Understanding the IoT ecosystem

The role of individualsand communities in IoT

Luca Marilmari@liuc.it

http://research.liuc.it/luca.mari

Milano, 10 May 2016

Abstract

Differently from the industrial automation epitomised in the Computer Integrated Manufacturing of the ’70s and ’80s, IoT is a human-centric technology, in which the widespread adoption of open source and hardware tools lowers the barriers to entry and blurs the roles, toward scenarios of extreme customisation made by prosumers operating in informal, dynamic communities. The talk will propose some reflections on this perspective, from the data and experiences obtained in an ongoing European research project on the “Digital Do It Yourself” phenomenon.

Hyping technology

(source: Google Books - Ngram Viewer)

There is even the “theory”...

(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

IIoT and CIMIs “Industrial Internet of Thing s” just a different term for what we used to call “Computer Integrated Manufacturing ”?

(source: Google Books - Ngram Viewer)

The game changer: Internet

“The major technical background of Industrie 4.0

is the introduction of Internet technologies into i ndustry”(source: R. Drath, A. Horch, Industrie 4.0: Hit or Hype?, IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 8(2), 56–58, 2014)

IoT entities are:

capable of data processing and storage

provided with a physical and informational identity

interoperable in a systemic context

“Smart objects”

Entities that are:capable of data processing and storageprovided with a physical and informational identity

interoperable in a systemic context

are we talking about human beings ?

are we trying to producewith technology in few yearswhat natural evolution has been producing with biology in millions of years?

Bottom-up changes

Natural evolution is a bottom-up phenomenon

Hypothesis: digital technologies are becoming enablers of bottom-up changes,because digital tools are more and more powerful, flexible, connected, affordable, easy to use, ...

→ Let us study how individuals and communities do IoT

About two years ago we designed a research project from this standpoint

Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Action

“Digital Do It Yourself” (DiDIY)

[January 2015 – June 2017]

http://www.didiy.eu

Partners:Universita Carlo Cattaneo LIUC [IT]The University Of Westminster LBG [UK]Ab.Acus SRL [IT]The Manchester Metropolitan University [UK]Stichting Free Knowledge Institute [NL]Amerikaniko Kollegio Anatolia [GR]Politecnico di Milano [IT]

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644344.

0. Social perception

In a number of workshops we are interviewing high school studentsabout their perception of Making, 3D printers, IoT, etc

What are the most characterising features of a maker?

1. Observing a DIY online community...

Instructables (www.instructables.com) has currently ~ 210k registered users~ 70k of them uploaded at least one project, for a total of ~ 200k projects

trend of user registration (2005-2016)

trend of project upload (2005-2016)

Observing a DIY online community: projects

makers are relatively young...

number of uploaded projects by year grouped by category (cyan: tech)

Observing a DIY online community: age

makers are relatively young...

Observing a DIY online community: age

[rel

ativ

e fr

eque

ncie

s]

… and makers producing IoT-related projects (red) are younger...

IoT

non-IoT

Observing a DIY online community: community

number of comments providedby authors of IoT-related projects by age

IoT

non-IoT

2. Testing a bottom-up approach to IoT...

With some classes of high school students,co-design of an IoT monitoring system for their labs

Goal: real time acquisition of data from:-- sound sensors-- light sensors-- temperature sensors-- humidity sensors-- gas sensorsand high level, effective presentation for educational purposes

The basic components

Arduino Yùn

Raspberry Pi 3

Open s/h IoT architecture

IoT workshop settings

Participants:40 high school students

from different fields

without any background knowledge in IoT

group challenge

Task:create a new IoT dashboard from scratch to display real-time data

collected from the environment

Node-RED: a visual tool for wiring IoT

Freeboard: a visual tool to create dashboards

(Non-)conclusions

While it is too early to propose well-founded conclusions from our research,

IoT seems really a powerful context for a bottom-up approach to innovation,

in which individuals and communities play new, important roles

(source: The Economist, 21 April 2012)

Will it be the revolution of creativity?

Thank you for your kind attention

Luca Mari, research.liuc.it/luca.mari lmari@liuc.it

Università Cattaneo - LIUC, www.liuc.it

SmartUp, smartup.liuc.it, with a MakerBot Innovation Center, ic.liuc.it

Lab#ID, labid.liuc.it

DiDIY Project, www.didiy.eu

with the partnership ofUnione degli Industriali della Provincia di VareseCamera di Commercio di Varese