Atlanta's IoT Ecosystem & the Current and Future State of Autonomous Vehicles!

AITP Atlanta was excited to host Tom Taylor, Vice President of IoT at Wheego Technologies and Cynthia Curry, Director of IoT Ecosystem with the Metro Atlanta Chamber. I, along with our membership, were anticipating another great discussion in our continued dinner meeting series, focused on IoT for our April topic.... and we were not disappointed! We're all hearing the buzz around IoT, but as we learned from both Cynthia and Tom, we're much farther along in not only the products and offerings, but also the development of the ecosystem and infrastructure that will support our connected world!

Cynth Cynthia Curry ia Curry kicked off the evening with some amazing information on what the Atlanta Metro Chamber is doing to draw in and support the IoT ecosystem in Atlanta. But as we learned, there is already incredible backing from the technology community, as well as the state of Georgia, who's investing $250 million in infrastructure improvement program called "Renew Atlanta." Part of this investment has been used to test a new low latency WAN, that will allow IoT connected devices to communicate with each other, greatly decreasing the amount of power these devices will consume compared to the traditional Wi-Fi technologies in place today. This only scratched the surface on what Atlanta is doing to be the hub for IoT! To learn more on what the Metro Atlanta Chamber is doing to promote this initiative, go click HERE.

Continuing, Tom Taylor lead the discussion on the current, and future state, of autonomous vehicles. The content itself was riveting, but Tom's delivery and passion for this tech had everyone at the edge of their seats! It was great to get a history of Autonomous vehicles, but even more excited to hear what major automobile manufacturers are saying:

The State of Statements on Cars

Ford fully autonomous by 2021
GM autonomous cars by 2020 or sooner
BMW to launch autonomous iNext by 2021
First autonomous Toyota by 2020
Tesla fully autonomous by 2018
Nissan to provide fully autonomous by 2020
Volvo: by 2020 no one (zero) will be killed or seriously hurt in a new Volvo

While the idea of the autonomous vehicle really hits home with my love of all things tech, there are an amazing number of practical reasons that this technology not only could, but must be implemented - the lives that could be saved alone should get everyone on board!

Automotive Deaths As you can see from this graph, the increase in automobile related deaths is staggering, and that is a direct result of the adoption of the smart phone - we seem to be addicting to distracting ourselves when on the road! (let's put down the phone when driving folks!)

With the adoption of the autonomous vehicle, this would eliminate these needless deaths. We are, of course, a long way from the highways being filled with self-driving cars. As we hold on to our vehicles for a very long time, before we get there, but it's a dream well worth working towards!

Autonomous Car Tom shared an amazing amount of content on the technology as well as the infrastructure needed to support the new world. As an Atlantan, I think we can all see the benefits of our highways being more efficient....dare we dream of a traffic jam free commute?!?!

Again, a huge thank you to Tom Taylor of Wheego Technologies and Cynthia Curry from the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. AITP Atlanta greatly appreciates you volunteering your time to share your amazing knowledge with our membership!

Brain Please keep an eye out for more information on our May 18th dinner meeting. Chris Benson, CTO and AI Strategist will lead the discussion on "Demystifying Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence." If you'd like to get a sampling of Chris' background and experience, he leads the Atlanta Deep Learning Meetup, who's next meeting will the evening of May 8th - click HERE for more information on the event.

The AITP Atlanta Board of Directors looks forward to seeing at our next event! As always, you can register via our website at http://www.aitpatlanta.org. Information on sponsorship's, as well as becoming a member of this outstanding community can be found here as well.

We look forward to seeing you next month! Come and Join the Conversation!

Best - Steve

March Dinner Meeting Recap

Written by Steve Wright

AITP Atlanta is excited to bring you Tom Taylor, VP of IoT at Wheego Technologies to continue our dinner meeting series on the evening of April 20th. Tom is a veteran of the technology community, and continues to innovate. He joined Wheego Automotive Company to assist in building advanced electric vehicle technologies for the Global Market and to build an Internet of Things business focused around the connected car. Tom will lead the discussion on emerging technologies in IoT, specifically talking about the state of autonomous vehicles today and a possible near future, reality view! He will address some of the technology, business, data and policy issues that face this compelling arena.

In addition to Tom, we will have a special “return” guest that I know you will greatly enjoy. (Hint – you may remember her from last year’s Women’s Technology Leadership Forum.) Her involvement in the Atlanta IoT community is right in line for this month’s discussion and as always, she will not disappoint!!

Come join the conversation all! IoT in and of itself is a great topic, but to have Tom Taylor leading the conversation is one that you won’t want to miss. See you there!

More Articles...