The document summarizes the work of the Center for Actionable Research of the Open University. It discusses challenges facing modern society like economic, environmental and social issues. The center conducts research through projects like Deep Solaris, which uses AI to identify solar panels from aerial images, and VERA, a voice emotion recognition assistant. The center's vision is to create solutions that address challenges and shape the future through collaborative actionable research, co-creation and education.

1. Center for Actionable Research of the Open University
Martine Hermans
Project Manager - Open Universiteit

2. “Change before you have to.”
- Jack Welch

3. Technology changes the world and
modern society faces important challenges:
Economic

4. Technology changes the world and
modern society faces important challenges:
Environmental

5. Technology changes the world and
modern society faces important challenges:
Social

6. How we address these challenges will shape our
future; working together will be key to finding
meaningful and effective solutions

8. Actionable research,
Co-creation and
Education
Supporting the Digital Age
Center for Actionable Research of the Open University
@ Brightlands Smart Services Campus in Heerlen
About CAROU

9. Social
Innovation &
Learning Lab
Brightlands Smart Services
Campus Partners
Data science
& Artificial
Intelligence Lab
Research Lines:
• Emotion Intelligence
• Data Science-based
Service Innovation
• Employability and Organizational
Life of the Future
• Cyber Security
• Entrepreneurship and Decision Support
• Climate Change Governance
• Life-long Learning

10. Research Partners

11. Deep Solaris
Using deep learning models
to identify solar panels and
their characteristics

12. OUr Mission
• Creating a more sustainable society
that can manage its own resources
and predict the required load of
energy given an evolving society and
challenges such as climate change.
 Use Artificial Intelligence (deep
learning models) to identify solar
panels and their characteristics (e.g.
KWh output per year)
 Classifying and annotating aerial
satellite images belonging to Statistics
Netherlands (CBS)

13. Deep Solaris
The project was awarded a Eurostat grant
in 2017. Partners include:
- CBS (Netherlands)
- Federal Public Services (FPD) Economy
(Belgium)
- Federal Statistical Office (DESTATIS)
(Germany)
- Information und Technik Nordrhein-
Westfalen (IT-NRW) (Germany)

14. www.animus.farm

17. VERA
Voice Emotion Recognition
Assistant

18. VERA’s goals
Understand the customers emotions to improve
the interaction between the caller and the caller
agent.
Data collection and analysis tool powered by
machine learning and AI
• Customer contact more personal /
efficient / more effective
• Easier and more accurate retrieval of
customer satisfaction
• Predict stress levels of caller agents

19. 19
Vision

20. “ Built in Heerlen,
made for the world ”
Christopher Sparks
martine.hermans@ou.nl
06 – 115 191 02