By Vivek Shivaswamy, Chair, Business sub-committee, OCF India Forum
Last month, the OCF India Forum held its first flagship event, “OCF India Day” at Open Source India 2019, one of Asia’s largest open source events. Open Source India presented a great opportunity for local developers to meet up and find out how the OCF’s IoTivity implementation can help them with their IoT projects. Thanks to our organizing team from OCF India Forum member companies Samsung, Intel, Nasscom CoE IoT, Granite River Labs and Xtrans Solutions, we were able to hold a successful event with active participation and interest from attendees ranging from developers and startups to multinational corporations.
As an Associate Partner of Open Source India, the OCF India Forum spearheaded several activities during the two-day event, including a keynote panel discussion, a hands-on IoTivity workshop and an exhibition booth.
Discussing the Success of IoT in India
During the event, Mr. Divyanshu Verma, Senior Manager of Intel India and Vice Chair of the OCF India Forum, moderated a panel discussion on the “Importance of Open Source for the success of IoT in India” along with panelists from Samsung, Granite River Labs, Nasscom CoE IoT & Dell. The panel engaged in discussions about the IoT landscape in India and exponential growth of the number of connected devices. The panelists highlighted the importance of interoperability, open standards and protocols for the IoT and the business and technical advantages of adopting Open Source solutions. During the Q&A, audience members were interested in knowing more about the benefits of open source solutions such as the OCF, which help to build IoT products with ease.
Hands-on IoTivity Workshop with OCF India
The OCF India Forum also held an interactive workshop on Building Interoperable IoT Products with OCF & IoTivity. This event was a huge success, with pre-registrations and additional walk-ins creating a full house of attendees. This workshop was targeted at introducing OCF & IoTivity to participants and providing a hands-on experience in building an IoT device. This was made possible with IoT Dev kits provided by Xtrans Solutions with IoTivity ported onto Raspberry Pi boards.
During the workshop, participants were divided into groups of five and had the opportunity to implement a use case with the sensors available in the developer kit. These use cases included smart home, connected car, agricultural IoT and waste management. Participants were taken through a step by step guided tutorial with our onsite experts from Samsung, Granite River Labs & Xtrans Solutions.
Showcasing the Latest OCF Projects
Attendees stopped by our exhibition booth to learn more about our IoTivity-based projects such as the Interop Test Board, IoT Dev Kit and an OCF-oneM2M interworking demo. They took part in short sessions on key topics of interest including an Introduction to OCF and IoT Security & Certification tools.
With “IoT” being a popular buzz word in India, the local developer community has been in search of easy solutions and platforms that will help them successfully build interoperable, secure IoT products. Attendees were most interested in how the OCF’s open source solutions could enhance their current product and service implementations.
Focusing on the Future
The OCF India Forum looks forward to continuing to bring awareness of OCF in India and promoting OCF as the dominant IoT standard by:
- Educating and enabling IoT-focused Indian companies, including SMEs & start-ups, to build IoT products at ease using OCF & IoTivity, as government estimates 2.7 billion connected devices by 2020
- Participating in Indian Standards Working Groups led by government bodies, including the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and Telecommunications Standards Development Society India (TSDSI) to promote OCF adoption in government projects
- Engaging and motivating Indian Universities for active contribution to open-source and standards and for OCF-related skill development
On December 14-15, the OCF India Forum will be participating as a Supporting Association at the second edition of Smart Home Expo in Bangalore. This event is a one-stop platform for the entire Smart Home Industry. In 2020, the OCF India Forum will be closely working with Government Standards bodies to make OCF a recognized standard in India.
Our forum is growing quickly, beginning in January 2019 with six member companies and evolving to 45 member companies today, with products and services ranging from Smart Home, Building & Smart Cities to Agriculture IoT and Health & IoT System Integration. If you’re interested in getting involved with the OCF India Forum, please contact [email protected].