SECURITY SOLUTIONS TODAY20 Mar 2018
IoT Asia 2018: Building Digitally Enabled Businesses Through the IoT Community
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The 5th installment of the award-winning IoT Asia returns to Singapore EXPO Hall 3 from 21 to 22 March 2018. This ground-up, ecosystem-centric event is jointly organised by SingEx Exhibitions and the Singapore Industrial Automation Association (SIAA).

IoT Asia is set to welcome 6,000 attendees from 50 countries, representing a myriad of industries including advanced manufacturing, data, logistics, government, FinTech, healthcare, security and transportation, ensuring the presence of a rich on-site IoT community during the event. This large gathering attests to IoT Asia’s widely acknowledged ability to bring value and benefits to governments, enterprises and individuals in the global IoT community.

IoT Asia 2018 – Paving the Way for Smart Cities and Industry 4.0

With Asia Pacific identified as the core driver of global IoT growth in 2018 , the region is expected to have 8.6 billion connected devices by 2020 with 86% of companies having some form of IoT in place by 2019, as evidenced by the significant 35% growth in the region. Associated with this rate of growth however are challenges, such as a global shortfall of talent in science and technology, perennial issues of cyber security and cyber threats, technology adoption hurdles, and commercialisation beyond Proof of Concept.

This year’s event theme, “Pathways to Transformation”, emerged from various community discussions where players are keen to discover:

• How businesses can capitalise on IoT’s full potential by transforming themselves to become digitally-enabled and sustainable.

• How companies of different sizes go through different pathways in their own transformational roadmap. As such, different perspectives will be shared through the lens of Singtel, Sigfox and 7th Future to name a few.

• Monetisation of IoT through application perspectives, demonstrated through different zones curated at the event to incubate, prototype, and learn from early adopters through practical applications. IoT Asia 2018 will feature a start-up exchange zone, a TechSpace featuring fresh innovations, and a crowd-sourcing initiative to solicit on-ground community perspectives on Smart Cities.

• How different communities are coming together to collaborate for the benefit of the ecosystem and build new solutions in the IoT space. Tata Communications’ collaboration with Surbana Jurong and Microsoft is a prime example of such a collaboration.

Recognising the needs of the industry, IoT Asia has been curated to reflect the key needs and challenges of the IoT ecosystem. The conference will feature over 100 opinion leaders, including Mr Poon King Wang, Director of Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) and Dr Rishi Mohan Bhatnagar, President of Aeris Communications and Chairperson of Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) in India, part of a list of luminaries giving insights on two focused domains: Smart Cities (Solution Design & Delivery, End User Impacts and Outcomes, and Technical) and IIoT (Case Studies and POCs, Capability Development, and Technical).

This year, more than 100 leading technology companies, high-potential start-ups, and emerging IoT players including 6 Group Pavilions from Hungary, France, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea and Taiwan will showcase over 500 cutting-edge IoT products and solutions at the exhibition. This represents the diversity and inclusivity of the evolving IoT ecosystem and IoT Asia’s leading position as an enabling force in the region.

Oliver Tian, President of SIAA, said, “The convergence of technologies and industries has evidently transformed the landscape of IoT in Asia today. Not only are we seeing more and more instances of cross-pollination of best practices and business models, the evidence of ‘digitalising the middleman’ is becoming clear.”

He added, “IoT sectors which include Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Machine Learning and Big Data analytics have already disrupted our way of life, challenge established processes, and threatened conventional progression roadmaps. By fostering of a culture of openness, continued innovation, investment and commitment, our regional IoT ecosystem comprising communities and stakeholders will play a key role in shaping developments and spurring the global environment to adapt and leverage on the profound economic changes to come.”

About the IoT Asia 2018 Exhibition

The exhibition component, the largest edition in the event’s history, will see more than 100 leading technology companies as well as high-potential start-ups, including Avnet, Cyient, Sigfox, Singtel, STMicroelectronics, Tata Communications, Ayla Networks, M1 and Darktrace participating. This year’s exhibition has been expanded 7,500 sqm as a reflection of the IoT market and community’s exponential growth. This includes 6 Group Pavilions (Hungary, France, Singapore, Slovakia, South Korea and Taiwan) along with product and solution showcases aligned with the focus domains in this year’s show.