World Economic Forum Global IoT Action Plan Workshop

Metro21’s Karen Lightman represented Carnegie Mellon University as the co-leader of the World Economic Forum’s Global IoT Action Plan Workshop on Awareness and Understanding on Tuesday, August 18. This event was a continuation of CMU’s leadership role on the WEF’s IoT Council, focusing on the global state of IoT. At the workshop, invited Council members focused on how to work together to increase public education and understanding of connected devices and help empower individuals and organizations to make informed decisions regarding adoption and use of these devices. The goal of the IoT Council is to shape a future in which connected technologies enable trust, safety, equality, sustainability and efficiency; through partnership, pledging support, piloting, providing expertise or contributing in other ways. 

Highlights of the workshop included presentations by CyLab’s Pardis Emami Naeini, who shared an IoT security and privacy label (think “nutrition label” for connected devices); CMU’s School of Architecture’s Daragh Byrne who overviewed Spooky Tech that seeks to inventory “spooky devices”; and PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity’s Eleri Jones who shared their series of Little Books that are used to communicate the Internet of Things. WEF is hosting five such Action Plan Workshops, the findings will be included in the forthcoming State of the Connected World 2020 report and Global Action Plan.