About the Hannover Tradefair 19 and the IOTA applications shown there
From 1st to 5th April 2019 the biggest German industrial show, the Hannover Traidefair, took place . Many key technologies and core industries have been in one place — from research and development, industrial automation and IT to subcontracting, production technologies and services, to energy and mobility technologies.
The interplay between automation and energy technology, intralogistics, IT platforms and artificial intelligence is driving the digital transformation of the industry forward. With this year’s theme “Integrated Industry — Industrial Intelligence”, the Hannover Fair wanted to illustrate the potential of this development.
My discussions showed that the topics are manifold. The diverse exhibitors show that the networking of people, machines and data is promoted through common platforms, where they exchange and increase their knowledge. The role of man is that of „Enabler“. The production of tomorrow can not do without his process knowledge and his diverse qualifications. Data collection, data analysis, machine learning or the development of artificial intelligence algorithms is what makes human beings possible. For this reason, Industrial Intelligence also stands for the expansion of knowledge management and the training of knowledge carriers.
I was at the fair on the 3rd of April and had an exciting day with lots of talks and discussions. I faced 6,500 exhibitors, such a big number that you have to set priorities in any case, otherwise you go under. My focus at the show was on the Internet of Things (IOT), but I found that of the large number of exhibitors, most of them had something to do with the IOT and wanted to benefit from it. In addition to the large number of dominant vendors such as microsoft, there were also an infinite number of smaller vendors and exhibitors who dealt with the IOT. And there were also exhibitors who dealt with IOTA and the Tangle technology. But to brake the euphoria, there were only 4 exhibitors with smaller applications: Topocare, Fujitsu, eC@ss and e-shelter. That’s a number in the per thousand range. Of course I visited these exhibitors and discussed the real use cases with them. In a nutshell, I report on what was shown:
- eCl@ss : The eCl@ss demonstrator is a set of precise sensors. One of them measuring the distance to an object and categorized through a specific, unique, standardized ID. Any measured distance is being immutably recorded as a data point on the Tangle. From that point, it is easily audible and can be purchased through a micro transaction. In conjunction with eCl@ss, the IOTA Tangle offers a clear and standardized description for IoT devices and products, meaning that IOTA and eCl@ss can be used together for any industry transaction.
- Topocare: Topocare shows how creative thinking and always challenging the status quo can lead to humanitarian improvements and catastrophe remediation or even prevention. This is all while utilizing a modern pay-as-you-use model for financial settlements. Generated monitoring data of the dike or levee are directly insert into the tangle. So there is no way of being manipulated form that time on. This assurance is a key argument for the product “monitoring”. The more IoT-devices are in place the more important this becomes. Especially for critical infrastructure.
- Fujitsu: Fujitsu was showing the latest version of its Industry 4.0 showcase, to demonstrate how component tracking and processing of data as part of supply chain management can be combined with distributed ledger technology.
- e-shelter and IAMPASS: e-shelter develops and runs high availability data centers, and is a strong promoter of innovation. This mindset is in deep consensus with IAMPASS, which is providing identity and access management services on top of IOTA’s Tangle.
These are all great companies with passion and courage to innovate. It was also very clear here that individual commitment is a really important factor for realising such great projects.
But that should not fool the fact that a large number of exhibitors have never heard of IOTA, or intend to create applications with IOTA. The discussions that I have conducted have shown that many companies have so far moved towards digitization and the path to Industry 4.0, and that is for many companies new territory, in which much remains unclear.
My discussions have shown the following trends:
- Most companies rely on rapid migration of existing enterprise resource planning Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to the cloud for IT modernization and data exchange, with additional microservices and APIs to keep them up-to-date. However, only a few modernization projects take place throughout the company; in most cases, the change is limited to individual business areas. This is also because different databases often use different databases that are not synchronized with each other, which makes the exchange and analysis of data impossible. A consistent cloud strategy is mainly pursued by large companies with more than 2,000 employees: Around 83% rely on cloud computing. But even in medium and small companies, the rate is around 65%.
- The discussions also showed that fast payment transactions were more likely to focus on traditional methods, and when we discussed cryptocurrencies they were not referred to IOTA. This is certainly also due to the fact that IOTA is still a very young technology.
- Another big topic at the Hannovermesse and in my discussions was the 5G standard. The conversion to the new 5G technology should be done on a large scale only from 2020 — but then right. Germany is the first country to receive such a network nationwide, the first pilot projects and tests were already started in 2018. Incidentally, Asia wants to start a little earlier: For the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2020, 5G should work in Japan. The prerequisite for fast, secure, reliable communication processes are intelligent networks and interoperability.
- With regard to IOTA and the Tangle, many companies were surprised about what is possible with this technology if certain conditions for further development are given. We will continue to talk with these companies.
However, the talks made it very clear that the course is being set in the coming month and years, but in principle many companies actually are still open for many things. Networks of mutual learning and exchange of ideas are considered indispensable in this new landscape. As a result, Tangle Universe, a network of IOTA-projects, applications and users exploring the possibilities of Tangle, has also been seen as a great way to learn about Tangle’s potential and to give this technology more space in the user environment.
In my view, in addition to the further development of technology, the creation of a good regulatory environment and partnerships with large companies, the entire user area (industry and trade, smart cities …) must be made aware of the possibilities of tangle technology. With our Tangle Universe project we try to create a network that makes this possible and thus represents an added value for IOTA.
I am convinced that next year we will be able to admire a much larger number of IOTA use cases at the Hannover Messe.
END
Of course, we are also happy about donations for the realization of the Tangle Universe project. The following options are available:
IOTA:QMFMUTKUEYRAJNRDMCPYUXROSXCMJ9OASYUYG9XDESJVFMXFX9KBFINYZIEOOTFYNPMMJKMYXFPMEIRXWRYQHNSYYD
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Thank you!
The „Tangle Universe project“ is not part of the IOTA Foundation or linked to any other way, it is an independent project to support IOTA and it´s applications.
We look forward to your message. Contact: info@publiciota.com
