Dear colleagues,

it is hard to believe that I came to SCE 4 years ago for my sabbatical and than spent here 3 half-years. Leaving on Wednesday evening after such a long time at NTU is a bitter-sweet experience. First the bitter part - perhaps someone wiser then myself can advise me what went wrong.

When I came here I had high hopes and great dreams: for a while it looked like NTU is the place they may come true. My engineering vision in 5 points was:

1. What could be the biggest engineering achievement? To have a product of your research used by almost everyone on Earth.
2. What is it that everyone is using? Portable phones, getting smarter but also more complex and difficult to use every year. The number of portable computers sold each year is now greater than stationary computers, and the number of smart phones grows very quickly. Research and teaching of all issues related to "compuphones" will arguably become the most important area in computer engineering.
3. What is the stumbling block in developing the new generation of even more useful smart phones? Their complexity, the difficulty to use them fully, due to their menu-driven interfaces.
4. What is the solution? Humanized interfaces (HITs) that would communicate with us in a natural way, ask minimum number of questions if the commands are ambiguous and do what we ask for: control household devices, help us to remember, communicate, access information and services, advice, educate, play word games ...
5. Creation of such interfaces is the greatest challenge to computer engineering. All other layers of software became more or less standardized; creation of an extensible platform for natural perception, language processing and behavioral modeling is the single most important subject left. It requires a concentrated effort of many people in an area that should be best called “cognitive informatics”, understanding of how humans perceive, communicate and act in the world, and creating artifacts that behave as “artificial minds”, that understand and interact with us.

So we had great dreams, many ups and downs, moments of real excitement and great motivation. HIT (Humanized InTerfaces) developed into DREAM (Developmental Robotics Embedded Artificial Mind, check the C2I android head one of these days) and I was sure that this can be achieved at NTU, after all this is one of the largest engineering schools in the world. A concentrated effort could give us a head start, a much needed focus of many scatters efforts at NTU, and could greatly increase our chance to achieve a strong position in this area. A flurry of our activities culminated with the A*STAR Cognitive Science Symposium “Building Tomorrow’s Cognitive Systems” in September 2005. I was very happy to see great enthusiasm on the behalf of the C2I staff – prof. John Taylor (KCL London) made a remark that this is the kind of atmosphere that led to creation of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (he was a member of supervisory board of that Institute). I was really proud when he said "I admire what you try to do here". C2I lab members worked hard to prepare the demonstrations of their projects and advertise the Symposium, as a result almost 200 people registered. We’ve got highest marks from all the guests and Prof. Chong, who was present during the whole event and at the wrap-up session, was very committed to follow this event with the Thematic Strategic Research Programme in Cognitive Systems.

There is no doubt that we could be major players in this area. With a number of larger projects in cognitive systems: HIT, DREAM, Emovere (A Neuro-Cognitive Computational Framework for Research on Emotions), Brain-Inspired Model of Skill Learning: from Conscious Cognition to Subconscious Action, and IDoCare for Home2015 on infant perceptual and cognitive development, with top local and international collaborators we were on a good way to spread our wings. But then the flagship money vanished, Home 2015 never started, A-STAR turned our project down twice (justification had a few sentences only and totaly irrelevant to the project), Emovere has been under evaluation for one year ... Singapore was added to the list of EU collaborating countries only in the final round of the FP6 projects, but then our large EU project was also not approved (at this stage only 8 out of 300 EU project were funded in this area). SERC has still plans (last time we had a meeting in November 2006) to make a thematic program in cognitive systems, but things go slowly. We should try in the new round of EU projects that are just being announced.

My last effort was to create university-wide collaboration on devices and environments that monitor infant’s development, warn about potential problems, provide specific interactions and cues that should encourage optimal development at the perceptual and cognitive level, and discuss possibilities for the follow-up studies. Active learning embodied in cognitive toys and intelligent environments should help to achieve full development of inborn potential of all babies. According to a recent study published in "The Lancet" (06/01/2007, pp. 60-70) a lack of stimulation and malnourishment leaves 200 million children worldwide unable to benefit from schooling even if it is available. We know how to change it and had a very successful seminar in November 2006 with NIE and Psychology Department people, and it generated a great wave of enthusiasm, they are really eager to collaborate with us. I still hope that we shall move in this direction as it is always a pity to see a lot of enthusiasm wasted, it is a rare commodity anywhere. Perhaps such projects are too far out but I have no doubt that this is where the science is going. The most interesting part in games is how people are playing them and what can we learn about their cognitive and affective problems from the patterns of interactions with games.

So the bitter part is to leave it all unfinished. At some point you stop worrying about your own carrier and start to look forward and think: soon we all shall be gone, what good have we made and what have we missed ... what else could have I done?

Now the sweet part: it has been an amazing experience for me, Singapore is a very special place with a peak of cultural diversity, close to great cultural relics (visit them now, already millions of tourist make it hard to see places like Borobudur, Angkor Watt or Bagan, so the experience get less and less pleasant every year), as well as coral reefs (vanishing even faster ...). The mixture of people here is unique and we have learned to enjoy this diversity. Each one of us carries inside unique memories and parts of culture that cannot be easily shared with others, but we still can laugh together and enjoy each other company. I've been lucky to find so many friends here and hope to keep further contacts with many of you no matter where my physical whereabouts will be (which you may always find by typing "Duch" in Google). What really counts is the joy of life, and in my fourth year here I found that I run from home to the office, involved in too many organizations, conferences, journals etc, and that I hardly notice any more the sky, flying parrots, pair of eagles nesting on the tree opposite our apratment, the blooming trees, hardly leave the campus ... so it is high time now to go back to the comfort of our home (I really miss my deep and long bath tube and our terrace garden) and move on to other places.

I wish you all a great joy of life.

Wlodek Duch
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