The grant, which started in March 2022, will cover the simulation of the placement of humanitarian aid centers and the optimal transport of supplies and necessary first aid supplies from the service centers.
Along with Professor Gia Sirbiladze, academic professors participate in the grant project: Bidzina Midodashvili (Department of Practical Informatics); Bidzina Matsaberidze (IT Director of TBC Bank and Professor of TSU) and Bezhan Gvaberidze (classic of optimization methods in Georgia). The project also involved doctoral students, undergraduates and staff of the department.
With regard to international cooperation, two groups are involved in the implementation of the project. One group - the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems of the Polish Academy of Sciences, which is a division of the Institute for Systems Research and headed by Janusz Katzprzyk, will work on the project for the first year, and the University of the Basque Country - San Sebastian will participate in the third year.
The Department of Applied Informatics of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of TSU has been implementing a number of interesting and important projects for several years. The group, headed by the head of the department, Professor Gia Sirbiladze, constantly participates in fundamental scientific projects, students, mainly undergraduates and doctoral students. Over the past five years, they have already won the sixth grant. Professor Gia Sirbiladze answers our questions:
- Mr. Gia, what contribution will foreign scientists make to the implementation of the project within the framework of the collaboration?
- They have a very big mission. For example, from the University of the Basque Country, the direction of machine learning is involved in the study of complex and complex processes and objects, which is led by Antonio Lozano. This group has the most serious business - they have to make a demo version of the software. The whole Western world is waiting for this model - people who are busy implementing machine learning for quick response during natural disasters. We also have programmers and students involved in the creation of this software demo. This is a very difficult mathematical object to study, and therefore complex algorithms will be created that must work very quickly - it must be detailed from which help center to which demand point, how many cars should go, what help to take, etc. In all countries there is such software.
- The recent processes that have unfolded in the world show that modeling the optimal transportation of goods from humanitarian aid centers to service centers and the necessary first aid facilities that you are conducting under this project is an urgent matter. What model should be created and do you have contacts with government agencies that could use this model?
- It is clear that we understand how important the business we are doing is. The group has to do serious work within the framework of the project. A model should be created to facilitate the process of responding to a specific emergency. He must be able to modify the system based on data and fulfill all the requirements that managers will need in the logistics process. The system should make recommendations at the level at which the request will be. Accordingly, the deeper the general model is studied in detail, the greater the possibility of varying the entire system. We are working on this right now. We think we have a model detail that no one else in the world has achieved yet. The Polish group will also help us with this. The Spanish group will take part in the creation of the software.
With regard to relations with government agencies, we are cooperating with the Emergency Management Department, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and we will provide them with this model.
- Does the project involve participation in scientific conferences to inform the public about the unique model?
- Of course, the process of this project includes conferences, including with the IEEE (IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers). This organization has different directions. One of them is holding rating conferences. We have already presented three reports, and on October 13, I, Bezhan Gvaberidze and Bidzina Matsaberidze presented our work to the public at an international conference. We also had a plenary presentation, which we showed as a video on the first day of the conference. This 45-minute talk will tell about the history and prospects of our Georgian School of Applied Informatics. I am glad that all our presentations were met with great approval and interest in the international professional community.
- How useful do you consider the work that you do in Georgian society, do the models you created really work?
- Informatics is divided into branches, one of the areas of which is artificial intelligence and intelligent systems.
These are smart systems that come up every day, like Google's recommendation system. We have many students who grew up in a master's or doctoral program who know this system very well. Today, the study of these tools at all levels of computer education is relevant, since intelligent systems, as consumer systems, are necessary and in demand.
There are many areas of research, such as decision modeling and the creation of appropriate support systems. Today, optimal decision making is very demanding at every stage and affects everyone. In this direction, our projects are also important - these are decision support systems that will help managers and dispatchers.
Everyone needs these systems - even business process managers who have offices and enterprises in other countries and conduct marketing processes in another country. Actually, this is a task that is included in our grant and is one of the small items in this big topic.
- When will the project be completed and will you be engaged in the implementation of the model in the future?
- The project will be completed in three years. Even today, in conditions of war, the project we have presented is very demanding - the most important thing is the creation of humanitarian corridors and the evacuation of people to these corridors. Currently, there are opportunities to make these corridors in different places, depending on the risks and requirements. We are talking about placing these people in shelters.
Our latest project is dedicated to such circumstances - military situations - when it is necessary to transport the victims along the corridors. This system will generate these possible corridors and even plan the evacuation process.
The project submitted to the Rustaveli Foundation deals with the same topic, and we are waiting for a response by the new year.
