The world is at an intersection of changing our everyday lives through Internet of Things (IoT), the failure thereof will stand us at risk of cybersecurity vulnerability will ever experience.
One of the core discussion when we attend Board meetings today, risk is one of the main agenda pieces that gets gray headed business leaders who know less about technology being engaged in this subject.
However, IoT is one of the best things which are currently unfolding, with many devices getting connected via the internet to send and receive data, and further perform functions remotely.
There is a phenomenon of sensors in IoT that is gaining mileage of late.
Let’s take it from a relatable scenario, a family of six in Belgium – they have an internet enabled refrigerator which has sensors that take account of everything in there from fruits, refreshments, cake and milk etc. Since milk is one of the most used items for their breakfast cereal, when the milk reaches low levels, refrigerator using a database to understand the demographics of the household, it knows that there are six people who are about to go dry.
Then it automatically connects to Walmart.com to place an order of a 12 pack of milk, including any other thing that is running out of in the refrigerator.
Barclays has installed devices that track how frequent bankers are at their desks, thought to be tracking devices called OccupEye, which use heat and motion sensors to record how long employees are spending at their desks or workstation.
In South Africa, Shyamala Vijayanath, a successful business lady who founded eSoft back in 2008 – eSoft Development and Technologies has always been ahead of the pack. Every year they come with innovative solutions to excite their existing clients and add value for their businesses - be it Mixed Reality, they have been received well in the market.
Now she has decided to venture into IoT and set up a lab in Johannesburg where ground breaking technologies will be housed and launched from. Since she has started, her business peers when they heard she is working on this new tech, they came flying offering to invest, even though she took it upon herself to invest her own resources to change the status quo in sectors such as agriculture, education and security.
In agriculture addressing various business cases and offering solutions for moisture measurement in soil and automatic irrigation control – in security, looking into emergency assistance for the needy; and applying sensors in many more sectors.
We turn to see the increasing use of sensors around the world, which are powered by Artificial Intelligence – with others being able to receive data and interpret it before they act on it, or send it off.
The relationship between Artificial Intelligence and IoT its best described by Yunus Scheepers CIO of Nashua, when he mentioned, “I believe that IoT and AI are inextricably connected - where AI is the brain, IoT is the ‘senses’ … touch, taste, hearing etc.”
Now coming to the role of smartphones in IoT, which is one of the first examples of IoT. Almost all the devices in this space can be controlled using your smartphone which is becoming the epicentre of this network like the stick of a magician. Like a magician do the magic by moving his stick, smartphones can do the real magic by just a few touches on your fingertips.