As a result of our continued interest in smart devices and the Internet of Things as well as cooperation with Swedish universities and research institutions, we were honoured with the invitation to participate in the creation of a new initiative – the Swedish Inernet of Things Centre, whose beautiful logo you can see above. The main actor behind the initiative, SICS, wants to give the project a kick-start in the form of a very promising event, the Internet of Things Day in Stockholm, on February 9.

Several hundred people are expected to attend, among them representatives of other companies and institutions that co-create the SIoTC – with Ericsson, Microsoft, KTH, Mobile Life, Stockholm University, Wisenet, Swedish ICT, Company P, Vendolocus and ourselves among them – which makes the SIoT Day a very interesting place to find connections and partners in IoT-related projects, as well as learn what’s ‘in’ in this pretty hot topic.

We’ll also be co-hosting one of the poster/demos during the 15.15 session, but more info on that later!

The full agenda
9.30 Welcome, Christer Norström, CEO of SICS
9.35 Why a consumer-oriented Internet of Things centre in Sweden?, Kristina Höök, head of the centre
10.00 Keynote by Bu Fanjin, deputy Chief Engineer of CEST, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China: China Internet of Things Plan 2011-2015
10.45 Keynote by Mike Kuniavsky, Orangecone, US: The Internet of people: integrating Internet of Things technologies is not a technical problem
11.30 Living with Internet of Things, Oskar Juhlin, Mobile Life
12.00 Lunch
13.00 Device software challenges, Adam Dunkels, SICS
13.30 Big data challenges, Ali Ghodsi, KTH
14.00 Finding values in big data, Jan Höller, Ericsson Research
14.30 Allowing everyone to create embedded systems, Steve Hodges, .NET Gadgeteer
15.00 A training app for the Swedish Olympic cross country ski team, Christer Norström
15.15 Coffee and demos

For more info, visit http://www.sics.se/Internet_of_Things_Day

The Scandinavian Electronics Event is a new addition to the map of fairs and conferences related to embedded systems (even if its scope of interest is broader). It is scheduled to be a biennial event – the first took place between April 13-15 2010, and the next one is scheduled for April 2012.

The visitor count perhaps did not live up to the expectations (compared to, say, Embedded World there was a lot of breathing space) but that does not mean the SEE was a failure. On the contrary, it was a good opportunity for many people in the industry (including us!) to learn about where we are headed, to strike up new, valuable contacts and eat free fo… er, gather information on new products that are being developed in the cold North and elsewhere. The panels were mostly interesting, with a good deal of lectures about wireless technologies – a look at the timetable was enough to see what is in vogue.

We will definitely be attending the SEE in 2012 if time allows, and we encourage you to do likewise if you want to see how Scandinavians go about what they do – professional and open even if a bit restrained. And that is precisely how I would characterize the 2010 SEE.