Why smart city initiatives are taking off. Tom Snyder,Executive Director, NC RIoT

1 min pitch for what you are doing now?

I lead RIoT, a nonprofit focused on IoT sector growth. We run conferences and workshops across the United States to promote education and business development. We also operate an accelerator that supports both early stage startups and corporate innovation teams. Finally, we run a wireless research, test and certification facility under the Wireless Research Center brand.

How was the last year, what worked well, what didn’t move as quickly as you would have liked?

Last year, we held RIoTs coast-to-coast across the US, which was a first, and formalized our support of startups into a 12-week, scalable curriculum. An unplanned area of growth was our support of the municipal government in smart city initiatives. That area is really taking off. The next big challenge is finding ways to better support rural entrepreneurs that do not have all the resources available in urban centers. An important mission and difficult challenge.

What are your plans for the future?

We regularly engage with our corporate sponsors to see how to better serve them. We have just launched the RIoT Underground Podcast (iTunes, Spotify, Google) to more easily help them to reach their audience. We are also exploring the opening of a second RIoT Labs location in another city.

What were you be talking about at this event? 

The Internet of Things economy is here, but highly complex. It is impossible to truly capture the opportunity of working in a single organization. I’ll speak on practical ways to develop collaborative partnerships, as well as how to break old paradigms of business that are dramatically changing due to emerging technologies.

What inspired you to attend it?

IEEE has been an important partner to RIoT for several years. They are a top global convener of researchers and their events provide great means of keeping a finger on the pulse of technology.

Which influencers and websites do you follow to keep up to date with the latest developments?

As moderators of over 85 corporate, municipal and university partners, we learn a lot through our own events and convening. Externally, I try to get outside the traditional tech media and focus on applications. Conferences like SXSW, which I was fortunate to speak at this year, are fantastic because they join people from outside tech together with our ecosystem and it forces much more creative thinking and problem solving.

How can people find out more about what you are working on?

If you are in the US, come to any of our events. We keep every event free and open to the public. You can also visit RIoT Labs, the teaching and IoT prototyping lab we operate in Raleigh, NC. Digitally, you can reach me on Twitter @TomSnyderRIoT and email tom@ncriot.org.

Anything else you’d like to add / we should have asked?

In the last five years, companies we have worked with have created over 500 jobs and raised ~$350M in investment. We are always looking for new corporate, municipal and academic partners.  If you have a role in supporting IoT, or need help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

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