The Idiap Research Institute is a semi-private non-profit

research institute A research institute, research centre, research center or research organization, is an establishment founded for doing research. Research institutes may specialize in basic research or may be oriented to applied research. Although the term often i ...

Martigny Martigny (; german: Martinach, ; la, Octodurum) is the capital city of the district of Martigny, canton of Valais, Switzerland. It lies at an elevation of , and its population is approximately 15000 inhabitants (''Martignerains'' or "Octodurie ...

in the

canton Canton may refer to: Administrative division terminology * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and ent ...

Valais Valais ( , , ; frp, Valês; german: Wallis ), more formally the Canton of Valais,; german: Kanton Wallis; in other official Swiss languages outside Valais: it, (Canton) Vallese ; rm, (Chantun) Vallais. is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 ...

, in south-western Switzerland. It conducts research in the areas of

speech processing Speech processing is the study of speech signals and the processing methods of signals. The signals are usually processed in a digital representation, so speech processing can be regarded as a special case of digital signal processing, applied t ...

computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...

information retrieval Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the process of obtaining information system resources that are relevant to an information need from a collection of those resources. Searches can be based on full-text or other co ...

biometric authentication Biometrics are body measurements and calculations related to human characteristics. Biometric authentication (or realistic authentication) is used in computer science as a form of identification and access control. It is also used to identify in ...

multimodal interaction Multimodal interaction provides the user with multiple modes of interacting with a system. A multimodal interface provides several distinct tools for input and output of data. Introduction Multimodal human-computer interaction refers to the " ...

and

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

. The institute is affiliated with the

École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(EPFL), and with the

Université de Genève The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...

.Fondation de l'Institut de Recherche Idiap (Foundation of the Idiap Research Institute)
(in French). Confédération suisse: répertoire électronique des fondations. Accessed September 2014.
Education, research and innovation 2008–2011

History

The institute was founded as the Istituto Dalle Molle di Intelligenza Artificiale Percettiva (french: ) in 1991 by the Italian entrepreneur

Angelo Dalle Molle Angelo Dalle Molle (4 November 1908 – 2001) was an Italian businessman and Utopian philanthropist. In 1952 he invented and patented Cynar, a bitter aperitivo based on artichoke leaves, which became famous partly due to advertisements with Ern ...

through the Fondation Dalle Molle, in collaboration with the

and with local, cantonal and federal government bodies. Its purpose was to investigate the application of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

to human perception in general, and to recognition and analysis of patterns in particular. In 1996, with the participation of the town of

, the

canton of Valais Valais ( , , ; frp, Valês; german: Wallis ), more formally the Canton of Valais,; german: Kanton Wallis; in other official Swiss languages outside Valais: it, (Canton) Vallese ; rm, (Chantun) Vallais. is one of the 26 cantons forming the Sw ...

, the EPFL, the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...

and

Swisscom Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Its headquarters are located in Ittigen near Bern. The Swiss government owns 51.0 percent of Swisscom AG. According to its own published data, Swisscom holds a market share of 56 ...

, it became a research foundation independent of the Dalle Molle foundation, and shortly after changed its name to Idiap Research Institute.Research Institute Idiap, Martigny
Fondation Dalle Molle. Accessed September 2014. Idiap is one of the four Swiss research organisations founded by the Dalle Molle foundation, of which three are in the field of artificial intelligence.

Research

Idiap was home to the National Centre of Competence in Research IM2 project on "Interactive Multimodal Information Management".The Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) on Interactive Multimodal Information Management (IM2)
Idiap Research Institute. Accessed September 2014. In addition, notable projects originating from Idiap includ
Eyeware Tech's
head and eye tracking technology.

References

{{authority control Information technology research institutes Research institutes in Switzerland Martigny Buildings and structures in Valais University of Geneva Educational institutions established in 1991 Research institutes established in 1991 1991 establishments in Switzerland