The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) have executed an agreement to monitor global Internet of Things (IoT) activities and collaborate on developing standards.
The memorandum of understanding recognizes the importance of standards and the effective management of the associated applications through which value is clearly identified and captured for this fast-growing industry.
“ITU welcomes the participation of academic institutions like Georgia Tech in creating an enabling environment for leading edge technologies,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “This agreement is an important step as we address the coming Age of the Internet of Things.”
“The Internet of Things includes a wide array of disciplines and technologies in which Georgia Tech has a proven track record of expertise,” said W.P. “Bud” Peterson, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Our cutting-edge work in sensors, signal processing, cybersecurity, autonomous systems and computer applications spans a number of the academic programmes as well as applied research enterprise here at Georgia Tech, and we are looking forward to partnering with ITU to develop solutions to this global challenge.”
This initiative will be carried out in collaboration with the ITU Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 20, which addresses IoT technologies and its applications, including smart cities and communities, machine-to-machine communications and ubiquitous sensor networks. The Group is charged with developing standards that leverage IoT technologies to address urban-development challenges.
The Georgia Tech interface will be the Georgia Tech Centre for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies (CDAIT), an IoT technological think tank aimed at identifying, understanding, and solving challenges within the IoT value chain.
Areas of cooperation between ITU and CDAIT include:
- Joint steering committee. The ITU Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and Georgia Tech will establish a Joint Steering Committee composed of two representatives from each organization that will supervise the overall implementation of the collaboration.
- Thought leadership. Both parties will encourage standards groups and trade associations focused on a specific industry (“vertical market”) or a group of industries (“horizontal market”), open source communities, de facto standard representatives, and other public and private organizations interested in IoT technologies to participate in IoT relevant discussions with the goal of promoting interoperability in the IoT arena across industry and geographic markets.
- Global IoT events. Through this cooperation both ITU and Georgia Tech plan to jointly organize topic-relevant events in the future, such as but not limited to workshops, conferences and webinars, for the purpose of enriching the debate regarding standards-development activities in the technical areas pertinent to IoT.
- IoT standardization, research and education. A critical objective of this agreement is the expectation that the collaboration will may be of particular relevance to the standardization work of certain ITU-T Study Groups, such as ITU-T Study Group 20 “IoT and its applications including smart cities and communities (SC&C)” as well as the research and education activities of CDAIT.
Direct to Study Group 20 Web Site
Direct to Georgia Tech Centre for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies (CDAIT)
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