After Internet and Big Data, the world is on the verge of another computing revolution. This new wave of technological crest is brought about by a unique confluence of shifts in user choices of accessing technology and innovations that expand these choices available to the user. The result is a massive shit in interactive technology as we know it today. This will mainly be centered round the concept known as ‘Internet of Things’ or IoT.
There will be a wide web of connectivity between humans, object, other animals and machines under this scheme of things. Man will communicate with his car, a housewife can communicate with her refrigerator or washing machine from a significant geographical distance, or more effectively, entire systems talking to other systems. With an estimated market value of $1.8 trillion globally yielded by Internet of Things in next five years (as per Gartner), it is necessary to develop apt skills that help you succeed as a developer, project manager or business manager. It is sure to overshadow every new form of technology we have seen and heard of.
What does this mean for you?
As a developer, a career student or as technology professional, you need to see how you can make these disruptions work to your own advantage. For instance if you are a student, you need to assess your situation in light of the upcoming boom by IoT and decide how you can make yourself employable. The five skills are pertinent to successfully lead to fruition of innovative thinking and include the below pointers –
- Thinker who can connect the dots – A thinker who can associate the benefits or challenges of one system and connect it to another system by way of service or benefit can have a good potential to succeed in this inter-connected world. For instance a watch and healthcare are two distinct and unrelated domains. But when they come together like the smartwatch or wearable technology from Samsung, they can help monitor your heartbeat, or relay your location.
- Collaborator – This set of skills help you in bringing together people from diverse fields of expertise and strategies to help solve a complex problem – a vital trait for inter connectivity across traditionally unrelated systems.
- Communicator – This allows people to bring the design and proposed solution construct to life, through diagrams, images, videos, graphs, theories or stories
- Knowledge resource – This skill helps you gain a deep level of knowledge that helps you sees things the way not many people can see.
- Persistence – This skillset help people to persevere till they reach their objective. Being a new field, there will be obstacles bound to be there at every step of the way. Only dogged determination can help set the tone for this impactful global technological shift through IoT.
So, while specialist research firm Gartner predicts as many as 25+ billion devices connected by Internet of Things, there is a need for specific skills to drive the interaction and integration of these device with us, the people. Hope these pointers provide a clear roadmap of the skills that will be needed to succeed when the Internet of Things blooms to touch millions of lives in the near future.