IoT Innovatech 2019 recently finished in Santiago, Chile and it was a huge success. In its first edition, with some 1,200 attendees, it was already the most-attended purely Industrial IoT event in Latin America. I was honored to help open and keynote the show among the nearly 70 speakers over two days, concentrating on case studies and vertical market usage of IIoT technology to create transformational business outcomes and opportunities. Attendees came from all over Latin America, Europe and North America. It was exciting to see smart cities, manufacturing and agricultural design wins using IIoT approaches take off at this venue. Discussion of communications technologies like 5G and LoRa took a back seat to the digital transformational business outcomes promised by the mission of the Object Management Group® (OMG®) Industrial Internet Consortium®. There was also huge interest in standards like OMG Data-Distribution Service™ and Business Process Model and Notation™, as well as artificial intelligence, blockchain and cybersecurity techniques. A growing interest in coming together to design testbeds around Latin America was apparent too. This was a great event and the organizers are already promising to grow the event in Santiago next year!
Daniel Amigo, Gerente General Meet & Greet, welcomes attendees to IoT Innovatech 2019.
Dr. Soley keynotes at IoT Innovatech 2019, dedicated to the IIoT and to network technologies of the future.
Attendees experience IIoT approaches as well as AI, blockchain and cybersecurity technologies at exhibits during IoT Innovatech 2019.
Dr. Soley with the participants of the closing discussion of IoT Innovatech
In mid-May, I had a marvelous day at committed IIC™ member Huawei Technologies at its headquarters in Shenzhen, China. This $100 billion company manages two of the IIC testbeds and is part of the IIC Steering Committee and in other leadership positions at IIC including the Liaison Working Group. After an extended tour of the new Huawei exhibition center closely focused on Digital Transformation and Industrial IoT, I sat down to work with key Huawei staff and executives on this year's planned meeting of the Global Industry Organization (GIO). This meeting of all key IoT standards organizations will be hosted by the IIC at the IoT Solutions World Congress event in Barcelona, 28 October 2019. Huawei will be a sponsor as always, and we're looking for more strategic sponsors.
Signage welcoming IIC in lobby at Huawei headquarters in Shenzhen, China.
The highlight of the day was a private lunch with Huawei staff and top-level executives, a distinctly non-Chinese meal in what appeared to be a meeting room in France! The day finished with a VIP tour of the factory that makes some 20% of all Huawei wireless base station devices, suitable automated and sensorized.
My next stop was in Tianjin, Hebei for the annual huge World Intelligence Conference (WIC). Lasting from the 16th through 19th of May, this huge conference features public entry days on the weekend with tens of thousands of attendees. For the second time this year, the conference hosted a forum on the Industrial Internet with 2,000 attendees. I gave an overview of IIC white papers, security maturity model and testbed program and a peek into the IoT standardization program at OMG. It was quite gratifying to hear speaker after speaker talk about the Industrial Internet rather than one of the hundred other names, and more than half mentioned the IIC.
Attendees listen to Dr. Soley’s talk about IIC and OMG initiatives at the World Intelligence Conference, held in Tianjin, Hebei.
Tianjin International Exhibition Center outside Dr. Soley’s hotel room in Tianjin, Hebei.
I’ve returned from Ireland after attending the quarterly IIC member meeting, which concluded with the Smart Manufacturing Forum. Hosted by IIC member, Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), the Forum highlighted smart manufacturing in Artificial Intelligence, 3D printing, supply chain, security and industrial analytics. Manufacturing accounts for 36.5% of Ireland’s GDP, so the collection of data analytics, via smart manufacturing, can help Irish companies make more informed decisions for transformational business outcomes.
In June, I’ll travel to Amsterdam to attend the OMG quarterly member meeting, OMG is hosting special events in artificial intelligence, retail, data residency, software quality and business architecture, so if you want to speak and network with experts in these fields and learn about the role of technology standards, then visit https://www.omg.org/events/amsterdam-19/index.htm for more information.
Best,
