TIoTA and MachNation Team Up on IoT Challenges Competitions

The Trusted IoT Alliance (TIoTA), an ecosystem of more than 50 companies working together to build open source systems for IoT with blockchain, and MachNation, an independent IoT research and benchmarking firm, have introduced an initiative to stage a series of Trusted IoT Challenges worldwide.

“MachNation is delighted to join TIoTA in the development of these challenges,” said Steve Hilton, President, MachNation. “As a firm dedicated to researching and benchmarking IoT platforms and solution, MachNation recognizes the value of identifying leading solutions in the market. As IoT, blockchain and related technologies continue to grow, having proven ways to benchmark and improve these solutions is critically important.”

Sign-up and challenge guidelines are available on the TIoTA website. Dr. Alexy Khrabrov, TIoTA’s Chief Community Officer, will run the challenges initiative, and interested parties should email [email protected] to discuss partnerships, participation and details of the challenges.

“The intent of the challenges is to spur innovation by combining blockchain and related technologies and IoT while developing roadmaps, templates, standards and guidelines,” said Zaki Manian, Executive Director, TIoTA. “Output from the challenges will help provide best practices and deliverables in the blockchain for IoT space and bring visibility to the Proof of Concept work underway at the Alliance and in the industry. We are looking forward to working with MachNation as we drive the industry forward.”

The winners will gain direct access to the Enterprise members of the Alliance to develop products and services based on the winning designs, including a paid Proof of Concept. MachNation will publish a report describing the winning solution. An overall winner will be awarded in each category, along with Best Business Contribution, Best Technical Contribution, and Best Usability, depending on the challenge.

Four Challenges
The organizations announced four initial global challenge competitions that will take place over the next 18 months, including:

• Smart E-Mobility – Enables seamless mobility services for Electric Vehicles (EVs), such as charging, roaming and convenience services. Connects smart grids, smart homes, and EVs for transparent energy billing.
• Smart Logistics – Uses identity mechanisms to set up information sharing between participants in logistics value chains on a need-to-know basis. Addresses the N*M integration problem.
• Smart Buildings – Optimizes building performance for security, automation and efficiency. Uses immutable event log with granular access for sharing and analyzing security events with stakeholders. Applicable to factories, airports, shopping malls, and other venues.
• Smart Construction – Combines innovation of IoT Solutions for Smart Construction with trust technologies. Includes  wearables, tracking devices, and smart construction equipment.

The common questions for each challenge are:

• How can IoT help solve the connectivity challenges in each vertical?
• What kind of identity is required to track any sets of objects – cars, containers, assets - in each vertical?
• How is the trust between providers, customers and partners upheld?
• What kind of payment infrastructure is required?
• How are the regulatory and compliance requirements addressed, especially across borders?

Smart E-Mobility is the first challenge and online registration is available. The deadline to submit design proposals is January 21, 2019. Bosch is co-sponsoring the challenge and providing test equipment and field trial support.