State Department Seeks Aid of the Internet of Things Community 

In the Washington D.C. area, a new community has emerged for entrepreneurs, developers, manufacturers, service providers, and investors. Known as the “Internet of Things DC,” this community encourages people from all of these diverse, yet interconnected areas to come together as one.

“We're bringing together the business, technology and investor communities in the Washington DC area who are interested in building and using the Internet of Things,” said Greg Toth, Founder and Organizer of the group. "Many of the underlying technologies have been around for a while, and recent advances in miniature sensors, low power microprocessors, wireless networking, cloud computing, mobile applications, and big data analytics have all come together to provide the right ingredients for making the Internet of Things a reality." 

While the inaugural event featured many speakers and demos, Toth says that events in the future will include meetups, workshops, and community service projects. One group that made an appearance at the event was the U.S. Department of State. The director of verification and transparency technologies, Brian Nordmann, spoke on how they are looking for low-cost solutions to better monitor the extermination of weapons of mass destruction.

His talk, entitled, “From Lettuce to Warheads,” discussed how monitoring techniques are not only expensive but that they’ll be out of date in the near future. He thought that the Internet of Things group could help to provide new and innovative ideas for future policy. 

He then put his money where his mouth is and said that the U.S. Department of State is willing to fund projects that enhance monitoring capabilities. This funding could range anywhere from $500 to $500,000 depending on the project.

Told said that the DC area was chosen because it offers a combination of many different people and organizations that deal with technology, entrepreneurship, investment, analytics, and policymaking.

The Internet of Things DC event was a collaborative effort between Internet of Things DC, Nova Labs, and the Data Innovation DC Meetup group. It was sponsored by Hillcrest Labs who specialize in motion sensing technology.