Engineers are seeing the business opportunities with the rise of the Internet of Things. The booming industry presents a chance for new companies to be created, new inventions and innovations to be brought to the world and for more efficient machines to be built. A former engineer from Google has even started his own internet-of-things startup company named Afero .
Joe Britt, the former Google engineer and founder and CEO of Afero, said, "Everybody who wanted to build a connected device had to reinvent multiple wheels. You have to decide what kind of hardware to use, what kind of operating system - if any - you're going to run on the device, how you communicate with the cloud, how you interact with a mobile app. You need a connected device engineer, you need cloud developers, and all those people have to coordinate your actions to make that device work." They have created a module that will interconnect machines to the Internet of Things and sync these processes across every platform imaginable.
They have four subcategories that define their idea of the Internet of Things:
- End-to-end security
- Complete scalability
- Valuable analytics
- Rapid deployment
As is apparent, the Internet of Things has given engineers and entrepreneurs and engineer entrepreneurs the inspiration to utilize the Internet of Things and produce something.
But what are the threats to the Internet of Things?
Steve Mackay, the Dean of Engineering at the Engineering Institue of Technology says: "The biggest challenge with the Internet of Things is, of course, internet security. Big problem. Hackers have enormous opportunities. There are huge opportunities for cyber security specialists." The Dean says that for as many threats there are to the Internet of Things, there is an equal amount of opportunities to ensure the threats are not able to weaken a system running on the Internet of Things.
"At the moment, we are in 2016. At the moment, there are 25 billion devices connected. By 2020, there will be 50 billion devices connected. That will make a big difference whether you're in the renewable energy area, transport, energy production, homes, entertainment. It will make a big impact on gathering data. We will need someone to process this data and that's where engineers come in," Mackay added.
He also highlighted four key areas to focus on when building a relationship with the Internet of Things and how it can boost your engineering and technology career:
- People: Hopefully serving someone: Like Afero is doing, for example. They have built something that utilizes the Internet of Things.
- Process: What you want to do with that information. Millions of data points streaming in, you need processors to decide what to do.
- Data: The analytics that has been created that can be made available to the engineers and the consumers.
- Things: Where you gather information from and where you send it to
Mackay implies that all of these things will be important in the future of the Internet of Things because the world is going forward with building smart cities and connected cars. Security is a big deal but there are also countless opportunities to capitalize on the Internet of Things and jumpstart businesses, companies and corporations.
