Research funding awarded

Professor Winston Seah, from the School of Engineering and Computer Science, has been awarded a $30,000 grant from InternetNZ to fund a Masters’ project that aims to address a key challenge for businesses dealing with exploding volumes of data.

More than ever before, says Professor Seah, businesses are reliant on data to function efficiently and effectively. As we continue to digitise information and increasingly rely on the internet for our conversations, moving information around, undertaking transactions and more, business are being faced with new problems in how to deal effectively with the data they gather and use.

The project for which Professor Seah has received funding addresses one of these newly emerged challenges—the scalability issues of traffic classification in enterprise network using software defined networking.

Putting it in layman’s terms, Professor Seah says the project is focused on how businesses understand and apply rules about the information they receive to support their businesses goals. For example, how can businesses ensure customer queries are prioritised over spam and that time-critical tasks are prioritised. “It all depends on how accurately the digital information about those transactions can be understood,” says Professor Seah.

This project has potential benefits for New Zealand companies and Professor Seah has already been approached by a New Zealand company which sees significant potential in this research.