Industry comes together for IoT Impact conference

One month after the launch of IoT Impact, Australia’s largest IoT (Internet of Things) conference and exhibition, the inaugural event has been hailed a big success.

Organised by peak body IoT Alliance Australia (IoTAA) and held from 10–11 September at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), the event attracted a total of 994 participants, consisting of 736 business attendees and 258 exhibitors, sponsors and speakers. It was supported by major companies including IBM, Bosch, Telstra and Microsoft.

The aim of the event was to deliver on the objectives of IoTAA by raising awareness of the IoT among Australian business, with IoTAA board Chair Gavin Smith, President of Bosch Australia, emphasising the need for Australia to “seize the IoT opportunity”. Specific content was produced for the key industry sectors of agrifood, water, energy, smart cities, connected automated vehicles and manufacturing, with a diverse range of Australian experts supplemented by overseas speakers including Christopher O’Connor from IBM (USA), Clayton Fernandez from Microsoft (USA), Stefan Ferber from Bosch Software Innovations (Germany) and Lutz Heuser from [ui!] Group (Germany).

Ferber speculated that although there is a lot of hype around IoT, it also requires businesses to “rethink their business models”. This was certainly the case for Costa CEO and speaker Harry Debney, who detailed how his company — Australia’s largest horticultural company — considers itself to be more like a technology company than a food grower. IBM’s John MacLeod meanwhile shared how artificial intelligence and IoT can help cut through the data avalanche; Terri Benson from South East Water spoke about the digitalisation of daily operations and meeting customer priorities; and Austrade CEO Dr Stephanie Fahey urged the audience to embrace technology and to promote Australian IoT businesses.

A particular highlight of the event was the IoTAA IoT Awards, held at the grand opening of the state-of-the-art UTS Tech Lab in Botany. Winners were:

• Ambassador for 2018 — Catherine Caruana McManus
• IoT Enablement — Reekoh
• IoT Industry — The Yield
• IoT Innovation — Successful Endeavours
   

“We’re at a pivotal time for business in Australia,” said IoTAA Chief Executive Frank Zeichner. “IoT will make an enormous impact on nearly every business and industry, and whether that turns into an opportunity for your business or poses a serious threat to your future, all depends on how well prepared you are. IoT Impact is just the first step in a long road educating Australian businesses.

“We plan to run IoT Impact in 2019 and our objective is to attract even more business people from the industries that stand to really benefit from the IoT.”

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