Internet of Things & Big Data

Disruptive Technologies

Internet of Things

By 2020, it is expected that 40 billion devices across the globe will be connected. The new mantra will be "Anything that can be connected will be connected".

When this happens, what will life look like?

Say, for example you have a meeting on Monday morning at 10:30 am at a downtown location. Your calendar will notify your alarm clock. Based on the past data of the time required for you to wake up and get ready, the alarm clock will automatically wake you up at 8:00 am and notify the coffee maker. Once you have picked up the coffee, it will notify the geyser. After you are ready to leave, the navigation map will guide the car by the fastest route. In case you are getting late for the meeting, the person you have to meet will be notified that you are late. At your office, your equipment will know when it is running low and will automatically re-order supplies.

IoT allows for virtually endless opportunities and connections to take place. It is almost impossible to fully understand the impact of IoT today. However, one thing is for sure -it will impact our lives in a significant manner.

Blockchain Technology 
Simply put is a huge, secure distributed ledger that can record transactions between parties in a verifiable manner. Once a record is entered, it is permanent and cannot be erased. As the records ("blocks") keep growing, its utility keeps multiplying. A blockchain database is managed autonomously using a peer-to-peer network and a distributed time stamping server. Blockchain technology has widespread applications in the field of finance -speeding and simplifying cross border payments, improving online identity management, executing commercial contracts automatically, reducing frauds, etc. As this technology proliferates and gets adopted by more people, its utility will grow dramatically.

Big Data

Big Data is large volume of data, structured and unstructured, which is difficult to process using traditional databases and software. A lot of technology investment in the corporate sector is going into Big Data computing, which reveals patterns, trends and associations. There is an enormous amount of data, which gets generated in any institution and the time is ripe to use Big Data techniques to mine this information and come up with meaningful patterns and trends.

As an example, in a firm of Chartered Accountants, Big Data can create customized reports for all the stakeholders -personalized assistance to clients, dashboards to the partners, reports to the directors and compliance charts to the regulators. The broad goals and targets of the firm can be measured and analysed periodically. Importantly, analytics of a client's historical performance can enable intervention at an early stage.