual and real worlds will lead to the development of future "cyber-physical ecosystems."

"The ecosystems will facilitate the development of the 21st century information, digital and visual skills among the learners. They will provide the 3-D immersive environment for promoting active collaborative learning, critical thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving and knowledge creation, as well as adaptation to rapid change," Noor said.