A new application called gaIoTa has a mission: to provide access to open Internet of Things data all around the globe. The app developed by Aalto-based team is one of the six finalists in The World Challenge to be held on August 27-30 in Helsinki.
A multidisciplinary team of Aalto Master students, Postdoc and an artist has been busy during the summer. The team has been developing a new search tool for the Internet of Things, and the result is an application called gaIoTa. It enables users to find public and open IoT devices and data based on the geographical location and other search parameters.
‘The idea came from personal experience – we had difficulties in finding open data ourselves. Despite the claim that there are billions of IoT devices, looking for IoT data is like finding a needle in a haystack. Major search engine services are not very helpful in this’, says team member Udayanto Dwi Atmojo, Postdoc working at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation at Aalto University.
‘Our platform provides opportunities for business, researchers and broader audience to find and analyze IoT data easily. The data is displayed on the NASA Web World Wind platform, which is an open 3D virtual globe. Our app also includes options for 3D/4D animated time series and saving the raw data on users’ device’, Udayanto explains.
The team believes that easy access to IoT data can boost innovations that address sustainable development goals and open governance. From a citizens’ perspective the app can give broad possibilities to create with open data and bring the data close to everyday life.
‘Anyone, be it a general user, researcher, decision maker, hobbyist, or even businessman could for example check the air quality of a certain area and decide whether they want to ride out for a bike or not, or for more serious attempt, get the sensor data and do anything they want with it. Another example of a bigger issue is accessibility of open data from these IoT devices. We believe that success of our project could lead into a new generation of IoT inspired innovations’, the team members state.
The group of five now prepares for an intensive final week as the only Finland-based team among the six finalists in The World Challenge Finland 2018. The competition is organized by the UN OICT (United Nations Office of Information and Communication Technology), together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA World Wind.
‘After World Challenge final we want to go towards becoming a social enterprise and will be looking for more developers to join us and a suitable incubator to take off gaIoTa project. Also, we are looking for data providers to partner up and of course user community to join and make gaIoTa grow.’
Follow gaIoTa project website and Facebook page for more information. One way to support the team on their journey is to join the gaIoTa 1.0. Launch event on August 26, 2018.
Photo: The multidisciplinary team behind the gaIoTa application: Loi Tran (left), Mcha Ame, Viktorija Piaulokaite, Heru Raha and Udayanto Dwi Atmojo.
Tags: IoT, sustainabilityThis post was written by AGI
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