MIT to Host RFID Academic Convocation

By Mark Roberti

Dec. 6, 2005—The Auto-ID Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is hosting an RFID Academic Convocation on Jan. 23 and Jan. 24. The two-day event will bring together directors of leading RFID research laboratories with executives from top-tier end-user companies in a variety of industries to address underlying research issues and opportunities surrounding RFID.

"This is really the first event of its kind," says Stephen Miles, research engineer at the MIT Auto-ID Lab. "Our goal is to raise awareness among end users of the research going on at institutions around the world, and to facilitate a dialogue that will enable researchers to focus their research on issues end users are encountering in the real world."

Stephen Miles, MIT Auto-ID Lab

The conference is organized into sessions addressing the technology roadmap for the EPCglobal Network, as well as active and passive tags and RFID frequency utilization. Application sessions will discuss time and telemetry pedigree, the aerospace and automotive industries, supply chain, packaging and RFID systems and applications beyond the supply chain.

The event will feature presentations by the directors of the Auto-ID labs at MIT; the University of Adelaide, Australia; Fudan University, China; Keio University, Japan; Information and Communications University, South Korea; the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland; and the University of Cambridge, the United Kingdom.

Researchers from other institutions who have agreed to participate include:

• Gisele Bennett, director, Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center; and director, Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute
• David W.L. Cheung, director, Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development, Hong Kong University
• Robb Clarke, associate professor, School of Packaging, Michigan State University
• Jean-Pierre Emond, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering; and codirector of the Center for Food Distribution and Retailing, University of Florida
• Tali Freed, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering director, RFID Research and Development Laboratory, California Polytechnic State University
• Bill C. Hardgrave, director, RFID Research Center, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas
• Yu Liu, deputy director, RFID Research Center Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Also presenting will be:

• Steve Bratt, chief operating officer, W3C
• Terri Crawford, business IT manager/distribution, Publix Super Markets
• Dick Cantwell, VP, P&G/Gillette; and memberof EPCglobal's board of governors
• Claus Garbisch, sector head, consumer products, DHL Solutions
• Christian Helms, president, Cold Chain Group of Bremen, Germany
• Simon Langford, executive VP and CIO, Wal-Mart Stores
• Sanjay Sarma, cofounder, Auto-ID Center; and member of EPCglobal's board of governors

The conference is by invitation only in order to facilitate a dialogue between end users of RFID technologies and researchers. Academics wishing to participate may submit papers to MIT's Stephen Miles. The conference organizing committee will evaluate any submissions. For more information about the event, visit the RFID Academic Convocation web site.