ELLIS Amsterdam unit has recently moved to its new office, LAB42 of the University of Amsterdam. The lab is now home for students and researchers from UvA’s Informatics Institute, the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) and several companies working in the sector. LAB42 is also new office for other key players in the sector, including the Innovation Center for Artificial Intelligence (ICAI), and the Amsterdam Data Science (ADS).
The physical building of LAB42 was designed to be future-proof, and thus it is a fully circular one. It is designed to be energy-neutral, easy to dismantle, and reusable. The office prioritises optimal comfort for those present and minimal impact on the environment. For instance, it uses low CO2 footprint materials, such as panels made out of recycled bottles, collects rainwater and reuses it to flush the toilets, and automatically adjusts light, air as well as temperature to the number of people present.
LAB42 seeks to facilitate knowledge sharing and nurture innovation, by putting research, education and industry under one roof. This way, the interaction and collaboration between the different stakeholders could be more encouraged.
Examples of projects LAB42 will produce work on:
- Using AI in medical imaging
- Digitising museum collections;
- Improving inequality in cities;
- Developing socially responsible algorithms for online shopping;
- Recognising and preventing money laundering on the basis of data.