10 Keynotes Not to Miss at the Global IoT Tech Expo

Shawn Wasserman posted 2017-01-09

This January will kick off the second annual IoT Tech Expo in London's Olympia. This two-day event will focus on how the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial IoT (IIoT) will help engineers revolutionize numerous industries, including manufacturing, automotive, energy, transportation, health and agriculture.

Engineers will have a lot to pique their interests at the expo—besides making a name for themselves in the IoT Hackathon. ENGINEERING.com has the lowdown of where you want to go and what you want to see to learn the most about building and implementing the IoT.

This massive event will cover seven tracks, 6,000 attendees, over 200 speakers and 100 exhibitors. So, needless to say, there will be something for everyone. The seven tracks are:

  • Developing for the IoT
  • Connected Industry
  • IoT Innovations & Technologies
  • Data & Security
  • Smart Cities
  • Connected Services
  • Connected Living

Given these tracks, it's clear that some of the presentations will not be targeting the engineering community. To that end, ENGINEERING.com compiled a short list that should help engineers find events that better suit our interests.

Top 10 Presentations for Engineers at the IoT Tech Expo

Each of the tracks will feature its own keynote sessions and presentations, but which will focus on the engineering to connect these products and move the industry forward? 

Well, this might help—the top 10 presentations for engineers at the IoT Tech Expo 2017 as chosen by ENGINEERING.com:

  1. Strategic Choices and the Next Generation of IIoT User Experience
    • Presenter:

      • –John Schaefer, senior vice president of PTC's ThingWorx Research and Development

    • In this presentation, Schaefer will look at the trends of the IIoT market and how this will affect the engineers looking to build these systems. The presentation will also address how the end-user experience will influence the design of an IIoT system.

     

  2. Keynote Panel: The Future of IoT Development
    • Presenters:

      • – John Schaefer, senior vice president of PTC’s ThingWorx Research and Development

      – Fredrik Östbye, vice president Internet of Things at the Telenor Group

      –Jürgen Hase, CEO of Unlimit by Reliance

    • This panel, which will also include Schaefer from PTC, will discus the ever-changing IoT ecosystem. Topics of discussion will include the fragmented IoT market, the entrance barrier to the IoT, new IoT technologies to help implement the IoT and universal IoT standardization for interoperability.

     

  3. Which Is Best for Your IoT Application: LTE, LPWAN or Mesh?
    • Presenter:

      • –Actility

    • This presentation will look into the hardware options for building an IoT system. Key questions comparing Cat-0, Cat-1, Cat-M, LTE and LPWA will be discussed. Performance criteria such as security, ranges, data rates and power consumption, as well as other pros and cons, will all be taken into consideration when comparing these technologies.

     

  4. Keynote Presentation: What Is the Best Route into the IIoT?
    • Presenter:

      • –ARMmbed

    • This presentation will look into the design, and in some cases redesigns, that organizations will need to implement into their operations to create an IoT system. Engineers will also learn how to support products throughout their life cycle using an IoT network. The discussion will then look into how to develop a proprietary IoT platform that is compatible with internal and external tools.

     

  5. Panel: Smart Factories of the Future
    • Presenters:

      • –Moderator: Jason Stamper, analyst for Data Platforms & Analytics at 451 Research

      –Idan Barak, CIO at Nilit

      –Erja Turunen, executive vice president, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

      –Cyrille Fauvel, senior worldwide ADN Sparks manager at Autodesk

      –Dirk Lange, technical director at ARTIS GmbH

    • This panel, featuring Cyrille Fauvel from Autodesk, will discuss how manufacturing will transform when the IoT is implemented. Topics will include improvements to operations, shifts in product focus, discovering new factory concepts, smart machinery and the smart factory. The panel will also discuss performance indicators such as energy consumption, efficiency and return on investment.

     

  6. IoT 2022: Five Key Technologies That Will Transform IoT
    • Presenter:

      • –Sudhi Sinha, vice president of Product Development at Johnson Controls

    • This prognosticating presentation will look into new innovations with IoT platforms, software and hardware and how they will affect the market. The discussion aims to inform engineers what their organizations will need to do to become leaders in an IoT marketplace come 2022. The presentation will also discuss industry winners and losers in the next five years.

     

  7. Case Study: AR/VR in Enterprise
    • Presenter:

      • –Chris Freeman, technical fellow at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing

    • Naturally, the IoT will be used to build other technologies that can aid an industry such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). These tools will help employees perform their tasks, improve safety, train and better understand the status of the systems they operate. This discussion will consider these potential gains as well as the challenges in implementing them.

     

  8. Panel: IoT Data Analytics for Intelligent Decision-Making
    • Presenters:

      • –Moderator: Lubna Dajani, consultant at Independant

      –Paul Winsor, director Industry Solutions at Qlik

      –Klaus Bauer, head of Basic Technology Development at TRUMPF

    • This panel will discuss the benefits that embedded sensors can provide to an IIoT system thanks to the data they collect and the analytics that crunch those numbers. The discussion will also explain how analytics can impact and transform a company into one driven by data instead of gut feel.

     

  9. The Car as a Connected Device and Beyond: A Case Study by Ford
    • Presenter:

      • –Scott Lyons, Connected Vehicle and Services, Ford

    • This presentation, featuring automotive giant Ford, will teach engineers how the motor company is treating cars more like a platform for apps and services and less like a connected device. The discussion will also explain the challenges the industry faces from urban mobility, a sharing economy and fleet-based customers. To tackle some of these challenges, Lyons will discuss the role of automotive companies partnering with other big names and start-ups.

     

  10. Panel: Smart Cities Need Smart Utilities
    • Presenters:

      • –Moderator: Sacha Meckler, principal at Analysys Mason

      –Llewelyn Morgan, service manager Infrastructure, Innovation & Development, Oxfordshire County Council

      –Brian McGuigan, representative from TALQ Consortium

    • This panel will debate which tools are needed to develop both smart cities and smart utilities. By combining their efforts, a smart city running off a smart utility will be able to become more energy efficient and improve the user experience of its citizenry. However, these projects don’t come cheap and are not easy to implement. Nonetheless, the panel will discuss how these systems can be enabled to improve our quality of life.
To learn more about the IoT Tech Expo, check out the agenda here. Or read a guest blog on its website by myself, Shawn Wasserman, IoT Editor at ENGINEERING.com.