The Director General of DG Connect, Mr. Roberto Viola, opened the event by emphasising that "every object should be connected and interact with other objects and humans". Regarding the deployment of IoT, he highlighted the need to avoid IoT vertical silos and he stressed the benefits of open ecosystems and of cooperation through notably the Alliance for Internet of Things Innovation (AIOTI), to deliver global success for the European IoT players.
Likewise, Mr. Thibaut Kleiner, Head of Network Technologies Unit, pointed out that the EU needs to move fast in order not to be left behind, and underlined that the bigger risk for the deployment of the IoT in Europe is market fragmentation. Standardisation and reference architectures are one important tool to address this. Therefore, he encouraged the participants to have a look at the deliverables of AIOTI's working group3 on standardisation, and to explore ways for this collaborative work to be incorporated in the Digital Single Market strategy.
Panel discussions and break-out sessions then concentrated their efforts on discussing how to implement standards and to move forward in the deployment of the IoT in Europe, by identifying gaps in current frameworks, discussing the role of industrial alliances, of initiatives to build open platforms and open frameworks, as well as evaluating experiences from other initiatives (e.g. project demonstrations, large scale pilots, IoT hubs, etc.).
Mr. Rolf Riemenschneider, Head of sector for Internet of Things at DG Connect, closed the workshop by stating that the implementation of both architecture and standards is as important as necessary, but he advised not to forget users: "if users do not understand the architecture, then how can they start using it to develop IoT solutions that cut across vertical silos? ". Participants agreed that semantic interoperability in terms of standards and architecture must be incorporated into the Large Scale Pilots that the Commission will fund in 2016, as this will positively impact on IoT deployment.
For more information
Download the workshop's report
Download the minutes of DG CONNECT Director General' s speech
Download the presentation of Thibaut Kleiner, Head of 'Network Technologies' Unit of DG CONNECT
Download the presentation of AIOTI on IoT High Level Architecture
Download the presentation of AIOTI on IoT Semantic Interoperability
Download the presentation of AIOTI on IoT Large Scale Pilots Standard Framework Concepts
Download the presentation of Dr John Davies from Hypercat on IoT Interoperability
Download the presentation of IEEE Standards Association on IoT Standardisation and Architecture