IEEE 5th World Forum on Internet of Things
15-18 April 2019 – Limerick, Ireland

Plenaries

Plenary

Tuesday, 16 April 2019, 08:30-10:30
Room:
UCH Main Hall
Moderator: Elfed Lewis
Speakers: 
James Collins, Mayor of Limerick – Opening Remarks
Kate Forbes, Minister Scottish Government
Wendy Belluomini, IBM
Didier Nkurikiyimfura, Smart Africa
Adrian Scrase, ETSI

Wednesday, 17 April 2019, 08:30-10:30
Room:
UCH Main Hall
Moderator: Adam Drobot
Speakers:
Christopher O’Connor, Persistent Systems
Patricia Florissi, Dell
Yusuf Jamal,  Analog Devices, Inc.
Ravi Kapoor, Collins Aerospace

Plenary Panel >>

Thursday, 18 April 2019, 08:30-10:30
Room:
UCH Main Hall
Moderator: Heinrich Stuettgen
Speakers:
Hyun Kim, ETRI, South Korea
Thyaga NandagopalNational Science Foundation, USA
Nikolaos IsarisDG CONNECT, European Commission
Aisling McEvoy, Science Foundation Ireland


Plenary Speakers

Adrian Scrase

Adrian Scrase played a central role in the creation of the “3rd Generation Partnership Project” (3GPP) and is responsible for the operations of the 3GPP Project Co-ordination Group. He heads 3GPPs’ Mobile Competence Centre (MCC) which is an International team of 20 experts who provide comprehensive support to the Project. He is CTO within ETSI with operational responsibility for all of ETSI’s standards production activities. He has more than 30 years experience in the telecommunications field, which includes 25 years of experience in standardization.

Talk Title: The 5C’s of 5G IoT

It was predicted some years ago that by 2018 the number of connected IoT devices would surpass the number of mobile phones. Did that prediction actually come true? When that prediction was made we were in a 4G era and had not really started to think about what 5G would look like. Now that 5G is a reality what will be the impact on the future of IoT? Will it really be a game changer or is it all just hype? This presentation will address the impact of 5G on IoT and examine the “5C’s” that are essential for success.

Kate Forbes

Kate Forbes is from Dingwall, although she has spent part of her upbringing in Glasgow and India. Until she was elected as MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Kate was employed as an accountant in the banking industry. Prior to that she studied History at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh with a focus on human migration.
As a backbencher, she has served on the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, the Health and Sport Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. She also served as Parliamentary Liaison Officer for Finance and the Constitution.
As well as leading a campaign to ban plastic straws, Kate has participated in several cross-party groups at Holyrood including Crofting, Gaelic, Human Trafficking, Palliative Care and Rural Policy. A fluent Gaelic speaker, Kate made history earlier this year by becoming the first female MSP to give a plenary speech entirely in Gaelic in the current Scottish Parliament chamber.
On 27 June 2018 she was appointed as Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy.

Talk Title: Digital Scotland: Internet of Things

‘The Internet of Things is set to be one of the most transformative technologies of the digital age, bringing benefits to every industry sector from manufacturing to agriculture to public services. The Scottish Government sees IoT as a vital part of our nation’s digital future. The Minister will set out how the Scottish Government is building on our rich heritage of innovation to ensure we are an inventor and producer of the future, not just a consumer.

This ambition is founded on a series of new initiatives in Scotland, spanning the digital economy, data-driven innovation and the development of IoT network infrastructure. Collectively these will drive economic growth with the aim of creating a fairer, more inclusive society’.

Patricia Florissi

Patricia Florissi is VP, Global CTO for Sales at Dell EMC. She defines mid and long term technology strategy, representing the needs of the broader Dell EMC ecosystem in strategic initiatives. She has a PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University, an MBA from Stern Business School in NY University, and a Master’s & Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, in Brazil.

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Talk Title: The Impact of IoT in the Digital Universe

The dawn of the Digital Era invites us to embrace the multi-verse theory, in which humans live parallel lives at the same time. Every day, we seem to live a life in this physical universe and a life in the digital universe, through a collection of devices, where technology enhances everything we experience. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the major technology forces at play in the digital universe.

On one hand, the IoT technology force provides much of the data which is a major source of energy in the digital universe. On the other hand, the IoT force can bring a tremendous amount of complexity as it scales to unprecedented degrees, posing challenges in how an IoT chaos can be tamed. This presentation discusses some constructive effects that the IoT technology force may leave in the digital universe, and raises awareness to some effects that must be understood and controlled.

Yusuf Jamal

Yusuf Jamal

As senior vice president of the Industrial, Healthcare, Consumer, and IoT Solutions and Security Group, Mr. Jamal is responsible for growing ADI’s leadership position in those markets.  Mr. Jamal ensures that ADI’s technology strategy is tightly aligned to our markets’ and customers’ most pressing engineering and business challenges.  He oversees the ongoing development of ADI’s technology capabilities including emergent applications of high performance sensing and Industrial IoT technologies.  Prior to his current role, Mr. Jamal served as vice president of ADI’s Consumer and Healthcare business units where he built a differentiated, sustainable business for ADI that more than doubled in size under his leadership.

Mr. Jamal has nearly two decades of experience in the semiconductor industry. He joined ADI as a Field Applications Engineer in 2002 and has held multiple technology, business, and leadership positions at the company.  Prior to joining ADI, Mr. Jamal worked on creating a flexible design methodology for developing scalable DSP architectures for a startup in Stockholm, Sweden.

Mr. Jamal earned a bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering (with Honors) from AMU, India and his master’s degree in Digital Signal Processing from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur).

Talk Title: The IoT is Not a Value Chain. It’s a Value Circle.

The things that we as humans care about fall into the areas of mobility, entertainment, how we communicate, our safety and security, how productive we are in what we do, and our health and wellness.

The IoT is increasing migration and sharing across these areas. The emergence of autonomous driving is bringing communication and mobility closer together. Health and wellness is moving from clinical settings into homes, cars, and other places. As the boundaries between these areas continue to be traversed, the value of data is bringing the need for near ubiquitous sensing, data collection, and artificial intelligence—in the cloud and at the edge—into virtually every area of our customers’ lives.

The IoT is trying to solve problems across those segments, and that is driving a change in how players in the IoT space need to think and operate. The traditional paradigm of suppliers adding and passing value along a linear path to the end user will not work.

Solutions in the IoT space will not come from a single provider, but from an ecosystem of providers formed around the needs of customers. As a result, creating value in the IoT will come not from a chain, but from a circle.

This presentation will use examples from a variety of ADI businesses to illustrate how industry megatrends are driving providers to move from solving customer problems through a series of steps to engaging with each other in an ongoing exchange of information and insights. It will provide an examination of how this value circle is requiring providers to broaden their understanding of each other’s businesses, work toward establishing industry standards, and adopt different business models to provide value to customers and generate growth and success for themselves.

Ravi Kapoor

Ravi KapoorRavi Kapoor brings more than two decades of information and digital technology experience across a variety of disciplines in the aerospace industry. Born and raised in India, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Avionics Engineering and a master’s degree in Business Management.

Ravi has led digital teams in enterprise applications, web and mobile development, enterprise resource planning systems, change management, collaboration technologies, enterprise architecture, infrastructure, cloud, and networking. In today’s data-driven world, his focus is on analytics and artificial intelligence – using the data that smart technologies provide to drive machine learning and intelligent solutions for Collins Aerospace. Ravi is an avid golfer and enjoys traveling with his family.

Talk Title: Beyond Takeoff and Landing: How AI Powers IoT

We know that IoT connects everyday objects and devices to our world, providing access to more information than ever before. But how do we leverage this data to make smart objects even smarter? Join Ravi Kapoor, Executive Director, Data, Analytics & Platforms for Collins Aerospace, as he discusses the power of AI beyond takeoff and landing. He’ll dive into the complementary nature of AI and IoT – the immense value of data collected lies in the analysis and learning AI can provide. You won’t want to miss this connection!

Didier Nkurikiyimfura

Didier Nkurikiyimfura

Didier Nkurikiyimfura is the Director of Technology and Innovation at the Smart Africa Secretariat. In his current position, Didier is in charge of developing a sustainable Technology and Innovation ecosystem in Smart Africa Member States collaboration with Governments, private sector, academia and a wide range of stakeholders and partners. He currently oversees the implementation of strategic initiatives such as the free roaming initiative (also known as the “One Africa Network” project), increasing affordability and accessibility of Internet in Africa and the Smart Africa scholarship fund.

Aside his official Smart Africa duties, Didier currently serves in as Chairman of the board of Directors of Rwanda Civil Aviation Authority as well as RwandaOnline Platform Ltd.

Talk Title: Smart and Sustainable Cities: A Blueprint for Africa

Urbanization is driver of economic development and social mobility. It is also catalyst for technological progress, as we see in cities globally. Africa is no exception, being home to the world’s fastest-growing cities. It is estimated that half of Africans will be living in cities by 2030. This irreversible trend is fundamentally positive for Africa’s prosperity.

The Smart Africa’s blueprint for smart, sustainable African cities provides an overview of a plan for policy-makers, scholars, investors, and citizens on how to integrate available technology at every level of urban management. Information dashboards powered by real-time sensors and data analytics can help to deliver better services at lower cost. Transforming Africa’s cities will transform Africa.

Christopher O’Connor

Christopher O’Connor

Chris O’Connor is the CEO of Persistent Systems. In previous roles he was General Manager, Internet of Things for IBM, focused on growth of this area for clients and IBM. Chris was responsible for the product strategy and engineering of the IBM Tivoli Software Division in IBM and similarly for the Industry Solutions Software division around Smart Commerce and Smart Cities. His roles have involved successive responsibilities around arranging patterns of software for industry as well as IT data center value. Chris is an active member of the IBM Growth and Transformation Team and has served on the IBM Technology Team. This role reports directly to IBM’s CEO and senior leaders. He has been active in the IT Industry for the past 25 years both within IBM and at other industry software providers.

Talk Title: IoT Takes the World!

We are all here because IoT is everywhere, its viral, its caustic, its exciting, and its challenging and changing every thing we do. We will explore for a few minutes the implications of this shift, the pressures it will create on us as individuals and on the industries that are swimming in all the new information they have. Examples of today’s clients, their aspirations, and highlights will center this presentation on the world today and propose some of where it will be very soon.

Wendy Belluomini

Wendy Belluomini

Dr. Wendy Belluomini is the Director of IBM Research – Ireland & Cognitive IoT Solutions. Previously, she served as IBM’s strategist for Brain-inspired Computing where she led the commercialization strategy for IBM’s brain inspired computing hardware and ecosystem. In this role she developed the first commercial uses of brain inspired computing hardware. Prior to that, she led a research team in enterprise storage systems which created technologies to improve the reliability and performance of IBM’s enterprise storage products, including the first deployment of commodity flash memory in an enterprise storage system. She has also held several key technical roles in IBM Research in the areas of microprocessor architecture and design, EDA tools, and formal verification. Dr Belluomini is the co-author of 30 patents and has published extensively in technical conferences and journals. She has an undergraduate degree from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Talk Title: AI for Digital Twins

Digital Twins are essential to further assist and automate tasks in the life cycle of IoT systems. The complexity of these systems and the large volume of data make it challenging for subject matter experts to identify anomalies and to optimize processes. AI can address this problem making Digital Twins capable of learning from data autonomously and feeding back insights to designers and operators. This talk describes the use of machine learning, semantic models, and reasoning to automate the modelling process of Digital Twins as well as the creation of insights from operational data at scale by automating machine learning.


Plenary Panel on Future IoT Research and Innovation

The panel session on Future IoT Research and Innovation will focus on directions of National and International R&D programs to accelerate the development of IoT technologies and deployment, contrasting distinct focus areas in different regions of the world. The panel is designed to shed light on future funding programs by these different organizations so that researchers as well as industry participants can consider these opportunities and contribute to these programs effectively.

The panel will open with an introduction by the four panelists into IoT research and innovation activities ongoing and planned for the near future by their respective organizations.

Dr. Hyun Kim from the national Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) will highlight Korean governmental policies, technology directions and upcoming programs regarding IoT devices, networks and platforms putting special emphasis on the integration of AI technologies into novel IoT solutions.

Dr. Thyaga Nandagopal from NSF will address the potential of IoT to enable a smart and connected community to enable inclusion of so far underrepresented groups. He will also focus on the interplay of IoT, 5G and the computing eco-system.

Nikos Isaris from the European Commission’s IoT Unit will elaborate the EU’s action plan for IoT covering research, deployment, business aspect, regulation, including upcoming (2020 and beyond) R&D&I programs. He will describe the currently ongoing large IoT pilots in verticals such as connected cars, smart cities, smart agriculture, and aging well. In addition he will address policy work on security, privacy and liability.

Dr. Aisling McEvoy from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) will focus on SFI’s programmes to facilitate partnerships between academia and industry. Investments such as the IoT infrastructure, Pervasive Nation will be highlighted. She will address IoT investments in vertical segments such as precision, pasture-based dairying, advanced manufacturing and smart docklands.

The second half of this plenary session will be open to questions from the audience to panelists.

Plenary Panelists

Hyun Kim

Hyun Kim

Dr. Hyun Kim is currently the Assistant Vice President of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in Korea. He is also the head of IoT research division which carries out a wide range of R&D projects in the next-generation IoT technologies and applications. Since 2012, he has been an adjunct professor at University of Science and Technology, Korea. He also served as an adjunct professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan from 2012 to 2013. He worked a visiting researcher at University of Florida, USA from 2007 to 2008. He received his BS, MS and ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Design and Manufacturing Department from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea. His current research interests include Internet of Things and applications, intelligent systems, context-aware systems and intelligent robot & interaction.

Talk Title: IoT Technology Development in Korea

The Korean government has announced the plan to secure a new growth strategy to cope with the fast-paced industrial transformation, dubbed the 4th industrial revolution. The plan includes the policy to find new growth engines for the Korean economy by cooperating advanced ICT technologies into all parts of the industry including smart factories, smart farms, autonomous vehicles, medical services and so on.

IoT is considered a very important core technology for the 4th Industrial Revolution, along with 5G, Big data, and AI. Korea aims to adopt the 5G network this year, making it the first in the world to do so. There are also plans to expand the IoT to entire industries. Furthermore, the Korean government is trying to develop the next-generation of IoT technologies.

In this talk, I would like to briefly introduce Korea’s IoT technology development strategy in Korea. And I will introduce a national project for the next-generation of IoT technology development which is now preparing in Korea.

We foresee that the technological direction of IoT is moving from connectivity to intelligence, and will eventually develop into autonomy. The project focuses on autonomous IoT.  Smart things (such as smart cars, drones, robots, smart sensors and so on) can communicate with each other, understand their surroundings and people and make decisions on their own to control the physical world with minimal human intervention. In this project, we are planning to develop 8 core technologies and 4 application services with 100 million USD for 7 years (‘21~’27). Target areas for technology development are as follows: (1) autonomous things, (2) distributed collaborative intelligence, (3) human-thing ambient intelligence, (4) autonomous IoT networks, (5) distributed digital twin in edge, (6) knowledge management among things, (7) autonomous IoT service platform, and (8) verification and test. These technologies will be implemented and verified in some application areas: public safety, disaster safety, environment, and military.

Thyaga Nandagopal

Thyaga Nandagopal

Dr. Thyaga Nandagopal is the Deputy Division Director of the Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) Division in the Directorate of Computer & Information Science and Engineering (CISE) at the National Science Foundation. He previously served as a Program Director at the NSF in the Networking Technologies and Systems (NeTS) program, where he managed mobile systems and wireless networking research across multiple funding programs with an annual budget of over $50M. At NSF, he is also leading the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research program, a $100M effort announced in July 2016. He also serves as the co-chair of the Wireless Spectrum Research and Development Senior Steering Group (WSRD SSG), which co-ordinates spectrum-related research and development activities across the Federal government. He is an IEEE Fellow, and holds a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Talk Title: IoT, 5G, Edge computing: A golden opportunity for inclusion in a smart and connected community

Three key trends are shaping the physical infrastructure underlying the digital consumer ecosystem – the Internet of Things, 5G networks, and Edge Computing. Taken together, these trends create a vast potential for the average digital citizen to have personalized, fine-grained control over their lifestyle, a departure from centralized control that is often the characteristic of the landscape today. These three technologies also enable traditionally under-represented groups of citizenry to become part of the 21st century digital ecosystems, thus supporting equality and societal inclusion. Yet, in order to realize this ideal, researchers must remain wary of pitfalls and think beyond the frames of the current commercial models that reward short-term monetary gains over longer-term societal goals. In this talk, the opportunities and challenges presented by the convergence of IoT, 5G and Edge Computing will be covered, along with one possible roadmap to this ideal future.

Nikolaos Isaris

Nikolaos Isaris

Nikos Isaris is Deputy Head of the “Internet of Things (IoT)” Unit within the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT).

The Unit is responsible for the research, innovation and policy actions to accelerate the take-up of IoT and to unleash its potential in Europe for the benefit of European citizens and businesses https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/internet-things.

Before that, Nikos was responsible for Future Internet Research and Experimentation in the same Directorate. He joined DG CONNECT in 2013 coming from the Directorate-General for Home Affairs, where he was Deputy Head in the Unit “Large-scale IT systems and Biometrics” dealing with IT systems for the Schengen area.

Before the European Commission, Nikos worked in the private banking and electronic banking sectors in his home country Greece.

He holds an MBA with Honours, a Master’s degree with Distinction in Data Communications and Networks from University College London and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Heraklion in Crete.

Talk Title: Internet of Things: The EU’s Action Plan for Research and Innovation

Nikolaos will discuss: The EU’s action plan on IoT (a very brief description of all the relevant actions, not only the research-related ones); Details about our current research portfolio, in particular the large-scale IoT pilots we have launched in 5 verticals (connected cars, smart cities, smart agriculture, wearables and aging well);Information about upcoming research calls (2020 and beyond)- what will be public and can be announced on the day of our session; Reference to relevant policy work we are conducting, especially on IoT security, privacy and liability.

Aisling McEvoy

Aisling McEvoy

Dr. Aisling McEvoy is Head of Enterprise Partnerships at Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). SFI’s industry partnership programmes provide an opportunity for industry to collaborate directly with scientists and engineers within Irish research bodies at a number of levels ranging from seeding an initial engagement with an academic group, to large-scale collaborative endeavours. Within SFI, Aisling has managed programmes for senior investigators and early/mid-career researchers, as well as partnership programmes with international funding agencies. She has also had responsibility for research impact and peer review within the Foundation.

Aisling graduated from University College Dublin with a B.Sc. (Hons) in Experimental Physics, and received her Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Dublin City University, after which she held positions both in the private sector and in third level research before joining SFI.

Talk Title: A Snapshot of SFI Partnerships and Investments Relating to IoT in Ireland

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) is the Irish government’s largest competitive funder of basic and applied research in the area of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), and invests in academic researchers and research teams who are most likely to generate new knowledge, leading edge technologies and competitive enterprises in these fields. SFI pursues opportunities for growth and prosperity, and to further capitalise on the government’s investment, through partnership both with national and international funding agencies as well as with industry. This presentation will outline some of the key investments made by SFI in the area of IoT focusing on investigator-led projects, activity within some of the SFI Research Centres and Strategic partnerships, as well as infrastructure investments such as a national IoT testbed, Pervasive Nation drawing on some use cases that have grown around this infrastructure.