Kevin Ashton, the man, the legend who brought us the Internet of Things
What started as a business issue, resulted in one of the most impactfull technology trends we are known with today, the Internet of Things. But what is it and who invented this term? In this article a few insights on What IoT is, and who the brain behind this vision is. If we look to the founding father of the definition: “The Internet of Things” we see Kevin Ashton. Ashton, a visionary mind who took the opportunity to change the world as we know it today. The man who changed our vision on the intertwining of physical and digital worlds. And it all started with lipstick.
When I wrote my final thesis on the Internet of Things back in early 2013s had the privalige to interview Ashton on this topic. His idea on IoT and the further research I did resulted into my definition of IoT:
โInternet of Things (IoT) refer to the collective noun for the general idea to connect the physical to the digital via embedded technology. To receive data from all kind of smart objects from the past, the current and the future to communicate and sense or interact with their internal state or the external environment to simplify and facilitate human life, improve business processes, reduce costs and risks and raise efficiency.โ – Rick Bouter
After Cisco had a conversation with Ashton they made a small summary & infographic of his life which you can find below: “It all started with lipstick. A particularly popular color of Oil of Olay lipstick that Kevin Ashton had been pushing as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble was perpetually out of stock. He decided to find out why, and found holes in data about the supply chain that eventually led him to drive the early deployment of RFID chips on inventory. Asked by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to start a group — the Auto-ID Center — that would research RFID technology, he found a way to talk about RFID to a less-than-computer-savvy crowd โ by coining the phrase the Internet of Things or IoT. Ashton exploded the Auto-ID Center it into an international lab with 103 sponsors. After helping found a few startups, he’s “retired” into writing, with his first book, How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery, due out in January.” Listen to the full podcast here! Cisco Newsroom
Sources
Bouter, Rick, “Internet of Things: for business and beyond (1/2)”, Sogeti ViNT, September 25th, 2013
Many, Kevin, “Kevin Ashton, Father of the Internet of Things & Network Trailblazer“, Cisco Newsroom, December 8th, 2014