{"243131":{"#nid":"243131","#data":{"type":"news","title":"IRI Intros: 5 Questions with Beth Mynatt","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EYou\u2019ve probably heard that Georgia Tech has a number of\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/research\/institutes\u0022\u003EInterdisciplinary Research Institutes\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;(IRIs) \u2013 but do you know much about them?\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis article is one in a series of Q\u0026amp;As to introduce the Tech community to the nine IRIs and their leaders. In this installment, Executive Director of the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EInstitute for People and Technology\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;(IPaT) Beth Mynatt answers questions about IPaT and also talks about its primary areas of research.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ: What is the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EInstitute for People and Technology\u003C\/a\u003E (IPaT), and what are its core research areas?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E Focusing on sectors such as health care delivery, education, humanitarian systems, and consumer media, IPaT looks at the potential Georgia Tech\u2019s cutting-edge research has to transform human behavior in areas of great societal interest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe look at where technology and people come together in powerful ways. For example, we explore novel media technologies that will help motivate healthy behavior and help people manage chronic diseases. We look at new communication technologies to help communities find ways to take care of each other. We examine creative technological approaches for fostering lifelong learning in all its forms. And we invent ways to simulate and model these complex societal systems to help stakeholders understand future possibilities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ: What makes IPaT\u2019s approach to addressing complex societal challenges different?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E We build strong partnerships across academic and applied research with government agencies and industry leaders to understand complex societal challenges and to accelerate implementations of technological solutions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo facilitate this multidisciplinary approach, we create living laboratories where our researchers, partners, potential users, and consumers can all come together to co-create the future. Because these labs are where the transdisciplinary teams, our partners, and the technology converge, they are a big part of our work. If we didn\u2019t have research grounded in these laboratories, it would be just a lot of talk and possibility. But when everyone can co-create \u2013 that\u2019s when the magic happens and ideas become reality.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe consider the labs that we\u2019ve put in place, such as the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/i3l.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EInteroperability \u0026amp; Integration Innovation Lab\u003C\/a\u003E (I3L) \u2013 which is developing new ways to use and deliver health care and health information \u2013 one of our major contributions to the Georgia Tech innovation ecosystem. It\u2019s when grand challenges become grounded in real technology, with real data and real people, that we start to make substantial progress.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnother thing about our living labs is anytime we create one, a key goal is for students \u2013 through coursework and by working with faculty \u2013 to be able to access and contribute to research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u0026nbsp;Why do companies work with IPaT?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E The more experience I\u2019ve had as a research administrator, the more I realize that companies want the answers to these questions: What makes people powerful? What makes people trust technology? What changes people\u2019s behavior? Companies have confided that these questions are the ones that really challenge them and that they are looking for technical innovation as part of the larger solution to influencing human behavior. Over the years, we\u2019ve learned to focus our partnerships with companies on these larger questions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition, we make it easy for companies to engage Georgia Tech. They can sponsor theoretical research, or they can contract with us for specific technologies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECompanies also love to work with our students at the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/cic.gatech.edu\/drupal\/front\u0022\u003EConvergence Innovation Competition\u003C\/a\u003E; in fact, in many ways, when companies come to Tech for innovation, they want to get to the students as quickly as possible because they want that risk-taking spirit and creativity Tech students embody.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd as much as companies love working with our students, they love to work with each other at Tech. Many of our research programs are based on bringing multiple external partners to the same table so they can benefit from an exchange of ideas and collaboration \u2013 and enjoy the added advantage of having Tech as a neutral party. Our Nov. 5-6 \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ipatforum.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EPeople \u0026amp; Technology Forum\u003C\/a\u003E is just one example of bringing external parties together: We invite all of our partners to come and be with us for two days in November. There are talks, panels, and research demos, but equally important are those conversations that take place in the hallways, as companies with specific business interests begin looking to the next opportunities that may present themselves through working with Georgia Tech and each other.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ: What is your view on the best approach to transforming lives through research and technology?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Well, there is a great myth referred to as \u003Cem\u003Etechnological determinism, \u003C\/em\u003Ewhich suggests that you can just invent the technology and everything falls into place. My experience from two decades in research is that it\u2019s more complicated than that. It\u2019s actually what I\u2019ve described as a dance in which new technology offers an opportunity, people respond \u2013 both in anticipated and surprising ways \u2013 then technology designers and inventors make adjustments accordingly, people do something different, and the dance continues. Even though we may be fascinated by the new technical inventions we create here at Tech, innovation comes from paying attention to that dance and from anticipating and responding to what makes peoplepowerful, because in the end, it\u2019s not just about technologybeing powerful but about what happens in society as a result of that technology. It\u2019s about empowering people to do what they really want and get what they really need through innovative advances in technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ:\u0026nbsp;What\u2019s next for IPaT?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E One of our main priorities in the health care sector is growing Tech\u2019s partnership with \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.choa.org\u0022\u003EChildren\u2019s Healthcare of Atlanta\u003C\/a\u003E to improve the lives of children fighting pediatric asthma. Our role is to coordinate different asthma-related efforts throughout Georgia, using the combined resources of both institutions to provide technology solutions for clinicians and patients.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWe\u2019ve also recently established a partnership with \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.midtownatl.com\u0022\u003EMidtown Alliance\u003C\/a\u003E, and the goal is to turn Midtown Atlanta into one of our living labs. Midtown Alliance and the business community, as a whole, are interested in leveraging mobile technology, smart city concepts, and advances in technology to improve Midtown\u2019s live-work-play experience. We have two main objectives for this Midtown project: The first is creating a platform for innovation in Midtown where we support teams developing startup applications, provide access to new data sources, and invent new services for Midtown. The second is working directly with some of those teams to create prototypes of mobile applications and services that utilize Tech\u2019s research and establish Midtown as a high-tech, powerful local community. It\u2019s about helping Midtown communicate and sustain what makes it such a unique, influential, and strong community. In a sense, the Midtown Atlanta project is our biggest living lab yet. We\u2019ve learned from the ways we\u2019ve experimented on the Tech campus; now we\u2019re taking some of that experience past campus boundaries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIRI Intros Q\u0026amp;A: Institute for People and Technology\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EYou\u2019ve probably heard that Georgia Tech has a number of \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/research\/institutes\u0022\u003EInterdisciplinary Research Institutes\u003C\/a\u003E (IRIs) \u2013 but do you know much about them? \u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis article is one in a series of Q\u0026amp;As to introduce the Tech community to the nine IRIs and their leaders. In this installment, Executive Director of the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EInstitute for People and Technology\u003C\/a\u003E (IPaT) Beth Mynatt answers questions about IPaT and also talks about its primary areas of research.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27268","created_gmt":"2013-10-07 15:10:40","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:05","author":"Kirk Englehardt","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-10-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2013-10-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"243141":{"id":"243141","type":"image","title":"Beth Mynatt","body":null,"created":"1449243704","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:41:44","changed":"1475894919","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:39","alt":"Beth Mynatt","file":{"fid":"197848","name":"mynatt-headshot-april-2012.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mynatt-headshot-april-2012_0.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mynatt-headshot-april-2012_0.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":70956,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/mynatt-headshot-april-2012_0.jpeg?itok=bg7lbH6E"}}},"media_ids":["243141"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\/","title":"Institute for People and Technology"},{"url":"http:\/\/ipat.gatech.edu\/team","title":"The IPaT Team"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/research\/institutes","title":"Interdisciplinary Research Institutes"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"},{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"10989","name":"Beth Mynatt"},{"id":"1432","name":"education"},{"id":"398","name":"health"},{"id":"52241","name":"humanitarian systems"},{"id":"11726","name":"Institute for People and Technology"},{"id":"12888","name":"IPaT"},{"id":"1976","name":"Media"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:kirkeng@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EKirk Englehardt\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearch Communications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["kirkeng@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}