By MITCH MAIMAN //
While smart, connected devices – collectively known as the Internet of Things – are already maturing, there are still incredible new business opportunities to be discovered in this expanding field.
Long Island, with its combination of technical and biomedical expertise, is in a particularly advantageous position to build new IoT opportunities. In addition to that local talent, the Island has a supportive infrastructure of universities, government laboratories, business incubators, state funding initiatives and regional investors.
There are many market opportunities for new IoT devices and related services in areas including healthcare, agriculture and cybersecurity. For instance, the COVID pandemic has shown clear gaps in pushing health-sensing technologies to remote points of care, including at-home care.
Many products that can sense and communicate monitored data are already coming to market. But a synergistic approach – combining multi-sensor inputs on biologics with analytics that push the right information to both patients and providers – is still missing.
In addition to multi-sensor devices, the market also cries out for faster and more capable sensors. Can local companies engaged in the development of unique DNA strands and cutting-edge DNA markers ultimately create new technologies for real-time detection of a variety of diseases?
As these new tools deploy, there will also be a growing need for the ability to aggregate data over wide geographic areas, plus related analytics showing regional and micro-regional trends. These are difficult challenges. But they’re not impossible to achieve, or even farfetched – the combination of university resources and our large regional healthcare networks adds to that unique Long Island infrastructure, and assists with the research and testing of new technologies.
Mitch Maiman: King of connectivity.
Agricultural IoT is another area where Long Island-based companies can create competitive, high-value hardware and software products and services. While not considered an agriculture “hotbed,” the East End has a strong economy in high-value crops (wine grapes and beer hops) and steadily supplies produce to local markets.
With a scarcity of land, it’s a challenge for Long Island farmers to optimize crop yields. Can remote sensing and analytics help farmers make better and more targeted decisions about the use of fertilizers and water?
Also supported by state and local university resources (particularly universities with cooperative extensions), this region can provide deep knowledge on the analytics – and there’s plenty of potential for the development of fast and accurate sensors optimized to agricultural applications.
Long Island also has a running start on cybersecurity in commercial, healthcare and consumer sectors, and is well-positioned to add IoT to the mix. As a blueprint, the region can leverage cybersecurity resources currently developing safeguards for the financial sector.
Knowhow from the development of safe and secure fintech software and services can inform all areas of IoT-based cybersecurity, in both the server-based and edge-computing sectors and especially regarding encrypted data communications between systems. Local universities are already focusing on cybersecurity; that opens the door to smart partnerships with – and direct resources for – the regional technology community.
Despite the macro effects of COVID on the national and local economies, the timing is still good for the innovative and bold in search of new business opportunities, particularly in the IoT sector. The pandemic is, indeed, a crisis, but it has also uncovered opportunities for new business values.
Supported by our incubators and creative culture – and by plentiful private, state and local resources – Long Island can emerge as an IoT leader, riding a healthy economy based on real needs in regional and global markets.
Mitch Maiman is the cofounder and president of Intelligent Product Solutions, a subsidiary of Hauppauge-based Forward Industries.
