IoT takes center stage at the next WT industry day

We're trying something a little different with an afternoon event featuring DHS and State Department speakers talking about how IoT is impacting their operations as well as a book signing and cocktail hour to wrap things up.

My early impression of the Internet of Things was pretty simplistic. Nearly everything would be connected and have an IP address. Some of the potential benefits would be better maintenance on equipment like HVAC systems or even your car.

And of course, there also was the refrigerator that would tell you how much beer you had.

But as IoT has moved forward, the connection to analytics and the power that brings has really come to the forefront.

With that in mind, we are hosting a free IoT event July 11 with Microsoft. It is affiliated with Microsoft Inspire at the D.C. convention center July 9-13.

The theme of our event is How Contractors Can Drive IoT Innovation in Government.

Our event will be July 11 and it will be a little different for us in that it is an afternoon event instead of a breakfast.

We’ll kick things off at 3:30 with registration and networking at the Marriott Marquis next to the convention center in Washington D.C.

I’ll kick the program off at 4 p.m.

In another departure from what we normally do, we’ll have an author as our opening keynote. Bruce Sinclair is the publisher of iot-inc.com and the author of the new book "IoT Inc: How Your Company Can Use the Internet of Things to Win in the Outcome Economy." He’ll both address the audience and sign books.

That focus on outcomes is really where the power of IoT seems to be headed, so I’m sure we’ll gain some great insights from Sinclair.

We have two government speakers in the lineup as well. Landon Van Dyke is senior advisor for energy, environment and sustainability at the State Department. Some of his IoT initiatives include smart metering, air quality monitoring and vehicle telematics. His talk is called "Laying the Foundation for IoT."

We’ll also have John Wagner, deputy executive assistant commissioner at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In his role at the Office of Field Operations, he oversees nearly 30,000 employees. He’ll talk about IoT as a platform for innovation.

Sam George, director of the IoT Engineering Team at Microsoft Azure, will speak about some of the IoT technology trends. Among his many projects is working on leveraging the Azure cloud platform and IoT applications.

And since this is an afternoon event, we’ll end with cocktails and the book signing.

Here is a link with more information and registration.