The Internet of Things World Forum Unites Industry Leaders in Chicago to Accelerate the Adoption of IoT Business Models Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) leaders announce new IoT Reference Model and IoTWF Talent Consortium Chicago, IoT World Forum 2014, October 14, 2014 Today at the Internet of Things World Forum in Chicago, industry leaders announced a series of key initiatives to advance the technology, industry ecosystem, talent and education required to move the industry to wide-scale deployment. The IoTWF event this week will place particular emphasis on showcasing the real-life deployment scenarios that are already delivering value within public and private sectors. The benefits of IoT solutions in terms of creating new business models, driving efficiencies, and enabling better quality of life are increasingly being recognized by forward-looking organizations with more than 250 real-life deployments being showcased at the event.
IoTWF, hosted by Cisco, is an exclusive annual event that brings together the best and brightest thinkers, practitioners, and innovators from business, government, and academia to accelerate the market adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT). Executives from industry leaders such as Intel, Rockwell Automation and Schneider-Electric will address the conference, together with customer viewpoints from major enterprises such as Shell and Rio Tinto. This years IoTWF builds on the success of the inaugural event in Barcelona and has attracted close to triple the number of customers, and triple the number of sponsors participating.
In order to accelerate the value of these industry deployment examples, the Internet of Things World Forum Steering Committee today introduced a new IoT Reference Model that will serve as a common framework to help the industry accelerate IoT deployments. The IoT Reference Model will drive business value by accelerating replicable deployment models and fostering industry innovation and collaboration by creating an open and common taxonomy.
Additionally, as part of the IoTWFs continuing focus on providing the skills and training necessary to develop and sustain engineers, the IoTWF unveiled an industry first IoT Talent Consortium that will both shape the next generation of IoT leaders and also provide continuing education for todays workforce on the needs of a new IoT-enabled industry.
Technology and Ecosystem News:
IoTWF announces new seven-level IoT Reference Model as an industry framework
Developed by the IoTWF Steering Committee as an industry framework that will help explain IoT and provide a common language for efficient collaboration. This seven-level framework aims to help educate CIOs, IT departments, and developers on deployment of IoT projects, and accelerate the adoption of IoT.
The reference model provides a common terminology, brings clarity to how information flows and is processed, and progresses towards a unified IoT industry.
It provides practical suggestions for how to address the challenges of scalability, interoperability, agility and legacy compatibility faced by many organizations seeking to deploy IoT systems today.
A goal of the initiative is to define an "Open System" for IoT where multiple companies can contribute different parts and provide a first step toward IoT product interoperability across vendors.
Over the last year, the 28 members of the IoTWFs Architecture, Management and Analytics Working Group have collaborated on the model. Participating working group members include key industry organizations such as Intel, GE, Itron, SAP, and Oracle, among others.
Education and Talent
IoTWF Industry Talent Consortium:
There is a projected skills gap of 2 million trained engineers that will need specialized training over the coming decade to help realize the value of IoT.
Today the IoTWF Steering Committee is introducing an Industry Talent Consortium to address this major skills gap and an IoT reference model to help developers and the community with a standardized roadmap for onboarding new technologies.
The Consortium addresses one of the key challenges: that recent college and university graduates lack the skills to fill new jobs due to curriculum gaps in new areas like analytics, Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber crime.
Cisco and other key players are creating an Industry Talent Consortium to address this major skills gap, with the objective of having all of the key players work together to identify skill gaps, find talent with the right background to up-skill or re-skill, create and implement the necessary training and certification programs, and hire that talent for the jobs that will power the Internet of Everything.
Key founding partners supporting the program include:
Academia: The New York Academy of Sciences, MIT, Stanford
Human Capital Solution Providers: Careerbuilder
Employers: Rockwell Automation, Davra Networks, GE, Cisco
Change Agents: Cisco, Xerox, Rockwell Automation, Udacity, Pearson, Knod
The Internet of Things is happening here and now.
During the event, Cisco and the IoTWF Steering Committee highlighted in excess of 250 real-life IoT deployments around the world that can serve as models for vertical industries.
The IoTWF Steering Committee comprises technologists and executives who are committed to accelerating the awareness and adoption of IoT technologies Over the past year, the number of companies shaping the direction of the forum in the IoTWF Steering Committee itself has grown to 104 (up from 64 last year)..
At the IoTWF in Chicago the number of industry sponsors has tripled (from 16 in Barcelona to 49 sponsors this year), the number of customers has close to tripled from 400 to over 1,100 this year, and the overall number of industry partners actively participating in the forum is in excess of 80. The overall number of attendees grew from
