The first inaugural Dean’s Colloquium was held last month, featuring a talk by Sanjay Sarma on ‘The Internet of Things.’
Sanjay Sarma is the Fred Fort Flowers and Daniel Fort Flowers professor of mechanical engineering and newly appointed Director of Digital Learning at MIT. He was invited to speak at the first Dean’s Colloquium on the topic ‘The Internet of Things.’
“There has been much talk about the Internet of Things. Networking companies are excited about the possibilities of selling more plumbing. Device companies are champing at the bit to create new classes of higher margin smart things, such as IoT light bulbs. Companies that monetise information are salivating over the new sources of big data. What is getting lost, however, is the why and the what of the Internet of Things,” said Sanjay about his presentation.
Sarma was one of the founders of the Auto-ID Center at MIT, which, along with a number of partner companies and EPCglobal, developed the technical concepts and standards of modern RFID.
Sanjay spoke about the history of RFID, sensors and pervasive sensing before a ‘rant on the Internet of Things’ and what it means, and what is meaningless about many discussions on the topic. Finally, he described his view of an architecture: Cloud Think, particularly in relation to his project on connected cars.
The series of colloquia was introduced with the aim to fulfil the CECS Community: Recommendation 8 from the Cultural Audit Working Group’s recommendations of April 2013.
It is hoped that the colloquia will be held on a quarterly bases and will feature occasional lectures by outstanding speakers on topics of general interest which are targeted at a technical level accessible to all CECS staff.
Read more about Sanjay’s presentation as well as upcoming Dean’s Colloquia can be found here.
Photo by Bob Mical on flickr