Internet of Things Think-Tank Highlights Need for National Strategy

The first meeting of the Think Tank’s Executive Council in Sydney today, highlighted the need to encourage industry interoperability and collaboration, based on secure and open IoT solutions.

The meeting was attended by senior representatives of Alcatel Lucent, Creator Tech, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, Huawei, IBM, Intel, RoZetta Technology, Telstra and Communications Alliance – a powerful grouping of many of the world’s most expert and active players in the IoT space.

The Federal Government’s Bureau of Communications Research (BCR) also attended the meeting as an active observer. KPMG is also a member of the Executive Council.

The Think Tank is refining the scope of an initial research project, expected to commence by early June, that will:

• describe and map the Australian IoT eco-system, taking account of evolving international developments;
• examine the fitness of the Australian regulatory framework to deal with the
• new challenges it will face as the IoT growth curve accelerates in the near future;
• focus on areas of opportunity for the Australia economy, including within specific industry verticals and through cross-sectoral collaboration; and
• prepare recommendations for policy and industry initiatives designed to generate measurable economic outcomes.

“The Think-Tank kick-off meeting revealed strong alignment among service providers, equipment vendors and others as to the criticality of creating an activated, globally- aware IoT community in Australia that can grab the opportunities and minimise the risks inherent in the Internet of Things,“ Communications Alliance CEO John Stanton said today.

A broader workshop of industry and other stakeholders is planned for mid-June in Sydney, with the final release of the study and recommendations targeted for September/October, prior to commencing the downstream work.