Huge IoT Impact agenda features latest Australian IoT use cases, case studies and expert insights

The latest Australian Internet of Things (IoT) use cases, case studies and expert insights will be showcased at the IoT Impact conference in Sydney on May 23.

The latest additions to the agenda include speakers and panelists from Transport NSW, Endeavour Energy, Circular Australia, the Department of Environment & Heritage Protection Queensland, Incitec Pivot, Rockwell Automation, Bluescope Steel, Laing O'Rourke, Level Crossing Removal Project, Telstra, NBN, Tassal and Thinxtra.

They and others will take the stage at the Sydney International Convention Centre for the event, organised by Australia’s peak IoT industry body IoT Alliance Australia and media partner IoT Hub.

The event enables business and government, organisational and technical leaders and practitioners, along with technology providers to step outside their industry bubbles and learn how others in their sectors and other sectors are harnessing real-time data from IoT.

Attendees, speakers and exhibitors from local, state and federal government, manufacturing, healthcare, transport, water, energy, telecommunications, urban planning, infrastructure and construction, agriculture, legal, research and other fields will attend.

In addition to use case and case studies, panel discussions and keynote talks about using real time data to tackle resilience, sustainability and business productivity challenges will be centre stage.

Remote connectivity developments

The latest sessions announced include a panel discussion looking at how remote connectivity options are maturing and exploring partner ecosystems and use cases driving this progress. This will feature Tom Boot, Regional Sales Director for APAC at Myriota, which aims to disrupt the connectivity market with low-cost and long battery life satellite connectivity.

Joining Boot on stage will be Sam DiMarco, General Manager, Segments & Stakeholder Relations Regional & Remote at nbn. It has 35 trials across Australia for nbn Smart Places, which proposes to take nbn beyond homes and businesses. Boot and DiMarco will be joined by Rob Joyce, Chief Technology Officer for Nokia in Australia & New Zealand.

The state of "massive IoT" data

Also taking the stage will be Liam Manning, Chief Commercial Officer at Newcastle technology integrator SAPHI Engineering, which has worked with the likes of BHP, NSW Department of Primary Industries, Snowy Hydro, Westrac, Tomago Aluminium and Port of Newcastle. Manning will help unpack the latest developments in the use of large scale IoT, or “massive IoT, to generate useful data-driven insights.

That discussion will also involve John Tripodi from Couriers Plus, which deployed IoT tracking in an effort to improve asset management of 3,500 parcel cages to reduce loss and optimise distribution of over 30 million parcels a year. He will be joined on stage by Nick Lambrou, CEO of Thinxtra, which along with Optus supplied the Couriers Plus solution.

Earlier this year Thinxtra expanded its partner ecosystem and announced it was seeking IT companies, which includes value-added resellers (VARs), systems integrators (SIs) and managed services providers (MSPs) to partner with.

The convergence of planning, IoT and digital twins

Attendees will also hear from experts on how the worlds of urban planning, digital twin and IoT are colliding to enable smart precinct design and management – and how to ensure that the sum of the parts is much greater than the current siloed business as usual.

With digital twin projects attracting tens of millions of dollars in funding, challenges around data, skills and standards look like coming to the fore.

IoT Impact will feature Gavin Cotterill, founder and managing director of digital twin advisory and consulting firm GC3 Digital and co-founder and director of digital built environment education provider TEMPO Institute.

“We're now seeing state and territory governments look at what digital-by-default means and we are starting to see funding being released by treasuries in certain states and territories,” Cotterill recently told IoT Hub for a story about the "top down" approach to digital infrastructure taking shape.

Joining Cotterill on stage will be Catherine Caruana-McManus, Co-Founder of Meshed, Australian based IoT systems integrator of enterprise grade solution, Tim Zhao, Paramatta City Council, and James Strutt, Director, Strategy, Advisory and Transactions, Strategy and Analytics Property and Development at the NSW Department of Planning and Environment.

Mitigation and adaptation of natural disasters

Australia has seen more discussion about the use of technology to improve warnings about natural disasters, particularly since severe floods in NSW in 2022.

Alerting for flash flooding has historically been almost non-existent in Australia, according to Queensland based IoT start-up LiXiA. Its CEO Simon Igloi, will take to the IoT Impact stage on May 23 to discuss the use of technology to support natural disaster mitigation and adaptation.

Discussing this with Igloi will be Peter Runcie, Smart Cities Theme Leader, NSW Smart Sensing Networks (NSSN). Researchers from five NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN)-member universities have worked with councils and small businesses to develop repeatable best practises for using low-cost sensors to address air quality issues.

Also taking part in this discussion will be Melissa O Halloran, Manager, Bush Fire Risk Planning, Rural Fire Service, Deborah Bunker, National Hazards Research, and Nicole Parsons from the Illawarra Shoalhaven Joint Organisation.

Unlocking the potential of IoT in manufacturing

Billions of dollars have been earmarked, via such funds as the Federal Government’s National Reconstruction Fund and Breakthrough Victoria Fund, to modernise Australian manufacturing.

On May 23, some of those at the forefront of manufacturing will appear on stage at IoT Impact to discuss how the need for resilience and innovation is driving manufacturers, and unlocking the potential of IoT in manufacturing.

Taking part in this discussion will be Freddie Coertze, National IoT Business Manager at global IoT company ifm. The company predicts increasing use of self-service middleware to make it easier for companies to benefit from IoT data.

“In the past, businesses have relied on data science experts to analyse equipment data and provide insights,” it pointed out. “Now, they can access these insights quickly and cost-effectively through the power of artificial intelligence.”

Coertze will be joined on stage by Colin Robinson, Manager, Major Projects at Bluescope Steel, Robert Hicks, Consultant Manager at Rockwell Automation, Alex de Andrade, General Manager of equipment R&D at design and manufacturing company Mineral Technologies, and Christian Ruberg, Future Digital Manufacturing Lead with CSIRO Manufacturing.

Designing the transition to renewables

Government commitments to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 will result in a vast amount of renewable electricity generation coming online in coming decades, and a reduction in firm generation from sources such as coal-fired generators.

At the power systems level there will be fundamental changes in how electricity consumption and generation will be balanced. Generation and demand will need to be tightly orchestrated using a huge amount of real-time data gathered from across the grid.

At IoT Impact on May 23, attendees will see a high-level overview of the data flows involved in operating the electricity grid in a renewable generation future.

This session will involve Endeavour Energy’s Head of Digital and Insights Steve Lette, who has more than 30 years industry experience in engineering, design, asset Management, demand management, operational technology, metering, data and ICT, among other topics.

He will be joined on stage by KPMG’s Director, Power, Shabir Ahmadyar, who focuses on the operational challenges of future power systems and is a research affiliate with The University of Sydney, where he co-supervises Ph.D. students working on the planning and operational challenges of future grids.

Also taking part in this discussion will be Race for 2023’s Chief Research Officer Bill Lilley. He delivered CSIRO’s ‘Intelligent Grid’ research program, which showcased the value of distributed energy for Australia, and was a principal advisor on the federal government’s ‘Smart Grid Smart City’ initiative which determined the cost-benefits of a commercial scale rollout of smart grid technologies and consumer applications in Australia. 

The discussion will also feature Chris Law, co-founder of Future Grid, which seeks to enable net zero emissions for electricity distribution networks by enabling the integration of renewable energy technologies.

They will be joined on stage by Dani Alexander from the UNSW Energy Institute. She specialises in distributed energy resources to promote energy system flexibility, and has a cross-disciplinary background.

Australian IoT project leaders to attend

The event will also bring together representatives of standout Australian IoT projects nominated as finalists for the IoT Awards, which will be announced over networking and canapes at the conclusion of the conference.

Finalists include Southern Ports for a project to build trade capacity through real-time tracking, Telstra for a large-scale meter data logger program for Jemena, and Outcomex for Transport Deck: Pick-up and drop-off bays within NSW.

IoT Impact will take place at the Sydney International Convention Centre on May 23. See the agenda and purchase tickets to IoT Impact 2023.