Internet of Things Hackathon is the New Buzz Word in India's Technology Capital

Innovations such as smart insulin pen, a neonatal respiratory monitoring device, an epileptic seizure detection tool and a distress signal wristband are the result of a growing culture of IoT hackathons in India's technology capital.

Bengaluru is certainly no stranger to hackathons, meet-ups for geeks to show-off by building technology solutions to specific problems. Hackathons to mine Internet-of-Things solutions are more recent, requiring participants to build technology interconnected to various devices.

nternet of Things (IoT) is already on its way to become the next big tech trend. Its enormous growth rate can be understood from a report by Gartner Inc. indicating that the use of IoT devices in 2015 was up by 30% from 2014.Furthermore, according to IDC predictions, the IoT market will hit $7.1 trillion by 2020.

"There is a lot of passion around IoT," said Chandrashekhar Raman, manager for IoT strategy and innovation at Cisco. "We keep organizing it as a fun activity... The guys who participate are a crazy lot. As IoT devices are increasingly used in extremely sensitive industry such as healthcare, they are critical to lifesaving mechanisms and emergency systems. Any failure in such devices, at a critical juncture, could lead to loss of a patient's life.

As remote sensors and monitoring are materializing as the core of IoT, data control and ownership in business organizations will become more sensitive. This will drive compliance issues to become pertinent across every industry vertical. Unique compliance frameworks developed and customized according to unique requirements of businesses will emerge. For adequate data protection, development of a new security framework will become an evolutionary trend. In fact, the evolutionary nature of IoT is set to complicate the industry. With a huge number of players in IoT, enterprises will have to follow multiple standards and protocol.

"It is difficult to find a place to experiment and build something. We provide the space, equipment and the necessary mentorship," said Pavan Sheth, systems engineer at Workbench Projects.

Source: ET bureau