Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Be-IoT (The business engine for IoT pilots: Turning the Internet of things in Europe into an economically successful and socially accepted vibrant ecosystem)

Teaser

Be-IoT - Summary for PublicationThe overall goal of Be-IoT (one of the CSA’s of the IoT-European Platforms Initiative) is to foster a vibrant IoT-ecosystem in Europe. In order to reach this goal, Be-IoT focuses on three main pillars: Community Building, Business Building and...

Summary

Be-IoT - Summary for Publication

The overall goal of Be-IoT (one of the CSA’s of the IoT-European Platforms Initiative) is to foster a vibrant IoT-ecosystem in Europe. In order to reach this goal, Be-IoT focuses on three main pillars: Community Building, Business Building and Communication.

“Community Building” drives the collaboration amongst the projects and engagement with external stakeholders, such as developers and entrepreneurs. “Business Building” enables new businesses based on the developed IoT-platform technologies. Accompanying “Communication”, such as branding, promotion and media relations are essential for the success of these activities. Furthermore, these communication activities support the projects to refine their strategic positioning.

The underlying innovative climate and societal acceptance for IoT is stimulated by Be-IoT’s trust building activities, such as education on privacy and security challenges.

Work performed

In the first phase of the projects, Be-IoT built up all relevant Communication Channels for IoT-EPI (Website, Social Media, Media Relations). Meanwhile all IoT-EPI projects profit from added value through common tools and messages (esp. shared effort, increased reach and impact).

Collaboration amongst the projects is the most important precondition to build the basis for a sustainable IoT-EPI ecosystem. Therefore, all activities of IoT-EPI follow a collaborative approach. Be-IoT’s main tools for collaboration are the work in Task Force Groups, common Communication and event planning and the organisation of the internal IoT-EPI Meetings and further collaboration workshops. In one example, representatives from all seven projects met for a full day collaborative workshop in Vienna. As a result, the projects were able to identify individual strengths and common challenges and discussed ways to address them together.

How to leverage each other is as important as defining the competitive advantages of each project. In order to define the core strengths and USP, IoT-EPI projects took part in individual “1on1 sessions” and “pitch trainings”. In addition, the projects work on how to address these messages to cooperation partners, users and customers (e.g. participation in Storytelling and Social Media Trainings).

Engagement with local communities was defined as one of the major drivers for community building. At the IoT-Meetup for example, with 60 attendees, each EPI project got the opportunity to introduce their projects and also receive valuable feedback from the community. Thereby enabling interaction with communities outside the EU and Research contexts. These activities were fully supported by all IoT-EPI projects.

In the context of business building, knowledge transfer on relevant topics was the key focus in the initial phase. This was achieved by holding webinars and in-person talks on topics such as Open Source Business Models.

In the upcoming project phase, Be-IoT will focus on supporting the upcoming Open Calls disseminated via a common submission and community platform. The learnings will lay the foundation for the success of the following Open Calls.

A further important milestone will be the “IoT-EPI Get-together Berlin” in March 2017. Here, representatives from all projects will gather in Berlin, for a series of common sessions and events. One of the highlights is the IoT-EPI Stakeholder event “IoT-EPI Meet & Greet”, bringing together relevant people from different sections of society: entrepreneurs, developers, investors and people from the IoT Industry for a panel discussion and informal networking. Another key event will be the “IoT-EPI Challenge”, where 20 entrepreneurial teams with diverse backgrounds will be working on addressing business, technical and legal challenges facing the projects. The challenge will give the projects an informal platform to network and prepare potential cooperation (e.g. in the context of the Open Calls). Subsequently, the success of these two events will have a positive impact on community building activities of individual projects.

For business building activities, a key element in the next stage is the transition from knowledge transfer to hands-on business building activities (starting early 2017). Here, in-person workshops will be held with the projects and frameworks such as design thinking will be used to stimulate fresh thinking in business creation.

Ongoing activities in the upcoming period include the analysis of Innovation Hubs in Europe and best-practices on how to leverage local communities, the creation of high-quality IoT-EPI brochures , Trust & Security checklists for IoT-Projects and the involvement in IoT community events.

Final results

The underlying pillars of Be-IoT: Community Building, Business Building and Communication all have a positive impact on building a vibrant eco-system surrounding Internet of Things in Europe. Not only does the initiative create acceptance towards new IoT technologies but also instills a sense of Trust among general public and relevant stakeholders. The initiative also plays a crucial role in enabling traditionally research oriented projects to think in market terms. Under the motto “From the lab to the market”, Be-IoT is fostering new businesses built on top of innovative technologies.

Website & more info

More info: http://iot-epi.eu.