Is it possible to create a secure, sustainable, community owned internet of things (IoT) network in Brighton? To deliver true ubiquitous, heterogeneous, next wave connected technologies, we require robust, scalable and economically-viable infrastructure and connectivity networks and standards.

In this event we focus on what they are and what they might enable, with a particular focus on bringing The Things Network - a global, open, decentralised and free IoT network – to Brighton.

With talks from Julian Tait who has pioneered this open network across Greater Manchester, to Yodit Stanton who has provided the support and platform for so many IoT projects across London and beyond. We will also hear from one of Brighton’s own academics, Dr Nour Ali, working on cutting edge IoT architecture and finish with Bill Harpley explaining what benefits Brighton can hope to receive from such a network.

If you have an IoT project in mind come along to find out how you can get it up and running and what you can do to support a community owned IoT network.

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About the speakers

Julian Tait is the Instigator of Things Manchester part of The Things Network, CEO of TheGarden.io and a civic technologist who works within the fields of IoT and open data.

Things Manchester is a group of civic-minded people who are intent on building an open and free Internet of Things network in Greater Manchester, so that anyone and everyone who wants to develop IoT devices and services can do so. This has been enabled by a new class of network devices becoming available offering vastly increased range, lower unit cost and enhanced battery life - some devices can operate for years before their batteries need changing.

Things Manchester is part of The Things Network based in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam initiative was launched on the 21st August 2015 by the digital community to provide a distributed open and free IoT network for the benefit of their businesses and communities.

Yodit Stanton is a data engineer and founder of OpenSensors.io, the Internet of Things startup providing public and private infrastructure for real-time data.

Yodit will make the case that 'smartness' and innovation of cities will come from community driven projects based on Open Data rather than large top down initiatives. Often the conversation around smart cities neglects to think about the needs of actual people, we will look at how projects in the UK and US are solving problems that citizens care about.

Nour Ali is a Principal Lecturer in Software Engineering at The University of Brighton. Her research involves developing approaches and tools in the area of software architecture of distributed and adaptive systems.

Internet of Things are pervasive systems which continuously change their environments and resources (e.g. battery or bandwidth). They require different software services or applications when they enter or exit environments and when their resources change. In this talk, Nour will present a service oriented architectural approach that supports self-adaptation to changes in resources and location topology when mobility occurs, by reconfiguring the software architecture at runtime. Her approach considers ambients to be autonomic elements that can manage elements located in them to their environment and provide them with new services suited to the available resources when mobility occurs.

Bill Harpley has 30 years of experience as an Engineer in Electronics, IT & Mobile telecoms sectors. He provides people from Business, Technology, Art and Design sectors with a meeting space, The Brighton IoT Group, to learn, network and share ideas about the emerging 'Internet of Things'. Bill will talk about the potential benefits of a community owned IoT network for Brighton.

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Tech Beyond the Screen is a series of events which looks at what the opportunities and challenges are as digital technologies move from screen-based devices to becoming embedded in the real world.

If you are a start-up, digital or creative business or an individual interested in preparing for (and engaging with) the internet of things, place and everything, Tech Beyond the Screen should inspire and inform you.

Tech beyond the Screen is delivered by the Digital Catapult Centre Brighton, a collaborative R&D lab which helps business ideas become innovations and innovations get to market.

If you want to be kept informed about all the Tech Beyond the Screen events (and others that the Digital Catapult Centre in Brighton is organising), register here.