The Protocol and the House that Tweets

An IBM'er, Andy Stanford-Clark, has wired up his house to the Internet. He installed sensors on several household objects that enables him to measure what is happening in his home. Andy can measure electrical consumption and monitor security amongst others. He is also able to start and stop those appliances, as well as switch lights on and off.

Furthemore, Andy has also rigged up a number of these sensors to push their information to twitter (andy_house). Using twitter you can monitor he can monitor his electrical consumption and monitor what is happening in the house.

Underpinning this is the MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) protocol. MQTT is a platform-agnostic protocol (recently celebrsating its 10-year anniversary) that supports communication with networked objects, like sensors. MQTT is available in sever integration products, including IBM's Websphere Message Broker.

Another example of an MQTT deployment is a project that IBM did with St. Jude Medical Center. The Merlin system communicates enables home monitoring of patients implanted with cardioverter defibrillators and pacemakers.


We are well on our way to realising the "Internet of Things".

It's alive ....

A big congratulations to all those involved in the planning, investment of, and the commissioning of the Seacom submarine fibre-optic link.

This is big news, especially for east Africa that has had to rely on satellite back-haul for so long.

Now lets make sure that this wholesale broadband gets to consumers and businesses at an affordable price.

Joule and Smart Transportation

Did you know that Optimal Energy has developed a proto-type electrical car? I seem to have missed this .... it debuted at the Paris Motor Show in October of 2008 to international acclaim.

Joule is a a zero-emission vehicle that is approximately five times more energy efficient than petrol or diesel vehicles. Joule is battery operated and recharges from any electrical source. Furthermore, Joule’s lithium-ion batteries are recyclable and contain no heavy metals.

Joule is a six-seater passenger car with a range of 400 kilometer, a 0-60 time of 4.8 seconds, and a top speed of 135 km/h. Production will take place in South Africa and the venture is in conjunction with the Department of Science and Technology.

Joule's interior and body was designed by Keith Helfet, who is famous for his designs of Jaguar’s F-type concept and XK220.

This is a great example of how South Africa is helping to reduce pollution. Couple this together with less less congested motorways and we are onto something massive. The proposed Open Road Tolling System by South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), together with initiatives like Gautrain, could be the foundation of a future smart transportation system.

Now we add in some intelligence like the system that is being developed by Garmap and Netstar that collects real-time information from over 50000 cars to determine congestion. This information is then transmitted to users and displayed on a mobile using an on-screen map. Users will then be in a position to manage their travel to reduce congestion and the environmental impact thereof. Pretty damn smart :)

What we now need to do is to bring this all together to ensure that we have a transportation network that reduces the impact on the environment, improves productivity, and improves the lives of people in South Africa.

This is achievable - we just "need to want it".

Green and Beyond

I think that we can all agree that the economic downturn and ecological reality of living in a globally integrated world has required us to rethink our approach to doing business. It is also fair to say that the approaches of the past are not sustainable and that the impact thereof on the environment can not continue unabated.

The challenge we have to accept is to reinvent how we do business, not only to survive and grow, but also to achieve the goals of conservation and pollution prevention.

I think that there are three primary questions we need to answer.

How do we do more with less?

We should build green infrastructures that take out cost and improve the efficiency of our assets and infrastructure. We must strive to maximize the efficiency of what we have; reduce the ecological footprint thereof; whilst providing the platform for business growth without adding to what we have.

How can we be more responsible?

We should build sustainable solutions that focus on increasing efficiency and abating the environmental impact of processes, products and people. There are significant benefits to measuring, monitoring and streamlining processes across the value chain. The difficult is that we can not achieve the full potential of these solutions if we work in isolation. Improvement s across the value chain will yield the most significant benefits.

How can we be more efficient?

We need to build solutions that are able to make intelligent decisions based on the wealth of information available across an entire industry. For example, we are able to use predictive analytics for water management; automate, monitor and control two-way flow of energy from power plant to plug; and build optimized transportation systems.

Let’s talk

What it takes is a willingness of stakeholders across the value chain to collaborate, share information and aspire to build a smarter planet.

edit 22/07/09: I was interviewed on this concept of Green IT - refer to the second half of the following podcast by FinWeek