The U.S. State Department is one of the latest organizations to see the advantages of IoT data analytics. (Image courtesy of C3 IoT.)
The U.S. State Department recently awarded C3 IoT a contract to provide the department with the C3 IoT platform for application development. The multi-year deal, worth up to $25 million, is focused on using the Internet of Things (IoT) for energy management and aims to help the department meet sustainability goals.
The agreement hopes to leverage data from IoT sensors in the State Department’s more than 22,000 facilities in over 190 countries. The machine-learning IoT platform promises to deliver actionable data insights by monitoring and analyzing energy management across the department’s assets.
The C3 IoT platform is set to be deployed in AWS GovCloud, an Amazon Web Services region that is isolated in order to host sensitive government data. This is necessary to comply with U.S. government requirements including International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP).
Environmental Stewardship on the IoT
The State Department hopes the deal will allow it to increase efficiency and make it a frontrunner in utilizing IoT technology, all while helping the environment. Landon Van Dyke, a senior advisor with the Department of State, explained the initiative.
“With C3 IoT … the Department of State will enhance operational efficiencies by analyzing hundreds of thousands of its facility data points in real time, making our data lakes a rich source of actionable items,” Van Dyke said. “We will be able to identify and address outliers across our global buildings portfolio, learn how to improve upon previous embassy designs and operations and, overall, lower utility and maintenance costs while greatly reducing our energy and environmental footprint.”
President and CTO of C3 IoT, Ed Abbo, echoed the department’s expectations and offered a further reason to be excited about the partnership: the potential for savings.
“The State Department is ready to employ big data analytics to reveal insights that will drive operational efficiencies across the agency and deliver substantial taxpayer savings” Abbo explained. “By transforming its operations and standardizing energy management best practices, the State Department is becoming a strong environmental steward and global leader in the emerging Internet of Things.”
To learn more about how the IoT is being used to help the environment, read about this recent smart city technology.