IoT 360 2015, the second edition of the International Summit on the Internet of Things, took place last week at the NH Midas Roma, bringing new pillars to the bridge between Research and Industry in the name of Innovation. But let’s go a bit deeper into this so much expected event and just pick up some results.
Although the official starting date was October 27, works were already in progress on Monday 26 for the co-located conferences. Around 150 registrants for this pre-event phase defined the main areas of application of the IoT, and gave an overview of the most discussed issues rising around it: mobility, healthcare, services, safety and security, cloud, interoperability, smart objects, sensors.
On October 27, Raffaele Giaffreda from Create-Net opened and chaired the first sessions, during which most of the attention was directed to real data to be considered by companies already involved or just interested in the IoT transformation. One of the main question was: what do customers want? Which means: what will customers spend money for? 24% for energy, 38% for TV and devices, 51% for remote controlling systems and 39% for health: these are just few of the analytics highlighted by Francesco Profumo. According to Gabi Zodik, four main elements will drive the IoT revolution: industry, applications, platforms and devices. Finally, Mischa Dohler named and gave suggestions to the real interlocutor and main actor of the change: startups.
However, numbers can be a most valid proof of the way the IoT market is going. According to Antonio Nicita from Agicom, 1.15 billion euros is the value associated to M2M solutions, and an increase of +28% occurred only in 2014. In front of this encouraging evidence, it is also due to mention the hottest topics related to the Internet of Things, which are those of standardization and security. Within this context, Giulio Coraggio from DLA Piper, spoke about finding the right balance between business approach and individuals. On the other hand, during the Q&A with Andrew Watson (Object Management Group) and Marco Carugi (senior consultant in ICT), a significant question came out: does the market care about standards in IoT? For sure, governments’ incentives seem to have a key role in this matter.
During the speaking sessions, a separate area was set for the exhibits spaces where projects such as Rehab@Home, Viper, Compose and Atooma were illustrated by researchers.
The following day (October 28) was time to talk about Smart Communities with Christine Pfeiffer, from INSME, explaining the main steps to build a virtual community and the connected benefits. Then, Tomas Dusicka, Community Manager at EAI, presented a concrete example of how a community platform works.
A productive forum followed the first session, with Tiziana Catarci chairing and animating the discussion: What are the key points in the IoT innovation and transformation? And what about concrete results? Which is the system to refer to? Andrea Vitaletti put some light on these questions indicating infrastructure as a service and open data as two major results, in addition to the crowdfunding as a phase of dialogue with users. To get a full view of the picture, the state-of-the-art of cloud systems was deeply showed by Massimo Villari, from the University of Messina.
For a full 360 degree vision of the IoT panorama, some Technology Forecasts were necessary since, as Benny Mandler said, IoT is here, it is big and it is a revolution because it is not just technology but it really changes the industry. Some more numbers? Fabio Antonelli from Create-Net told us that the 53% of mobile developers are already involved in the Internet of Things. But once more, Mandler reminds us that ‘the big elephant in the room is security and privacy’.
Birds of Feather round tables and cases of Success Stories concluded the second moment of the Summit, shifting to the third and last one (29 October), the Innovation Day, aiming at marking the key stages of the Innovation process: idea evaluation, IP protection and funding opportunities. Furthermore, the IoT360 Summer School went on to October 30, with the Hackathon, whose theme was Life on Mars.
Stay tuned for further highlights from the IoT360 Summit 2015.
