Invitation to ACS, IET and IEEE members

Invitation to participate in Engineers Australia’s Applied IOT Engineering Community

Engineers Australia (EA) is inviting members of ACS, IET and IEEE to participate in a new online Community of Practice being launched on 5 July. The focus of the community is the Internet of Things (IOT). It’s a completely new service to members, delivered by EA’s Learned Society Business Unit and championed by its Information Technology and Electronics Engineering (ITEE) College. As per our memorandum of understanding with your organisation, we are pleased to offer your members access to our community at the same rate as our own members, which is free for all webinars.

As your organisation would know, IOT is a hot topic. According to Cisco over 20 billion "things" are expected to be online by 2020 with an "at stake" economic potential of around $19 trillion. IOT is expected to impact the vast majority of business processes in virtually every industry. It is certainly likely to feature prominently in the careers of most of your members.

However, IOT is a complex field covering everything from front end sensor networks to big data analytics in the cloud. In particular, a recognised barrier to reaching the $19 trillion potential is a general lack of understanding of how to integrate the disparate technologies that make up IOT and how to build a business case. That's why we need a community of practice to inform and support members.

2016 ITEE College chair Geoff Sizer said that the big constraint will be human talent. “People approaching IOT face a steep learning curve across a number of different technological fields to make it all happen,” he said. “Generating enough people with the required skill sets may well be the main constraining factor driving the update of IOT technologies.

A community of practice is a national forum for sharing and creating knowledge around a particular focus subject, in this case IOT. We will be holding weekly webinars aimed at educating members and stimulating online discussion. The community is supported by an online community platform (this site) with a calendar of events, discussion forum, member blogs, wiki and document library.

What differentiates this new service from other CPD offerings, is a focus on developing practical tools and guidelines, which will form the basis of a body of knowledge around Applied IOT Engineering. Over the course of the next year we will have 48 webinars on various subjects relating to IOT. The first four complement each other to provide a comprehensive overview, so we encourage your members to sign up for all of these. After that, we will systematically cover all the major aspects of IOT and we plan to introduce some other events. These webinars are free for your members simply by ticking the appropriate association box and providing a membership number.

Another point to note is that the community will primarily be online allowing you to participate from your own desk. This means regional members, and those too busy to make face to face meetings, can participate fully.

Engineers Australia is excited about this new service and would like to see as many people take advantage of this opportunity to collaborate, learn about an important engineering field and to promote their expertise as thought leaders.

To join the community, simply register at http://iot.engineersaustralia.org.au/register/ and start participating through commenting and joining the webinars. If you have further questions do please contact the community facilitator below.

Community Facilitator:

Dr Tim Kannegieter, Knowledge Manager, Learned Society Business Unit, Engineers Australia

iotengineering@engineersaustralia.org.au