Browsing the internet on your phone or tablet is so yesterday. Sure, it’s easy to find out the latest movie sessions or express order an entire outfit from the comfort of your own home – but how many times have you missed the delivery of that outfit because you weren’t there to sign for it?
Enter the Internet of Things – a network of physical objects (or ‘things’, if you will) that have individual IP addresses and the ability to transfer data over a network, without the need for human assistance. Drive to work in the morning? Set your alarm to wake you earlier if there’s bad traffic so you can still get to work on time. And that outfit you wanted delivered urgently? Why not have it delivered to your car instead and locked securely in the boot. Yes, the Internet of Things is indeed promising to change the way we navigate the world (and the postal system).
The Internet of Everything
But it’s not just about increasing the amount of things we can connect to the internet or creating the coolest apps and gadgets, it’s about how we use the data this connectivity will produce to genuinely improve business outcomes and quality of life.
Networking giant Cisco is investigating just that through their Internet of Everything innovation centres – where IoE is understood as the next evolutionary stage of the Internet of Things. With centres already established in Barcelona, Berlin, London, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Tokyo and Korean business hub Songdo (the world’s first ‘smart’ city), Cisco has this week announced the location of their newest innovation centre: Australia.
“It’s incredibly exciting to be announcing the new Cisco Internet of Everything innovation centre here in Australia,” says Mr Kevin Bloch, Cisco’s Chief Technology Officer. “It’s our eighth centre globally, and reinforces Cisco’s commitment to innovation and our belief that Australia will be one of the world’s Internet of Everything powerhouses.”
Curtin University announced as partner
The Cisco IoE Innovation Centre, Australia, will be launched later this year, and will include locations in Sydney at technology and data company Sirca, and in Perth at Curtin University. Woodside Energy will also partner in the project.
The centre will create a state-of-the-art ‘connected community’ focused on leveraging cloud, analytics, cyber security and Internet of Things network platforms, and will initially focus on three industries in which Cisco considers Australia to be a leader: resources, agriculture and astronomy.
Curtin’s Professor of Radio Astronomy Steven Tingay says he is incredibly excited about the centre and the technology it will provide.
“The Square Kilometre Array, or SKA, is going to be probably the biggest, most complex undertaking in the Internet of Everything,” he says of the $2 billion project that has positioned Curtin as a global leader in astronomy.
“It’s a massive radio telescope consisting of hundreds of thousands of individual antennas, all connected to the internet – so we’re going to be able to generate the daily data flow across the entire global internet within the first five minutes of operation.”
“This is exactly the sort of thing we need to do to bring academia and industry together and grow a bigger, richer, smarter Australia.”
Curtin’s Research and Development, Professor Graeme Wright says he is enormously proud of Curtin working with Cisco on this centre, and looks forward working with project partners Sirca and Woodside Energy.
“It’s about being able to take our place on the world stage and work with like-minded people on major projects,” he says.
Cisco Innovation Centres aim to catalyse and showcase innovation and development, bringing together customers, industry partners, start-ups, application developers, government organisations and universities.
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