The Importance of an Open Model for Commercializing the IoT

We all see that the path to digital transformation is well underway. The Internet of Things is already in our homes, cars, cities, jewelry, and even our clothing. But, it’s still just the beginning: Markets & Markets predicts an expected growth from $130 billion in 2015 to $883 billion by 2022.

Products and services are coming from all kinds of developers – from large commercial organizations like Cisco and Qualcomm to small startups, to individual developers, to kids in school. At the heart of the open source ecosystem, we are seeing a myriad of prototypes around the world becoming commercial products fueling the growth of the IoT. Because of the open, low-cost hardware and wide availability of open source software, developers of all ages can create beyond their wildest imagination. Adults and kids alike are creating security systems, pet feeders, innovative fashion, music automation, home robots, and much more. Using open source hardware and software, entrepreneurs can build custom designs using crowdfunding, and take advantage of the marketing reach these campaigns offer to help launch a product.  

The speaker will review a number of IoT deployments that have come from the open community, including a fresh water dispenser that saves on plastic bottle use, to smart city services in Messina, Italy that are entirely built on open hardware and software. She will also touch on how the data is being used to help reduce excess, lowering the carbon footprint and greatly benefiting the planet.

Presenter(s)

Kathy Giori is Vice President of Operations at Arduino. She has been actively pursuing business partnerships to fuel Arduino’s growth in IoT markets. She also collaborates with the open source software community, since access to source and sharing code is a key factor to Arduino’s success.

Prior to Arduino, Kathy was a Senior Product Manager in the Wired/Wireless Infrastructure & Networking business unit of Qualcomm Atheros. She pushed engineering to more proactively embrace upstream Linux kernel and driver development, which is now driving today’s top-of-the-line smart routers and IoT hubs.

Kathy obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering at the University of Minnesota, and her Master’s at Stanford University, with an emphasis on the study of electromagnetics (ionosphere, magnetosphere, solar winds).