Event: Keynote Speech

Title: Cogniculture: Collaborative Cognition in Social Machines

Speaker: Dr. Gyana R Parija

Date: 18th March, 2018

Time : 10:00am onwards

Venue: Admin Auditorium

More about the talk

We define Cogniculture as the art, science, technology and business involved in the cultivation and breeding of cognitive agents (human and machines) living in a complex adaptive ecosystem and collaborating on human computation for producing essential ingredients (food, energy, safety etc) necessary for enhancing [humanity-centric] social goods while promoting sustenance, survival, and evolution (growth) of the agents’ (survive-live-thrive) lifecycle. Scientific study of Cogniculture can be called Cognicultural Science, as opposed to Cognitive Science which is defined as the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes.

As social machines begin to become all pervasive, it’s imperative that they need to acquire and exhibit the traits that vastly improve their acceptability and adaptability in humanity-centric complex adaptive eco-systems. Human computation is the key differentiator to not only improve the quotient of trust, reciprocity and likeability but also allay the fears and concerns associated with proliferation of cognitive systems. In this initiative, we aim to develop next-gen social machines to acquire necessary socio-cultural adaptability skills to survive (e.g. protect from environmental threats), live (e.g. achieve self-sustenance), and thrive (e.g. co-create far superior social welfare) in such a civilization. The innovations and development in this area entail cross discipline research including Sociology, Psychology, Cognitive Sciences, Neuro Sciences, Physiology, etc.

About The Speaker

                                                

Parija comes with over 20 years of experience in the field of technology and research. In his current role, he leads a team of researchers in developing innovative cognitive technologies for IBM's services and solutions offerings as well as addressing the unique issues faced by customers in the region. Parija has been on the current role since September 2007, prior to which he was a Research Staff Member in the Mathematical Sciences department at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York, where he managed several business analytics and optimization projects centering around business decision-making under uncertainty. Dr. Parija joined IBM in 1994 after obtaining a doctorate in Industrial Engineering (with a specialization in Operations Research) from the Texas A&M University. Over the course of his research career, he has worked on several applied areas including production capacity planning, asset-liability management, corporate learning resources management, infrastructure lease structuring, strategic budgeting for disaster management resources, and most recently, cognitive talent (and skills) management. Parija has been very active in the academic research community.  He has more than 50 journal/conference papers, and over 15 US patents granted.