IoT and Edge Computing: Future directions for Europe

A workshop on IoT and Edge Computing, held on 11 September brought together around 170 key stakeholders from industry, academia, SMEs, from Europe and beyond, to share views on the emerging needs and opportunities for European Edge IoT, learn from key voices in industry and public sectors and to identify the most promising paths forward.

Speakers and panellists drew attention to future opportunities of Edge Computing including its role of safely connecting devices; and provided insights into the requirement for orchestration with cloud services, the importance of integrating connectivity and computing with AI-based reasoning and automation, while addressing the challenges and barriers for European stakeholders across different sectors.

The workshop was opened by Max Lemke, Head of Unit IoT, DG CONNECT, European Commission; Rolf Riemenschneider, Head of Sector, IoT, DG CONNECT, European Commission; Martin Brynskov, Coordinator, Next Generation IoT (NGIoT), Aarhus University; and Parm Raeewal, Chair, Alliance for IoT Innovation (AIOTI) Steering Board, Vodafone. The event was moderated by Dr Monique Calisti, CEO, Martel Innovate and featured more than 20 presentations from prominent expert researchers and innovators.

The full agenda is available here.

The workshop was hosted by NGIoT together with the European Commission and the Alliance for IoT Innovation (AIOTI). Of more than 300 people registered, around a third are from research and academia, with the public sector and SMEs also having broad representation.

Participants discussed the opportunities and challenges of IoT and Edge computing in Europe as well as the current position of European stakeholders. Speakers and panelists also assessed possible measures to reach consensus on an agenda and roadmap for European IoT research, innovation and deployment in the world. Participants were encouraged to give their views on the NGIoT Strategic Roadmap, which sets the future course for IoT in Europe. It is based on broad community input including companies, public sector, researchers and NGOs. It is intended as a basis for dialogue towards the selection of priorities in the IoT domain.

Access the Strategic Roadmap here and contribute your expert opinion on one of the most important digital technological advancements of our era.

The video recording of the workshop has been divided in 4 parts: