My tenure as Principal Investigator for the TRIL Technology Platform team is now drawing to a close. It’s been my great pleasure to have helped lead this excellent interdisciplinary team over the past 2 year period. Along with Professor Paddy Nixon of UCD and Michael McGrath, co-Principal Investigator from the Intel Digital Health Group we have grown this small team by over 50%. This growth has been to meet the needs of the clinical strands due to increasing levels of activity and secondly to increase the level of capabilities which can be utilised by the strands.

The function of the TTP is to provide TRIL with its technology research, interaction design capabilities and the software and hardware tools which support the research activities of the clinical strands namely Falls, Cognitive and Social. In the development and provisioning of these tools the TTP has adopted a philosophy, where possible, of a re-usable, open, modular platform to support the needs of the TRIL researchers and the wider research community. This has resulted in the development of the BioMOBIUS research platform. This platform is a combination of hardware, sensors, software and a graphical development environment that enables engineers and researchers to rapidly deploy technology solutions for biomedical research applications.
Some highlights of my tenure as TTP PI with our team have included:

1. The release of BioMOBIUS research platform in April 2008 to the research community
2. The growth of the TTP team by 50% and the relocation of this team to the research environment of the Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory UCD
3. The proposal, planning and delivery of 3 international workshops: Intel research Amberglen, Portland, EMBS Conference, Vancouver, Canada, University College Dublin with conjunction with the EMEA Research conference
4. The initiation of the specification process of TRIL clinical and central infrastructure setup
5. The deployment of technology into homes to support trials by the three clinical strands
6. The support of technology requirements for successful start-up of the TRIL clinic in St James’s
7. The submission of Journal and Conference papers and the publication of workshop papers.

I leave the TTP knowing that I we have a stronger and more vibrant team of researchers, engineers, interaction designers, postdocs, hardware engineers and managers than when I arrived in 2007. As I move onto two new major research initiatives with national and international collaborators I wish all the members of TRIL all the very best going forward.