Presented on May 10, 2016 by Luca Mari at the International conference “IoTnow Everything but hype” (Milan Disruptive week) in the session “Overview of IoT key issues, opportunities and threats”. Abstract: Differently from the industrial automation epitomised in the Computer Integrated Manufacturing of the ’70s and ’80s, IoT is a human-centric technology, in which the widespread adoption of open source and hardware tools lowers the barriers to entry and blurs the roles, toward scenarios of extreme customisation made by prosumers operating in informal, dynamic communities. With some reflections on this perspective, from the data and experiences obtained in an ongoing European research project on the “Digital Do It Yourself” phenomenon.

1. Understanding the IoT ecosystem
The role of individuals
and communities in IoT
Luca Mari
lmari@liuc.it
http://research.liuc.it/luca.mari
Milano, 10 May 2016

2. Abstract
Differently from the industrial automation epitomised in the Computer Integrated
Manufacturing of the ’70s and ’80s, IoT is a human-centric technology, in which
the widespread adoption of open source and hardware tools lowers the barriers to
entry and blurs the roles, toward scenarios of extreme customisation made by
prosumers operating in informal, dynamic communities. The talk will propose
some reflections on this perspective, from the data and experiences obtained in
an ongoing European research project on the “Digital Do It Yourself”
phenomenon.

3. Hyping technology
(source: Google Books - Ngram Viewer)

4. There is even the “theory”...
(source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

5. IIoT and CIM
Is “Industrial Internet of Things” just a different term for what we used to call
“Computer Integrated Manufacturing”?
(source: Google Books - Ngram Viewer)

6. The game changer: Internet
“The major technical background of Industrie 4.0
is the introduction of Internet technologies into industry”
(source: R. Drath, A. Horch, Industrie 4.0: Hit or Hype?, IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine, 8(2), 56–58, 2014)
IoT entities are:
capable of data processing and storage
provided with a physical and informational identity
interoperable in a systemic context

7. “Smart objects”
Entities that are:
capable of data processing and storage
provided with a physical and informational identity
interoperable in a systemic context
are we talking about human beings?
are we trying to produce
with technology in few years
what natural evolution has been producing
with biology in millions of years?

8. Bottom-up changes
Natural evolution is a bottom-up phenomenon
Hypothesis: digital technologies are becoming enablers of bottom-up changes,
because digital tools are more and more powerful, flexible, connected,
affordable, easy to use, ...
→ Let us study how individuals and communities do IoT
About two years ago we designed a research project from this standpoint

9. Horizon 2020 - Research and Innovation Action
“Digital Do It Yourself” (DiDIY)
[January 2015 – June 2017]
http://www.didiy.eu
Partners:
Universita Carlo Cattaneo LIUC [IT]
The University Of Westminster LBG [UK]
Ab.Acus SRL [IT]
The Manchester Metropolitan University [UK]
Stichting Free Knowledge Institute [NL]
Amerikaniko Kollegio Anatolia [GR]
Politecnico di Milano [IT]
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644344.

10. 0. Social perception
In a number of workshops we are interviewing high school students
about their perception of Making, 3D printers, IoT, etc
What are the most characterising features of a maker?

11. 1. Observing a DIY online community...
Instructables (www.instructables.com) has currently ~ 210k registered users
~ 70k of them uploaded at least one project, for a total of ~ 200k projects
trend of user registration
(2005-2016)
trend of project upload
(2005-2016)

12. Observing a DIY online community: projects
makers are relatively young...
number of uploaded projects by year
grouped by category (cyan: tech)

13. Observing a DIY online community: age
makers are relatively young...

14. Observing a DIY online community: age
[relativefrequencies]
… and makers producing IoT-related projects (red)
are younger...
IoT
non-IoT

15. Observing a DIY online community: community
number of comments provided
by authors of IoT-related projects by age
IoT
non-IoT

16. 2. Testing a bottom-up approach to IoT...
With some classes of high school students,
co-design of an IoT monitoring system for their labs
Goal: real time acquisition of data from:
-- sound sensors
-- light sensors
-- temperature sensors
-- humidity sensors
-- gas sensors
and high level, effective presentation for educational purposes

17. The basic components
Arduino Yùn
Raspberry Pi 3

18. Open s/h IoT architecture

19. IoT workshop settings
Participants:
40 high school students
from different fields
without any background knowledge in IoT
group challenge
Task:
create a new IoT dashboard from scratch to display real-time data
collected from the environment

20. Node-RED: a visual tool for wiring IoT

21. Freeboard: a visual tool to create dashboards

22. (Non-)conclusions
While it is too early to propose well-founded conclusions from our research,
IoT seems really a powerful context for a bottom-up approach to innovation,
in which individuals and communities play new, important roles
(source: The Economist, 21 April 2012)
Will it be the revolution of creativity?

23. Thank you for your kind attention
Luca Mari, research.liuc.it/luca.mari lmari@liuc.it
Università Cattaneo - LIUC, www.liuc.it
SmartUp, smartup.liuc.it, with a MakerBot Innovation Center, ic.liuc.it
Lab#ID, labid.liuc.it
DiDIY Project, www.didiy.eu
with the partnership of
Unione degli Industriali della Provincia di Varese
Camera di Commercio di Varese