Next Generation Internet of Things: IoT-NGIN Project Starts

The IoT-NGIN project consortium held its first meeting on October 15th and 16th 2020. Funded by the European Commission, the project addresses the topic ICT-56-2020 – Next Generation Internet of Things.

IoT-NGIN Project: The Next Generation Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been identified as one of the next big concepts to support societal changes and economic growth. It represents one of the fastest-growing ICT segments.

A whole new range of applications leveraging data and metadata from connected “things” provide novel services for smart cities, urban mobility, smart agriculture, smart energy and human-centric industry management.

In IoT-NGIN, we consider a “thing” as any kind of sensor, actuator, wearable device, smartphone or an autonomous system, such as autonomous guided vehicles, robots or drones with networking capabilities. In this sense, even a group or swarm of self-organised objects can be consider as a “thing”.

Concept and Methodology

In the evolving next-generation IoT era, the biggest challenges are:

• research towards federated on-device intelligence, so that the “things” react as self-aware, and when applicable user-aware/human-centric, semi-autonomous entities. Even when their resources are constrained or network connectivity are not reliable.
• enforcing interoperability and data sovereignty, overcoming scalability and fragmentation of vertically-oriented, closed systems.
• ensuring trust, cybersecurity and privacy.
• introducing novel human-centric interaction based on Augmented Reality.

IoT-NGIN aims to drive IoT to the next generation through scalability, openness, security and support for monetisation.

IoT-NGIN Project Consortium

The IoT-NGIN project is in line with the EC’s flagship initiative Digital Agenda for Europe. Its consortium was built to address the EU Programme on INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP – Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies – Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). 

Lead by Capgemini Technology Services (France) under the Grant agreement 957246, the IoT-NGIN Project receives an overall budget of  around 8 million Euros. Its international consortium includes 19 partners. France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Greece, Luxemburg, Finland and Cyprus are represented. On the occasion of the Kick-Off meeting, Privanova published the IoT-NGIN Project Factsheet. 

Ethics, Privacy and Data Protection

Privanova is responsible for the privacy, data protection and ethics compliance of IoT-NGIN Project. Besides managing Ethics Requirements, we assist consortium partners in understanding and implementing the EU Ethics Appraisal Scheme. Privanova also plays the role of a Data Protection Officer for the project and decides on the necessity to perform Privacy Impact Assessments.

Clustering and Exploitation

Privanova is quite active in emerging clusters, alliances, networks and standardization bodies. We will support the IoT-NGIN Project by participating in its clustering efforts and collaboration with other projects funded under this or similar programme or topic. We aim to push the project results in a sustainable ecosystem, maximizing their adoption, engagement with stakeholders and impact potential.