PostLab is currently working on an artificial intelligence (AI) software platform that will be collaborative in essence.
It aims at making readily available the tools developed by dedicated Academic researchers, so they can make it out of the lab into the big wide world more easily.
Hence the name of the company PostLab.
Our desire is to see years of valuable research that usually end up at best in the hands of a few, or at worst sitting on a lab’s digital shelf, flourish in the hands of a larger public and finally get to be understood and used like they were intended to in the first place. Our aim, in helping to bridge the valley of death between the lab and the outside world, is threefold, as technological advancements allows new ways of imagining the use of fine-tuned knowledge and innovation born in Academic labs.
Firstly, to enable people from all walks of life and sparked by all kinds of interests, needs and desires, to easily access the fine natural intelligence being put into years of focused research in university labs. The platform’s multilingual approach provides a further attempt to lessen the digital language divide and embrace less used languages and more users.
Secondly, to promote, map and make readily accessible the unfathomed breadth of creativity, knowledge and expertise, continuously developed by committed AI researchers. The methodology behind the platform will give an accurate and up to date picture of the AI landscape, encompassing a broad range of academic disciplines.
Thirdly, to make AI better known in its wider definition, to cover and uncover the wide array of domains and techniques that have been advanced in the research field over the past decades, and at play today in an ever-expanding digital world. By prompting interest and curiosity around the processes that produce AI systems rather than a blind-folded arms-race attitude towards AI, we endeavour to help people understand and appreciate the benefits and limits of the technology being used.
The platform builds on and cultivates a circle of virtue that will benefit both the users and the developers of AI.
Those seeking AI solutions will be able to access directly value software and at a reasonable cost high in order to maintain the platform’s long term sustainability as well as expert advice and training. As software and knowledge circulates out of the lab in a practical and user-friendly way, Postlab targets both experts and non-experts alike, in an effort to bring together potential users and current developers, whether part of Academia, civil society, companies or other.
Ultimately, we’ve imagined working in a way to directly further the interests of Academic researchers and labs at large.
As software is finally shared, mutualised and used across different lines of research and beyond, positive contributions arise on multiple levels for labs. Cooperation and interdisciplinary work for researchers, teachers and students and those beyond the university field is enhanced. Every-day users get their digital lives facilitated as they abandon complex and energy-consuming tasks for on the go high expertise software. Lastly, the membership system brings recognition and financial support to the labs through the consultancy and training services that they offer around their AI software. As money gets injected in the lab it is then able to further advance its primary research activities and skills. Innovative projects and technological development can be further encouraged and possibly brought back into balance/paired with the needs and endeavours of the larger public.