There is a lot of talk of tech driving smarter cities, smarter industries and smarter ways of working, but are businesses really ready to invest in being ‘smarter’?
We already have the tools to analyse data for more informed decisions, the tech to anticipate problems, tech to intuitively resolve them and smarts to allow us to operate more effectively. So why are businesses hesitant to jump in with both feet and invest in tech?
Do organisations really understand what is possible now, and in the very near future?
So, in preparation for our upcoming Innovation Lab Guide on the Tech Impacting Businesses in 2015, I thought I would shed some light on the smarter tech of 2014 and the key takeaways our team bought back from the Future Cities Asia conference last week.
Technology enables. From smarter self to smarter cities. It’s not just about mobile phones getting “smart”, it is everything from cars to public bins that are able to gain access wirelessly. As time goes on and more manufacturers embed Wi-Fi, SIM cards and other technology, everything will link into the intelligence of the Internet of Things, with mobile as the possible companion remote.
Following are 5 areas that are being enabled as we speak;
1. Smarter Self: Improving your health, weight and wellbeing:
- Pills with in-built sensors that take information from the inside of your body and submit it to devices such as smartphones.
- Electronic ‘tattoos’ that measure your temperature and alert you to the onset of sickness before symptoms are felt.
- Connected scales monitoring weight, body mass index and heart rate.
- Smart watches that can make an appointment with your doctor because it has detected your temperature is too high.
- Morning alarms that automatically adjust their wake-up time because your early morning appointment has been cancelled overnight.
2. Smarter Homes: Connecting our homes to our smartphones:
- Connected water meters, lights and other electronic devices will allow consumers to track and control energy consumption.
- Intrusion detection systems that will detect window and door opening and violations to prevent intruders.
- Refrigerators that know when items are past their use-by date and reorders them for the next shop.
3. Smarter Enterprises: Improve collaborative working practices and supply chain logistics:
- Shipments can now be tracked at every stage, from the manufacturing line to delivery.
- Retailers can fit sensors to the shelving in their store that can trigger the ordering of new stock when levels are low.
- Industrial and office equipment that can order replacement parts as they are needed.
- Beacon technology can guide you around new office space, to your hotdesk and notify you of meeting changes.
- General Electric sees so much potential in IoT that it has setup a software division, called GE Software, to look at how GE can exploit IoT across its various products and services.
4. Smarter Environments: Harness and protect natural resources:
- Our oceans are full of sensors that track sea temperature and currents
- Farmland sensors track its health; monitoring of soil moisture, vibrations and earth density.
- Monitoring combustion gases and preemptive fire conditions to define alert zones to assist forest fire detection and prevention.
- Distributed control in specific places of tremors to help early earthquake detection.
5. Smarter Cities: Making our cities smarter by monitoring infrastructure:
- Structural monitors measure vibrations and material conditions in buildings, bridges and historical monuments.
- Detection of rubbish levels in containers to optimise trash collection routes for waste collection.
- Intelligent and weather adaptive technology in streetlights to save energy and prevent road accidents.
- Autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles to help reduce travel congestion and driver and pedestrian incidents.
- Buses that know to wait for a delayed train to arrive.
- Real contextual intelligence driving value.
“There really isn’t a device in your life right now that wouldn’t be better if you could connect it on a wireless network,” said Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer of GSMA quoted in the report. “Consumers will eventually have six or seven devices in their life, and they’ll all talk to one another.”
So, at Future Cities Asia, one of the first events of its kind, Aki Ranin and Luke Janssen, from our Singapore office, went to hear what the industry leaders were talking about. Following is a summary of the hot topics and thought-provoking projects that were discussed;
1. Big data:
- It is happening now in major cities around the world – can we harness insights-driven technology advancements?
- Public data sources are plentiful and shared, yet private data (malls, taxis, parking) is not shared. Why?
- Data scientists are a key driver to discover the possibilities of data usage (algorithms, visualisations etc). Businesses need to invest in data-driven insights.
- Data itself is nothing without UI.
2. Apps:
- Most public entities rely on universities, institutes and hackathons to provide solutions on top of data.
- This has resulted in thousands of limited usage apps being creates and no maintenance. Are we missing a trick?
3. Internet of things:
- A key enabler for internet of things is surprisingly street lamps.
- Manufacturers are already coming out with smart street lamps, that carry sensors and even Wi-Fi capability.
- Any amount of hardware can be plugged in and distributed in volume, establishing a city-wide framework of Wi-Fi or even location-aware beacons.
- Use case: street lamps blink red & blue before an ambulance rushes by.
- Use case: low-energy, always accurate navigation without GPS.
4. Security:
- Hacking is a harsh reality: traffic lights (Wi-Fi), smart meters, wearables, personal data.
- Kickstarter devices aren’t secure. If you put them all together and you have a network of vulnerability.
- Botnet of everything is coming.
5. Who is investing in smarter tech:
- CLP Power (Hong Kong’s power grid) developing a smart metering pilot
- Smarter Hong Kong, Smarter Living, 2014 Digital 21 strategy (including MTR, Hong Kong’s already advance mass transit), on how ICT is not only a key enabler underpinning Hong Kong’s thriving economy, it is also taking shape as an economic sector in its own right.
- Smart Grid, Smart City, led by Ausgrid an Australian government funded project. They are testing a range of smart grid technologies; gathering information about the benefits and the costs of implementing these technologies (committing $100m to the project).
- Germany developing ‘smart factories‘ to keep a competitive edge .
- China now has 30 industrial robot factories that could double the robot population by 2017.
“Being around technology every day at Tigerspike, we were positively surprised to witness the adoption of advanced technologies like big data, sensors and mobility by governments, municipalities and cities across the globe. However, as often happens in political matters, there is a risk of Smart Cities being crossed out as a campaign issue, leaving the sustainability of these advances at risk” shared Aki Ranin.
Smarter tech adoption and effectiveness all depends on the user experience. The basic rules of making it simple, intuitive and core to the everyday, will lead to success with your users, the environment and ultimately your bottom line.
“We were really pleased to be the enterprise mobility sponsor of the Future Cities event. With over half the world’s population now living in cities, technology can really help improve the lives of city dwellers and visitors. Thats the important question to ask, which is sometimes forgotten ‘is what we are doing and the technology we are implementing improving lives’. If the answer is no then we shouldn’t be doing it.” adds Luke Janssen.
So.. are businesses ready for smarter tech? Well they darn right should be. If not, they will be left behind.
At our Innovation Lab based in Singapore, we are constantly looking ahead at emerging technologies that will drive businesses of the future. Feel free to contact Oliver Palmer, our Head of Innovation, to find out how you can harness emerging tech before the competition does.
If smart technology is an area you want to know more about, watch this space. In our upcoming Innovation Lab Guide to Tech in 2015 we will be looking in-depth into the key tech that will reshape the way we live and work including; contextual technologies, cashless payments, mHealth and more.
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