The victory
A.K.I.R.A. — Artificial Knowledge Interface for Reasoning Applications — wins Opensourcecontest.it, a national competition dedicated to the best Open Source software projects. It is one of the first Italian attempts to build an Open Source cognitive architecture.
The framework
A.K.I.R.A. is a development environment for virtual worlds populated by agents with high-level behaviour. The architecture is based on cognitive schemas (schema-based cognitive architecture) and enables the creation of agents capable of reasoning, anticipation and context adaptation.
The technology stack includes multi-threaded C++, Fuzzy Logic and Fuzzy Cognitive Maps: tools that allow agents to operate in complex environments with uncertain and partial information.
The team
The project is co-developed by noze — through Gianguglielmo Calvi and Stefano Noferi — and by Giovanni Pezzulo from ISTC-CNR (Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the Italian National Research Council). The collaboration between industry and public research represents a model that noze adopts from its very beginnings.
The significance
A.K.I.R.A. demonstrates that it is possible to develop advanced artificial intelligence tools with an open and shared approach. The framework lays the foundation for noze’s subsequent research activities in the field of anticipatory cognitive systems.