Enhanced Environment for Communication and Collaboration (E2C2)

E2C2 is funded by ONR Swampworks and executed by the USC Institute for Creative Technologies. The E2C2 project seeks to answer a simple question that has complicated answers – what will a future office/work environment look like in 2020 and how will it enable people to better function? E2C2 essentially is looking at creating new models for what could be termed “Communication Operating Systems” (COS). The initial E2C2 COS (codename BlueShark) will be a mix of conceptual frameworks, hardware and software that will better enable decision makers and help optimizeoperator performance.

BlueShark is an experiment to look at a variety of ways to possibly collaborate more efficiently.  Some experiments might be more a dream as the technology might not have been invented yet, some experiments might be using cutting edge technology not quite ready for prime time, and some experiments might look at new to market technologies that just have not been applied to workforce experience yet. And the best might be experiments driven by “the audience” that combines different technologies in different ways to better meet some objective.

The overall objective of BlueShark is combine the creative minds of the Institute for Creative Technologies (U.S. Army University Affiliated Research Center for virtual systems), USC, Hollywood studios and U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel to take advantage of our country’s youth’s recent education experience (both formal (schools) and informal (self-taught)) and the rapid advancement of information technologies and apply them to existing naval environments (in an experimental space) and feedback information to technology creators/designers, ship designers, and mission planners on better, more efficient ways to collaborate, train and work. Individual spin off experiments may take place on a case by case basis on naval assets for detailed long term evaluations.

Incorporating the best tools and techniques that ICT has to offer this exciting project will utilize, virtual and augmented reality, virtual humans, artificial intelligence, human-computer interfaces and other research and prototypes.

Learn more at e2c2.ict.usc.edu.