The Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential to change the world. It can change the way cities operate, interact with citizens, and drive economies forward. The majority of the IoT industry is aimed at application specific silos, customized solutions, and/or functionally targeted systems. These current efforts represent forward progress but the members of the I3 consortium believe that market evolution could be accelerated, and that a consortium of interested companies can further the interests of the industry as a whole.
A new approach toward IoT that supports the emergence of IoT communities of interest will accelerate IoT market evolution. Organizations like cities and universities are expected to be early adopters of such systems because it allows groups of independent users to work together to achieve goals that benefit all. Such a system will take the IoT streams that independent users create and puts them into a context of a much larger ecosystem.
Realization of such a system is beyond what any single company or organization can achieve as a standalone entity. An open consortium with many participants must work together to achieve this common goal. USC has volunteered to manage a consortium of organizations, organized around an advisory council, which is dedicated to this proposition. The City of Los Angeles and USC have volunteered to create a managed environment that can be used to provide inputs and support the evaluation of I3 associated concepts.
The goal of the I3 consortium is to provide a test bed that allows functional testing, operational testing, and business evaluation of new IoT concepts. Based on the results of the I3 consortium efforts, the consortium will create an open-source solution that will serve as a model to allow other communities to replicate the I3 efforts in order to create a sustainable network of IoT devices and applications.
The objectives of the I3 consortium include:
- It should provide opportunities for students so they are prepared to take leadership roles in an increasingly IoT centric world upon graduation.
- It should provide an opportunity for faculty to further their IoT research so they forward the understanding of IoT and bring that thinking to the classroom.
- It should provide operational data that allows institutions to evaluate IoT options in order to support the forward-looking IoT operational needs of the institution.
- It should provide visibility that allows institutions to plan for future IoT projects.
- It should provide a scalable opensource framework/platform that can be adopted by other institutions (large and small).
- It should develop a platform where data from various sources can be combined so that the effectiveness of such systems can be increased.
- It should be based on a multidimensional public-private model that allows a wide range of participants to have meaningful impact on industry practice and bring significant positive benefits to society.
In June 2018, Inria signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the I3 consortium to work in an effort to negotiate a consortium level agreement.
By joining the initiative, Inria will leverage and further its ongoing research in the IoT domain in collaboration with the I3 partners.
To know more:
- I3: https://i3.usc.edu
- NGIOT’2016 workshop on Next Generation Internet of Things
- CCI – Center for Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things at USC Viterbi School of Engineering
- IoT-related Inria@SiliconValley Associate Teams: DIVERSITY, DRIVE, MINES, REALMS
