Chairing the Internet of Things mashup

Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The BCS, Chartered Institute for IT, hosted the Mashup Event in London last night, an event focused on the Internet of Things. As chair I knew it was important to establish boundaries for the evening’s discussion, but the problem is… there is simply no sector or discipline that is or will be left untouched by the Internet of Things.

Fortunately, I could lean on an expert panel to shoulder the burden of picking out the topics, although I was first to take a stab at defining the topic: a network of objects beyond the ‘usual’ including:

the device containing electronics in order to fulfil its primary function (eg, washing machine, car, aircon unit)
the electrical device traditionally absent of sophisticated electronics (eg, lighting, heating, power distribution)
non-electrical objects (eg, food and drink packages, animals, clothing); and
environmental sensors (eg, for variables such as temperature, heat and moisture).

David Orban opened the evening in ten minutes with a fast, furious, compelling and fascinating slide stack. He could have banged us over the head with ten minutes about WideTag , but preferred to situate his company’s endeavours in the bigger picture. Videos from tonight will go up on the Mashup Event website, but if you can’t wait, here’s a video of David in action at Momo Amsterdam a month ago.

Davidorban on Philip Sheldrake

Chairing the Internet of Things mashup