Calling on #IoTman to save humanity!

We, in the hi-tech community, tend to gravitate towards the technology, the API, the device, the platform, the processes node and to forget the goal behind all of those items. We have all noticed the platform wars and cloud API struggle for #IoT market domination. Someone needs to bring back the discussion to the top level, to why we started down the road of #IoT a few years ago. Here is my contribution, happy to see yours.

There are 4 major challenges that #IoTman (that is you and I in the hi-tech world) must resolve for 9 Billion people to have a good life in 2050:

• Food – basic sustenance but also trend towards western diet
• Water – drinking, hygiene and irrigation
• Energy consumption – motors, lighting and industrial
• Healthcare – chronic disease management and preventionBackground data is a dime a dozen. A focused Google search returns many supporting reports and diagrams regarding the gravity of the situation for those four items.

  Food
  How do we properly feed 9 billion people? We already have the means with abundant crops and precision agriculture that is increasing yields every year. We read such news items fairly regularly now: “Grains piled on runways, parking lots, fields amid global glut”. The issue is mainly distribution and eliminating waste. How do we recover the 30% of food that is wasted en route? Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted.

  
  “Figure 3 illustrates the amounts of food wastage along the food supply chain. Agricultural production, at 33 percent, is responsible for the greatest amount of total food wastage volumes. Upstream wastage volumes, including production, post-harvest handling and storage, represent 54 percent of total wastage, while downstream wastage volumes, including processing, distribution and consumption, is 46 percent. Thus, on average, food wastage is balanced between the upstream and downstream of the supply chain.”

  #IoTman has the solution for these issues with blockchain technology to streamline supply and demand contracts and reduce transaction cost while IoT platforms and sensors can track produce across the distribution chain to guard against spoilage. Piece of cake for #IoTman.

  Water
  As an example, an Italian study developed by Censis reports that the volume of water lost in the distribution network is 32% in Italy, 20% in France, 6.5% in Germany, 15.5% in England and Wales. Add to that the flooding that happens on a yearly basis then it is clear that we need better control of our water distribution networks and advance warning systems for floods.
  
  
  Given the graph above, clearly any #IoT system that can cut down on water waste in irrigation will have a massive impact.

  #IoTman again, already has many solutions to our water issues from smart meters to regulate consumption to sensors for leakage and massive flooding. We still need to work on our Blockchain exchange for supplying water contracts via various means but it is only a matter of time before someone releases such a peer to peer water trading platform with minimal transaction costs.

  Energy
  Energy efficiency is crucial in dealing with demand outstripping supply. Would anyone like to contest this statement? There is no one size fit all for all issues relating to energy. The item that is clear though is that we have the technology to dramatically increase the efficiency of energy use and distribution with #IoT sense and control systems across the whole energy chain. It is not just smart meters that will make a difference but smart cities, buildings and enterprises.

  Electric Motors Use 45% of Global Electricity. We are talking here about global electricity! #IoTman can definitely today supply systems that sense and control motors of all sorts to improve efficiency. Every few % points have a dramatic effect on a global scale.

  Healthcare
  I saved the best one for last. Who in his right mind imagines that we can properly care for 9 billion people in 2050 when we are already spending over 10% of GDP today just to barely keep up? Why are we still waiting for people to get sick before we prescribe medication to the tune of $1 T? This is definitely not a sustainable model for 2050.

  
  #IoTman has the technology to flip this problem around by focusing on prevention. Big data genomics and sensors for continuous tracking of daily medical status are the only possible effective way forward. Get the GDP percent down, get Pharma to change its business model to prevention instead of cure and most of all get those 9B people to live a healthier life as their life expectancy increases.

  There are many reports from various organisations that expand on the subjects above and go into details of how #IoT will make a dramatic impact on the living conditions for humanity in 2050. My intent was not to replicate these studies here but to serve as a quick reminder.

  Given the above, it is time for the hi-tech community rise to the challenge, to come together and put aside its fascination with my platform not yours, my API not yours and join hands so that we can together create a better future for humanity. Do we really want to delay massive #IoT deployment by many years until the right application platform eventually wins?

  Would you join #IoTman in this epic journey to a trillion #IoT nodes serving humanity?