The work accomplished in the fields of microscopy and biomedical sciences has been at the heart of many key discoveries which have led to the improvement of human life. We understand this work is done not for the pursuit of fame and fortune but rather for the good of humanity.
Over the last 3 years we have focused on creating Aivia which benefits from R&D work done at DRV over the last 20 years and leverages major technological and scientific developments by the wider community. It is with great pride and honor that we assist each individual scientist that contacts us for help. We are committed to offering Aivia users the very best solution for any image-based problem. We know that no single software can address all applications and thus have started to open Aivia so it can freely interact with other software like Python (see Aivia 8.8). This way, you can complement Aivia’s functionality with open source solutions contributed by DRV staff or the wider community. We plan to take further steps in this direction in future Aivia versions as we strongly believe that scientific advancement is best achieved by collaborative and open efforts. If this is something you are interested in, please reach out to us as we would be happy to explore the next steps with your input.
Each year we run dozens of educational in-person and online events focused on image visualization and analysis. In 2019 alone we had the pleasure to introduce over 400 researchers to the core concepts of scientific image visualization and analysis. For many of the participants those educational workshops offered them the first real contact with machine and deep learning tools for microscopy applications. In addition, we have multiple active research collaboration projects with top quality centers which we expect will yield results in the creation of novel solutions in the fields of Connectomics, CLEM and AI Microscopy. Here are some examples on ongoing work.
That said, we can, and will, do more to increase our positive contribution to the community we belong to and that we know will continue to push the boundaries of human understanding for the greater good. With this in mind, we have created Aivia Community – a free to use software based on Aivia. Releasing this resource at no cost to you reinforces our commitment to this scientific community and gives you an early glimpse of the direction we want to follow. Aivia Community is meant to help you explore microscopy data with ease, detect objects of interest in a more natural way and will ultimately be a vector for science dissemination, education and collaboration.
The action we are taking today represents one more step in the path we believe to be the right one and that will ultimately benefit everyone. Our critics may contend that since we are a commercial entity, we are primarily driven by profit . However, I assure you that each Aivia team member prioritizes your research project (and what it signifies) over and above their personal gain. We are focused on creating tools that accelerate the rate of scientific discovery and thus make the world a better place. We are looking forward to partnering, in the broadest sense, with more of you to make that a reality.
With kind regards,
Luciano Lucas, PhD