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Highlights from the sixth annual MTN Business IoT Conference and Developer Day

19 Nov 2020

The sixth annual MTN Business IoT Conference and Developer Day took place online on 18 November and was divided into two parts - a conference under the theme of 'Convergence: The top trends for 2020 show that IoT technology is converging', and a brand-new Developer Day.

Sudipto Moitra, general manager: ICT at MTN Business | image supplied

Highlights from the conference were the keynote presentations - most notably by globally-renowned tech expert Vint Cerf, who is widely regarded as a ‘father of the internet’ and currently serves as vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google. Rapelang Rabana, well-known South African technology entrepreneur and computer scientist, also addressed the audience.

During his keynote at the conference, Cerf focused on his role in 'inventing the internet', and the strides made in the 50 years since its inception, what is needed to enable meaningful innovation, and what this could look like in the year 2070 - 50 years from now.

Some interesting advice and insights imparted by Cerf included:

Patience and persistence are powerful friends when innovating, as he reflected that some of the projects that he has worked on took up to 22 years to reach fruition.
Youth is helpful, as he referenced how many young developers at Google have been told that they can’t do something, only for them to go away and do it.
Looking ahead, 50 years from now, Cerf believes that “there will still be something like the internet” where people will still be able to access information.
He also believes that we will be further along in terms of artificial intelligence (AI) with humans working together with what some may call robots. We will leverage them as tools to help us to do the things that we can’t do ourselves. We won’t think twice about how these things work.
His parting words to SA’s young innovators were to remember that to do the impossible, first you need to believe that it isn’t possible.

As for the all-new Developer Day, Sudipto Moitra, general manager: ICT at MTN Business, says: “While it’s always great to acknowledge top IoT app or solution developers by way of awards and trophies, MTN Business decided to take this a step further this time around."

"Rather than awarding innovators for great ideas, we decided that there would be more valuable for the innovators if we were to take on the role of 'business-to-business (B2B) match-maker'. This way, we’re in a position to practically assist and enable up-and-coming innovators to commercialise their apps and solutions."

IoT developers were invited to submit their solutions, spanning across major economic sectors including mining, agriculture, manufacturing, connected healthcare, connected utilities, and smart cities.

The IoT developers were given the opportunity to pitch their solutions to an audience.

Representatives from the large corporations had the opportunity to request meetings with the developers of the solutions that they believe could add value within their organisations, or to their customers.