About US-interACT Silicon Valley - Carnegie Mellon University

About US

The international center for Advanced Communication Technologies, (interACT) is a joint center between seven of the leading institutions in the US, Europe and Asia:

  • Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh and Silicon Valley, CA, USA
  • Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
  • Italian Institute of Technology, Genova, Italy
  • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
  • National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo, Japan
  • University of Southern Carlifornia, Los Angeles, USA
  • Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

Founded in 2004, the center is affiliated with the School of Computer Science at each institution.

Mission:

Train students, staff and faculty to operate in international research teams across multinational and multicultural boundaries. The center offers international exchange programs, seminars and academies and facilitates cross-national research projects.
Research on technologies, processes and policies that facilitate and improve cross-cultural understanding, cross-lingual communication, transnational cooperation and collaboration.

The interACT history

Established initially as a collaboration at the Interactive Systems Laboratories of Universitat Karlsruhe (TH) and Carnegie Mellon University in 1991, it has since grown and flourished into a joint Center, the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT).

interACT's mission is to carry out scientific research on Advanced Communication Technologies as well as to promote and facilitate education in an international, cross-cultural setting. Both universities signed the cooperative agreement in 2004. interACT has been conducting research in the field of speech recognition, -translation and -output, dialogue, vision technologies, multimodal and cross modal perceptual interfaces and smart rooms. The center operates with the mission to bring communication between humans, computers, and cultures worldwide together by researching and creating revolutionary technology.

In February 2007, interACT opened a third center at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong, headed by Dr. Pascale Fung. In September 2007, Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan joined interACT. interACT at Waseda University is headed by Prof. Atsuo Takanishi.

interACT also offers an Exchange Program for students between Carnegie Mellon University, Universitat Karlsruhe, and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The program aims to exchange knowledge, and train students in an environment of international immersion where they get to know each other, collaborate, and participate in research projects.

Beginning of 2010 three new partners completed interACT:

  • The Italian Institute of Technology (Prod. G. Sandini)
  • The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Tokyo, Japan (Prof. S. Nakamura)
  • The University of Southern California (Dr. St. Schaal).