www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com 33


Words by: Andrew Collier


possible and the future was going to be incredible. Working for a living would no longer be necessary. Robots would clean our homes and cook our meals. We would fly around the world in our own personal jet craft. And medical advances meant we’d live to be – oh, very old indeed. Half a century on, many of those imaginative predictions have turned out to be hopelessly naïve. Much of our house cleaning and maintenance still needs boring, old-fashioned manual intervention. We still get to our offices in cars largely fuelled by hydrocarbons. And few of us yet live long enough to blow out the candles on our 100th birthday cake. In other ways, though, we have made remarkable technological advances over those 50 years. Digitisation and the birth of the online economy have been utterly transformational and technology continues to advance by the day. Now we are seeing another step change: the Internet of Things (IoT).


A


What, though, is this? Essentially, it’s about bringing smart and connected products, services and thinking to our culture and society. In a sense, that’s not new – think back to those burglar alarms 40 years ago which could detect a break-in and automatically call the police station, for instance. But the IoT is empowering us at an


utterly different level. In the home, we already have smart lighting hubs and kitchen devices. In manufacturing, this new technology helps to organise


nyone who is old enough to have lived through the 1960s will remember how we all thought everything was


and to track processes, machines and people, making them more efficient. In short, the IoT has the ability to boost productivity in all sizes of business. But the Internet of Things goes far


beyond the world of commerce. In healthcare, for example, new advances and connected devices will help to predict heart attacks, prevent disease and save lives.


The


question to ask


isn’t which businesses will use the IoT in the future, but which ones won’t”


It is also about more than smart houses, factories and offices. We are moving towards entire smart cities, with Glasgow boasting the UK’s most advanced IoT network, using Low Power Wide Area Networking. This network offers all


sorts of opportunities to companies and the public sector alike. A trial is currently taking place involving council street bins with sensors attached which can automatically report


when they need emptying. It may not be glamorous, but it


offers interesting possibilities and the potential for significant savings. Other uses could include social care devices to assist with independent living and tracking of equipment, the environment and pollution levels.


Mark Begbie is Business


Development Director of CENSIS, the industry-led Innovation Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems (SIS) which is one of the organisations developing the Glasgow IoT network. “I think the question to ask isn’t which businesses will use the IoT in the future, but which ones won’t,” he said. “Because IT devices typically send data every 10 or 15 minutes, you will be receive much more nuanced information about your system, whether that is usage patterns, energy use consumption or if something is beginning to show signs of malfunction. “You can then plan replacement or maintenance and make better decisions. But you do need to do this in conjunction with an appropriate business model, in order to help you to make an informed decision. “So it’s not just about putting in loads of sensors.


It’s about understanding what you want to know, and why.” Mark is enthusiastic about the future of IoT. “It’s a big societal change. The


Mark Begbie


technologies we are currently seeing are putting in place the last pieces of the jigsaw. The possibilities are very exciting.”


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48