ITRI is a creative partnership among universities, industry, and government designed to accelerate the development of commercially relevant technologies. Key goals are enhancing the Engineering Ph.D. programs, contributing to an increased industrial productivity, a strengthened technological infrastructure, and more effective technology transfer, all helping to spur economic growth.
The Institute was created in January 1997 to carry on basic and applied research in information technology. It works cooperatively with the private sector to expand scientific knowledge, promote university-industry collaboration, bolster education, and facilitate the efficient transfer of technology to commercial use.
 | ITRI programs include major research efforts, joint research and development projects, and other interaction with industry- and government-sponsored events, conferences, seminars, and publications, and consulting and technical support services for start-up businesses. In pursuing its mission, the Institute continues to develop programs and services to enhance the competitiveness of technology-based companies, with the primary emphasis on Ohio industry, and increasing its national and international reputation and visibility. ITRI also provides match funding to successful proposals through the OBR Ph.D. Enhancement program. | |
| Serving common interests of the academic and business communities, the Institute provides a focus for research and education in information technology and directs specialized resources of the University to address specific needs of established and emerging companies. The Institute also brings to the campus a greater awareness of today’s industrial concerns, as well as support for the research tools and facilities to deal with the challenges of tomorrow. | ||
The Significance of Computer Technology
In a rapidly changing world where accurate and timely information is critical to much of what we do, computing and communicating across networks has become an integral tool for the way we conduct science, engineering, business, government, and our daily lives. We now rely on computers to help us explore space, conserve energy, safeguard the environment, produce innovative products for the global market, map the genetic code and develop breakthrough medical treatments as well as scan our groceries, link our telephones, run our appliances, and maintain our personal records. The future impact will be even more far-reaching, for we have merely begun to tap the enormous potential of computer-based information systems.
The past decade has witnessed an explosion in computer technology, and the pace continues to accelerate. Today’s computers are much faster and much more powerful than those of a decade ago; new technologies such as multimedia, massive databases, object-oriented design, neural networks, applied artificial intelligence, parallel processing, mobile computing, optical computing, and virtual reality are revolutionizing the way we conduct our daily lives. The major challenge now confronting us is how to best harness the power of the computer efficiently and intelligently. This challenge involves managing increasing complexity and rapid change, developing useful applications for specific needs, and providing wider access for users who are not computer specialists.
In conjunction with government, industry, and other academic institutions, researchers at Wright State University are investigating these pressing issues. Work in computer-related areas includes creating tools for developing reliable, cost-effective, reusable software; solving very complex problems through parallel and distributed systems; utilizing computers to improve the design process and to model physical systems; creating more intelligent systems; developing more user friendly interfaces; and developing techniques to incorporate diverse data types and very large databases into sophisticated, multimedia information systems.
By both exploring and exploiting such technical areas, the ITRI advances the state of the art and assists the development of emerging high technologies. Because of the exceptionally broad scope of information technology, our work further contributes to enhanced productivity, especially for Ohio companies. In addition, the software industry offers many promising opportunities for new business ventures. Research activities in information technology thus help strengthen the economy of the region, the state, and the nation.
Information
The term data is defined as a representation to which meaning may be assigned while the term information is defined as meaning assigned to data by known conventions. At a higher level we define the term knowledge as the condition of knowing something with a considerable degree of familiarity and wisdom as the ability to discern inner qualities and essential relationships. In the Information Technology field we are faced with enormous amounts of data and information. A main goal of the ITRI is to investigate new ways of transforming the data and information into knowledge and, in some cases, wisdom.
Information Technology
Information technology includes the means of delivery of content to the consumer as well as its use and encompasses a wide variety of fields. Prominent among these fields are computer hardware and software, computer networks, telephony, television, the print media, and, finally, movies and videos.
The driving forces in information technology include the rapid development of computer technology including processing power, interconnection bandwidth and memory capacity. The Web having created the need to manage and process vast amounts of multimedia data such as images, video and voice, as well as text now constitutes a major driving force in information technology. Finally, the desire for new forms of entertainment stresses capabilities of our current information technologies.