The Faculty of Media and Knowledge Science, University of Malta, is pleased to announce a research seminar entitled 'Smart Craftsmanship for Quality of Life' by Prof. Tsutomu Fujinami. 

Prof. Tsutomu Fujinami is a Professor at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) and an Affiliate Associated Professor at the Department of Cognitive Science, University of Malta. 

Research seminar will be held on Friday 24 March between 12:15 and 13.30 in Room 414, MaKS Building, Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences.

Entrance is free but a place needs to be reserved by sending an email to info.maks@um.edu.mt.

Students and academics are cordially invited to attend.

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology School of Knowledge Science was initiated at JAIST in 1998 as an attempt to bridge the gap between management and information technology. We were interested to know the best way for managing organisations with technology and believed that information technology would remove certain restrictions on management. Twenty years passed and both management and information technology went through important changes. Open innovation is a phrase to describe the trend in which wide ranges of stakeholders collaborate with each other beyond superficial differences. Information technology extends its domain to production, enabling for rapid prototyping using 3D printers. These changes point to the rise of localisation and personalisation of products for quality of life. 

The extra cost for localisation and personalisation poses a challenge, though. A revival of craftsmanship augmented by information and sensor technology may help us to tackle the problem, leading to the end of mass production and mass consumption culture. The team called Human Life Design, as part of School of Knowledge Science, explores the possibilities enabled by combining advanced technology and open innovation style. The talk covers its objective, missions, and directions.

Dr Tsutomu Fujinami studied philosophy at Waseda University, from which he was graduated in 1986. He was engaged in research projects related to Artificial Intelligence at Hitachi Ltd until 1992. Leaving the company, he worked on the formal semantics of natural language at University of Edinburgh until 1995. Leaving Scotland, he worked for a project to develop a speech translation system between German, English, and Japanese at University of Stuttgart until 1998. He then returned to Japan and has been working for Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. The research topics include Skill Science and Assistive Technology for the elderly and care-workers. He has also been frequent visitor to Malta since 2009 and has been in a close relationship with the members of the Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences.