Kary Främling is Professor in Data Science at Umeå University in Sweden, where he established a team on Explainable AI (XAI) in 2018. He is also Adjunct Professor in Computer Science at Aalto University in Finland. Kary is an author of over 150 articles published in scientific journals and conferences, including the (presumably) first article that mentions the IoT and describes an industrial implementation of it in 2002. The Digital Twin concept (under the name Virtual Counterpart) was a cornerstone concept in the developed systems, also described under the name Intelligent Products since 2003. Since then, Kary has been the main architect of IoT systems in various domains, such as smart buildings, HVAC equipment, vehicles, supply chain management etc. Rather than speaking about IoT and Intelligent Products, his research has turned towards a Systems of Systems thinking since 2010. Kary’s background in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning goes back to the 1980’s and those technologies have been cornerstones in his research since then. His Contextual Importance and Utility (CIU) method is presumably the first post-hoc explainability method, first presented in 1995. Achieving trustworthiness and explainability of computer systems is his current research objective. In addition to Kary’s research career, he is also the Founder of companies, he has been the Chair of the IoT Work Group of The Open Group for many years, he has worked in industry in different roles and is currently the head of research at the startup company Louhos Solutions.
