5 Reasons why the Internet of Things is for you – really!

Hackathons are a place to get inspired – professionally, personally, and differently. Let me start:

The IoT – a poem

Your ride home unlocks with a tap on your phone.
Street lights seem to follow you home.
The radio turns on when you enter the hallway.
Spirits from the netherworld have been there all day.

"Alexa" or "Siri" reply to your questions –
innocent things with demonic possessions.
Listening to every word you say,
for suggestions
without delay,
they say.

Ding-dong – "Who’s there?"
The postman, out of nowhere,
shows up with new supplies,
as another ghost implied
you were about to run out
of security patches.

While the prospect of the IoT hackathon taking place so close to Halloween might be getting the better of me, the IoT has indeed become a powerful, sometimes "whimsical poltergeist", in both private and public spaces. Things we always believed to be "dead", suddenly communicate with us and each other, and we want to keep them talking – in ways we can predict, and control.

Our jury is looking into some promising project proposals and is keeping an eye out for participants who are eager to work on:

1. Sniffing, analysing and characterising IoT traffic from a pile of IoT devices
2. A tool monitoring and (possibly) automatically blocking unwanted connections within an IoT network
3. Using BRSKI (IETF Internet-Draft) client code for ESP32 to build something fun, such as
4. Wi-Fi probes made from ESP32 micro controllers to be deployed at railway stations
5. A namespace management framework for information-centric networks based on existing DNS infrastructure

We would love to see further proposals extending this list. With that being said, we’re also looking for people who would just like to contribute to those projects with their knowledge, experience and creativity. Sometimes, it just needs someone to ask the right questions, to write a few lines of code or to build a decent PowerPoint presentation – says the consultant!

So don't be afraid of the IoT and apply by 9 September to be part of the IoT Hackathon Rotterdam 2019!

You can find more information in the previous article.