There is something rustling in universities. At one time engineering departments were stuffy, riddled with rules on load bearing surfaces and high viscosity fluids, and that was just the cafeteria. But IoT is making them honest. Computer science and engineering departments are under pressure to produce graduates who can successfully wire a plug, and demonstrate a proof. The paper cheetah era is wearing thin, fast.
Real Engineering
So, what is happening? Well, when you deploy IoT into real world settings you’re actually doing engineering; using real sensors, deploying physical gateways, dealing with power, industrial noise, badly designed enclosures, weather, failure and iteration.
The inside scoop is that universities are making up a good proportion of our search traffic, as they scramble for solid tools to do practical work. To engineering departments we’re a “lab supplier,” not a hardware vendor.
The Money Train
Something else is occuring in tandem with this ground up process. Research grant funding (the lifeblood of sylvan academics) is now being funneled to “applied impact.” In simple language, this means you can’t simply wave a nicely scented white paper at someone to get cached. The stuff we do is now officially en vogue; climate monitoring, energy efficiency, “smart” infrastructure, vehicle telemetry, health tracking, environmental sensing, fluid filtering, pipeline management, etc. Attention goes where money flows.
Data Analytics
Let’s drift across the quad to case study B, the root and rationale for universities; learning. IoT fits perfectly within their wheelhouse; data gathering, sifting and analysis. Business uses IoT for results, academics use it for research. Universities are, by default, data driven. The internet may have been a military project, but the DOD were smart enough to hone it using academic curiosity and student gossip.
Start up incubators
Student startups + incubators: Every technical university now has an incubator, a “smart X” lab and a hardware accelerator. Students are building ag-tech devices, lost bike trackers and automated eye lid openers. They start by youtubing: “IP67 enclosure + LoRa.” “find IoT hardware supplier” “low power sensor gateway” and wind up at “friendly lifelike robots”on tik tok, exactly where youthful ambition meets hubris. They don’t buy, they’re a little socially awkward to sell, but they do great research. You can see how reasonably priced hardware fits their use case.
System Integrators
One last significant element; many universities now run campus-wide sensor networks, smart buildings, parking telemetry, energy monitoring, air quality networks and micro weather stations They operate just like small cities for most of the term calendar. And unlike corporations, they prototype constantly, mix vendors, avoid lock-in and prefer configurable, “honest” hardware. That suits us just fine.
