Technology leader Aeris has collaborated with Malaviya Centre for Incubation, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MCIIE) and Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi to establish a state-of-the-art ‘Internet of Things – Centre of Excellence’ (CoE) on the IIT BHU campus.
All entities aim to jointly address the pressing need in India to develop workers’ skills, accelerate innovation and increase entrepreneurship in emerging technologies like IoT.
The global IoT market is expected to cross $200 billion by 2020, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. India now accounts for 43 percent or USD $1.5 billion of the global $3.5 billion IoT market, according to Zinnov Zones. This is expected to grow to $15 billion, with 5.6 billion devices in India by 2020, according to Nasscom and Deloitte. This presents a significant opportunity for Indian technologists, startups and service providers to help advance IoT technology adoption.
Dr. Rishi Bhatnagar, President, Aeris India said, “With more than two decades of IoT experience globally, Aeris has been a significant IoT solutions provider for more than two years in India. We are committed to helping increase IoT knowledge and skills so that our country, India, develops homegrown IoT solutions for meeting its own unique challenges and adoption of the technology. The Aeris IoT Centre of Excellence with IIT BHU is a step in that direction. We will work closely with IIT BHU teams to train them on using Aeris’ own proven IoT technology for developing relevant and affordable IoT solutions for different industry verticals. I believe that the campus will become the hub of the best talent for IoT in the coming years.”
With IoT converging different technologies, multi-disciplinary skillsets are the key requirement for filling new job roles. More than 220,000 new engineers will be needed globally every year for the next 10 years to keep up with the IoT technological surge, according to Cisco. More than 500,000 program managers and 4.5 million IoT developers will be needed by 2020, reflecting a 57 percent compound annual growth rate.
Professor Pradeep Srivastav, IIT (BHU), Varanasi said, “The relationship between MCIIE and Aeris will allow IIT BHU students and entrepreneurs to work more efficiently in the area of IoT and cloud-based ideas, also enable us to create an ecosystem of low-cost IoT-based technologies, which will help our Purvanchal region. This initiative will bring significant benefits to the state’s regional and rural farmers, schools, businesses and local government including greater efficiencies and productivity through young entrepreneurs. This partnership is particularly timely for MCIIE in Varanasi and Purvanchal as the cost to create solutions are seen as a major impediment to economic growth of the region.”
The collaboration between Aeris and IIT BHU, one of the top engineering institutes in India, will enable the creation of indigenous and innovative IoT solutions, supporting the “Digital India” mission and “Make in India” initiative. The Aeris IoT platform will be deployed at the IoT-CoE as part of the MCIIE and will be used by IIT-BHU scholars for projects of academic interest, as well as serving as an incubation platform for startups for the development of connected and integrated smart solutions. Aeris employees from India and USA will provide training and hands-on experiences in IoT technology.
