Chicago, Oct. 16, 2014: Today is the last day of the three-day Internet of Things Forum (IoTWF) 2014 meeting inaugurated on Oct. 14 in Chicago, USA. The IoTWF is a by-invite, annual event that brings together thinkers, practitioners, and innovators from business, government, and academia to accelerate the market adoption of the Internet of Things (IOT). It is hosted by global networking solutions giant, Cisco.
Stressing on the importance of the IoT, Cisco’s Chief Globalization Officer Wim Elfrink informed the delegates at the meeting that over 3 billion objects had been digitally “connected” in the last year alone, and that the number was growing by 300,000 things every hour. According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, he told those attending that 37 per cent of the IoT was in the industrial space, and by 2017, that number will surpass 50 per cent.
Welcoming the delegates, Inbar Lasser-Raab, Vice President of Products and Solutions Marketing for Cisco’s Enterprise portfolio, said, “From many deployments in cities and industries around the world, the Internet of Things is Here and Now – which is also our theme for this year’s World Forum. We have also seen the industry mature with quite a few IoT startups being acquired. Cisco has advanced this trend further with our announced innovation fund, opening IoE Innovation centers around the globe, holding Grand Challenges, introducing IOx, and many more.”
This year, the IoTWF has a breakout session on, ‘Women in IoT’. While the number of women who go into STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields is small and shrinking, the overall number of people who will need to have STEM training to be ready for an IoT related career is quite large. In the panel discussion in this session, the focus of the debate will be how companies and academic institutions were addressing this.
This is only the second session of the IoTWF. The first was held last year in Barcelona, Spain.
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Image Credit: IoTWF
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