On Monday, January 25, the 2016 Spring Manufacturing Lunch Seminar Series kicked off with a presentation by Cameron Coursey, AT&T VP of Product Development for the company's Internet of Things Solutions Group. The talk, which took place at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI), focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), the outlook for IoT, and some of the challenges AT&T and others see are coming in the future of IoT.

According to Coursey, in 2016, 80 'things' are connected per second in the IoT sphere. However, in 2020, he expects the number of 'things' connected per second to jump to 250. He asked the 36 attendees of his presentation to consider the bandwidth needed for this.

He believes that one area that is expected to create a huge demand for IoT related innovation will be smart cities where IoT will be implemented to create more efficient traffic patterns, energy use and even water flow, as examples. 

Cousey also described what he sees as challenges that need to be addressed in order to continue successfully integrating IoT into our everyday world at larger scales. The challenges he outlined are:

• Design complexity including the cost and connectivity
• Modules will have to continue to shrink in size
• Interoperability of components
• Security of not only data but the hardware controlling connected objects
• Development infrastructure needs to grow faster to keep up
• How to extract intelligence from data

Next week on February 1, Tom Carstensen, chief engineer of Sikorsky's Aerostructures Product Center, will address innovation at Sikorsky. Carstensen and a colleague will also lead a student recruitment session the same day from 5 to 7 p.m. Both sessions will occur at GTMI in Room 114. No registration is required. Food will be available.