Article by Alain Louchez, Chairman of SC Geneva, Switzerland, 18 February 2014
Introduction
The ITU workshop on the Internet of Things (IoT) “Internet of Things - Trends and Challenges in Standardization” was held at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on 18 February 2014. The workshop was organized in conjunction with several related meetings of the ITU standards groups such as the IoT Global Standards Initiative (IoT-GSI), 19-25 February 2014, and the IoT Joint Coordination Activity (JCA-IoT), 25 February 2014. It was an ideal event to get an up-to-date overview of the direction of IoT standards and associated topics worldwide.
The target audience consisted of managers and engineers working with IoT applications, service providers planning on delivering IoT solutions, and policy and standards makers. It assembled IoT experts from industry, government and academia, and explored the status of various standards initiatives in IoT and machine-to-machine communications (M2M) at ITU as well as other standards developing organizations (SDOs). A particular focus was on the progress made in IoT-related standards and protocols development in the university research and open source communities.
With this workshop, the ITU aimed at facilitating the global expansion of IoT through a better understanding of the IoT trends, including a wide range of standardization work. The workshop should lead to the drafting of recommendations on how challenges may be overcome for the development of universally acceptable IoT standards.
Exhibits – There event were exhibits from industry, government, research institutes and academia. STMicroelectronics showcased its Smart Home concept, while the European OpenIOT project was presented by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL). Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications (NICT) displayed its medical body area network, while the newly ITU-T member SAP displayed videos highlighting some of its work in the field. In addition ORBIWISE showed its IoT platform and finally there was an exhibit from Yokosuka Telecom Research Park (YRP).
