Inaugural Address: Envisioning and Enabling Sustainable Smart Markets
Dr <link people wolfgang-ketter>Wolf Ketter’s nomination as Professor of Next Generation Information Systems at Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM) was officially recognised on Friday, 20 June when he gavehis inaugural address.
About the Inaugural Address
Ketter’s innovative inaugural address has relevance to business and society alike. The title is Envisioning Sustainable Smart Markets and Enabling Sustainable Smart Markets, a subject which takes into account business, society and academic viewpoints in the search for more sustainable ways of living. He argues that market mechanisms and intelligent decision support can be effective in solving large-scale resource allocation problems of this kind, but only if the market design reflects the social costs. Information systems have a central role in helping to devise solutions. His address looks at the challenges and opportunities involved for information systems researchers, and sets out an agenda for sustainable smart markets research, centred on collaborative approaches.
The address formed the academic culmination of this year’s two-day Erasmus Energy Forum, an international conference that attracts a diverse audience of leaders from business and industry, including policymakers and academics. The Forum addressed three themes: EU policies and markets; energy microgrids and new business models; and financing sustainable energy.
The address is published in the ERIM Inaugural Address Series and is aimed at a dual audience; academia and business. This is why the inaugural booklet contains two complementary parts; The envisioning part is the classical inaugural address aimed at the academic audience. The second part on enabling smart markets contains business cases and interviews with business leaders on the business relevance of the smart markets concept and the innovative software tools created for business.
The combination of a dual impact inaugural address and a two day Erasmus Energy Business Forum organized in the context of a very visible <link research centres future-energy-business>centre of excellence on Future Energy Business is a powerful approach for creating immediate business impact and strong corporate relations.
About Wolf Ketter
Dr Ketter was nominated to the new academic chair in the Department of Technology and Operations Management in July 2013. The chair was created to promote research into technologies that facilitate automated real-time decision-making in smart markets, and is endowed by the Erasmus Trust Fund. It focuses on ‘disruptive’ and innovative technologies that facilitate real-time decision-making with the help of learning agents in smart market environments. Learning agents are software entities that carry out operations on behalf of a user or organisation with some degree of independence or autonomy, are able to improve their performance from experience, and use some knowledge or representation of the user’s goals or needs.
Wolf Ketter is director of the Learning Agents Research Group at Erasmus (LARGE) and the specialist research centre, the Erasmus Centre for Future Energy Business. Both research groups are based at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Professor Ketter explains his work in a recent video on RSM Discovery, in which he elaborates on why the new vision of energy actually empowers people to find ways to generate their own. RSM Discovery is the School’s new video platform for researchers to showcase their latest findings and describe how they affect business. Professor Ketter’s activities can also be followed on Twitter @wolfketter.
Professor Ketter’s work within the energy sector – and within other industries – have drawn praise; for his efforts to get newer players such as automotive manufacturers into the debate alongside oil and gas producers, as well as for his approach to the power simulation project which includes a unique element of gamification and friendly competition, which draws many young and enthusiastic minds to the project.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
