Forio's Forum

At Forio we occassionally look at new modeling languages that could become part of the Simulate platform. We currently support models produced by AnyLogic, Vensim, Excel, iThink/STELLA, and Powersim Studio. We’ve recently been interested in adding a mathematical programming language like R or Matlab.

In January 2012 we discovered Julia, a mathematical programming language that’s has received a lot of attention in the modeling community. Julia is web based, multi-core, runs fast, and open source.

Julia can fill a gap in the modeling community. For decades, Excel has been the lingua franca of novice and even many expert modelers because of its ubiquity. However, for complex models with lots of data or highly arrayed data, it makes more sense to use a programmatic syntax offered by a mathematical programming language such as Julia.

We are building on the REPL developed by Julia team at MIT that will let you enter code Julia on one side of the screen, and see your results on the other side of the screen. This software might fill a need for our customers, as well as for Forio in our own modeling efforts.

We’re exploring creating tools for developers who want to use Julia, such as using Forio’s expertise in user interface design to create an easy to use user interface for the Julia language. And we’re exploring how to make Julia available across multiple cores with advanced features in a web-based or desktop-based software.

Want to try Julia? We’re hosting a free public REPL for people who want to experiment with Julia at julia.forio.com.

Forio with Harvard Business School Publishing has released Version 2 of the Back Bay Battery Innovation Simulation based on the research of Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma.

In this online simulation, you play the role of the CEO of Back Bay Battery. Your task is to manage a portfolio of R&D investments for products in the portable power industry. You must manage R&D investment tradeoffs between sustaining investment in your existing business versus investing in a new and potentially disruptive technology.

Version 2 eliminates any use of Flash in the user interface so that the simulation can now be played on the iPad, through the browser. Version 2 also has an enhanced user interface and better reports for faculty to present and share student results in the classroom.

Play a Demo of Innovation v2

You might have seen Forio’s name pop up in the press in the past month or two. On August 9, IBM issued a press release making public a project we’ve been helping them with for over a year — a system dynamics modelling project in support of IBM’s Smarter Cities initiative. The model explores the “relationships that exist among the city’s core systems, including the economy, housing, education, public safety, transportation, healthcare/wellness, government services and utilities.” Forio was a major contributor to the model, which was built in Vensim and is hosted on the Forio Simulate platform. The press release generated significant ‘buzz’ for several weeks, and discussion of the Smarter Cities initiative and the model appeared in sources ranging from PCWorld to the Green (Low Carbon) Data Center Blog.

For more information about Forio’s consulting and modeling services in the Public Policy sector, contact:

Matt Adams
MAdams@forio.com
(415) 440-7500 x86

Vensim is ideally suited for creating sophisticated system dynamics simulations. But how can modelers make the results of these models easily accessible to users unfamiliar with the Vensim desktop application?

Forio Simulate is a web hosting application that makes it easy for modelers to integrate Vensim models into end-user web applications. It allows modelers working in Vensim to publish VMF files to a server-based installation of Vensim hosted by Forio. Interface developers can then employ use the user interface design tool to create a web interface using a drag-and-drop application. No programming is necessary.

In a recent webinar, Tom Fiddeman and Billy Schoenberg show how Vensim modelers can combine interactive Web applications with Vensim. The webinar covers:

1. Importing your Vensim model into Forio Simulate for use on the web.
2. Exploring your model with the Forio Simulate Model Explorer
3. Creating a web based user interface without writing code
4. Expanding past the drag and drop UI designer using Forio Simulate’s RESTful APIs

Watch the webinar now by clicking HERE