History
The Idiap Research Institute, located in Martigny (Switzerland) and initially referred to as “Institut Dalle Molle d’Intelligence Artificielle Perceptive” (Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence), was founded in 1991 by the Dalle Molle Foundation for the Quality of Life, the Municipality of Martigny, the Canton of Valais, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the University of Geneva and Swisscom as the third of three independent non-profit research institutes in Switzerland:
| ISSCO, Geneva | IDSIA, Lugano | IDIAP, Martigny |
|---|---|---|
| (1973: Linguistic AI) | (1988: Cognitive AI) | (1991: Perceptual AI) |
Legally, its status as a foundation guarantees it great autonomy and gives it access to public scientific research financing while positioning it as a neutral and credible intermediary between the academic world and industry.
As its inception the Idiap Research Institute consisted of about 10 people active mainly in the field of speech recognition. A first phase of development in 1996 saw the planned withdrawal of the Dalle Molle Foundation and the arrival of the current director, Hervé Bourlard, employed at the time by an institute in Berkeley, California. After having celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2001 with the granting of the National Centre of Competence in Research for Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM)2, the years 2002 to 2004 were marked by very strong growth exemplified by the construction of a second building. A period of consolidation, in terms of personnel, infrastructure, and financing, has followed. Fifteen years after its beginnings, the Idiap Research Institute had approximately 100 employees, 85 of whom are researchers representing 23 nationalities, and among them several from the far corners of the world.
Read more about this topic: Idiap Research Institute
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“These anyway might think it was important
That human history should not be shortened.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)