by Sam Galbraith, Vice President Client Engagement – Tier4 Advisors
This year’s “TAG IoT Symposium – The Time Is Now!” had four keynote speakers; the CIO of Atlanta, Samir Saini, Tom Raftery Global VP & Internet of Things Evangelists with SAP, Stephen Gold, VP & General Manager, Connected Enterprise for Honeywell, and Taylor Smith, President, Workflow Solutions for Honeywell. The five memorable quotes are coming from three of the keynotes and a panelist from the Connected Home and Office breakout session. Here are five of the quotes that resonated with me from the #IoTGA event.
Samir leads Atlanta as a Smart City with a…
Quote 1
“…sense of urgency to use IoT technology to address 5 core pillars: multi-mode transport, public safety, the environment, city ops efficiency, and citizen/business engagement.”
IoT is transformational for a city. What was invisible is now visible, with over 100 IoT sensors that see, hear, and smell. IoT will change preventative to predictive or reactive to a proactive city.
Atlanta has deployed shot-spotter IoT acoustic sensor technology in high-crime zones across the city. These are cutting edge acoustic sensors triangulating the sound identifying the location where gunshots are fired with real-time response to police dispatch. The sensor can determine the caliber and type of weapon fired.

Another real life example with a positive outcome is a pilot with GE to deploy “intelligent nodes” which includes an attached sensor array on the light that can “sense” the environment (see, hear, and smell) when a fires starts. The City of Atlanta plans to deploy these to 16,000 street lights in the city. Samir shared six smart city use cases with powerful outcomes supporting the five core pillars Atlanta is focusing on to improve the quality of life for citizens who work, live, and plan in our city.
I reached out to Tom Raftery requesting a comment on the future direction of IoT.
Quote 2
“The Internet of Things is at the same state of maturity now that the web was in 95/96. If you think back to then, only bigger companies had a website, and even those were extremely basic. Compare that to today’s internet, and that is the level of change we are likely to see happening as the Internet of Things is rolled out over the next 10-15 years.”

Quote 3

Quote 4
Shaun Hunt, CIO – McKenny’s Construction Company shared his perspective on the event.
“The TAG IoT symposium was another great event that showcases the Technology community in Atlanta. This IoT symposium truly is a win for Georgia to bring together leading multinationals and local companies in this emerging field.” Hunt continues to say, “As a panelist, it was great to discuss the evolution of the connected home. Even though this is an emerging field, the time is now to be adopting these technologies at home and in the office. At McKenney’s, we’re leveraging consumer technologies to control everything from office projectors to equipment in the field. McKenney’s has already identified and deployed a half-dozen use cases where connecting devices lowers costs, improves service and opens up new capabilities.”
Quote 5
The unanimous quote from presenters at the TAG IoT Symposium 2017: The Time Is Now! was,
“This is a revolution not just an evolution.”
Tier4 Blog Edition 5: September 13, 2017