Why Scotland is ahead of the IoT curve

IoT seems to be the tech trend of the year and while everyone is talking about it, one country is ahead of the rest when it comes to connected tech…

IoT is key to creating smart and connected cities, where joined up tech makes both public sector and organisations more productive and efficient. With a forecasted 25 billion IoT connected devices by 2025 there is a vast opportunity for government and businesses to take advantage and make use of a huge amount of data.

Last August Scotland announced the creation of the “most advanced” internet of things network in the UK. The £6m public and private sector project called IoT Scotland, allows for the collection of data from smart devices through a wireless sensor network.

Uses for the network include:

• Water bacteria monitoring
• Intelligent street lighting
• Home alert system for carers and social care works
• Wilderness footfall sensors
• Bin monitoring ensuring best use of bin lorries
• Monitoring office buildings to reduce carbon emissions

After laying the foundation with the IoT Scotland network, this year the Scottish government launched a Dynamic Purchasing System for internet of things technologies.

The DPS covers a wide range of tech including:

• Device management
• Data management
• Integration
• Analytics
• Subscription and connectivity management
• Application enablement and management
• Security
• IoT enablement (advice) and implementation services
• IoT related hardware, for example, sensors
• And more…

The Dynamic purchasing System is set to run from 2019 until September 2021. The DPS operates similar to a framework and is an entirely electronic process and suppliers can apply to join at any time.

It is hoped that both the DPS and the IoT Scotland Network will work together to support Scotland’s ambitious internet of things goals and create a better-connected Scotland as set out in Scotland’s digital strategy.