NOTTINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL
UTILISING 5G CONNECTIVITY FOR PHYSICAL & MENTAL WELLNESS
Nottingham Trent University ’ s Prof Eiman Kanjo explains how 5G connectivity can help revitalise people ’ s mental and physical health in a post-pandemic world
For someone with a wealth of brain power such as Nottingham Trent University ’ s Prof . Eiman Kanjo , linking pervasive societal problems with targeted , cuttingedge technology to devise solutions is more than just a passion ; it ’ s a vocation . Hence why she has worked consistently for the past two years as an integral partner in Nottinghamshire County Council ’ s 5G Connected Forest project .
“ I ' m a professor of Pervasive Computing and Mobile Sensing at NTU , where I lead the Smart Sensing Lab and the basic computing group within the university ’ s computer sales department ,” says Prof . Kanjo . “ We build sensing systems where we collect and label data , and then analyse it , with the data coming from devices like wearables or edge devices or IoT devices . Then we try to come up with insights or interventions to support people to change their behaviour or to support a particular community or other sorts of applications .”
Whether mental wellbeing or crime prevention , the idea is that the data
collected can be manipulated to form discrete interventional solutions to address commonalities . Prof . Kanjo ’ s years of experience working at prestigious universities on mobile and smartphone technology – as well as other technological and digital foci – makes her an ideal partner for NCC in developing forward-thinking tech with alternative aims and outcomes . As such , she had a crucial role to play in developing the 5G-enabled IoT and AI platform called TagWithMe ( www . Tagwithme . com ). Central to this is an app developed for Rufford Country Park called ‘ Tag in The Park ’. But what is this app and how does it work ?
“ Visitors will be presented with 16 different points of interest across the location , in the form of small images . When they get close to one of these points of interest , the related devices embedded around the park can detect their presence and it triggers one of three types of challenges . These are AI challenges , where visitors have to point their phone – with the camera on – towards part
54 May 2022