Kevin Ashton

Inventor of the “Internet of Things.” Creator of the WeMo home automation platform. Co-Founder & CEO, leading clean-tech startup Zensi.

Kevin Ashton is a visionary technologist and an expert in digital transformation. He coined the term “the Internet of Things.” The European Commission, the Chinese government, and the US National Intelligence Council all describe the Internet of Things as one of the major technologies of the 21st Century. In in 2013, the term was added to the Oxford Dictionaries.

Kevin Ashton is the author of How To Fly A Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery, which was described by the Toronto Post as “the last book about creativity you’ll ever need to read,” and named 2015 Business Book of the Year by 800-CEO-READ. His writing about innovation and technology has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Politico, and Quartz.

He co-founded the Auto-ID Center at MIT and took it from a converted broom closet to a global organization with six labs around the world, 103 corporate sponsors, and over a hundred researchers.

And he has led three highly successful tech start-ups, most recently Zensi, which he co-founded and sold to Belkin in 2010.

As a result, Kevin has a unique, real-world perspective on what it takes to build organizations that are innovative and how to be an innovator in organizations that aren’t.

He has been called “the father of the Internet of Things” by Newsweek; “a modern-day Johnny Appleseed” by Wired and “a man who will change the world” by RFID Journal. He makes the complicated clear and simple using compelling, engaging true stories and case studies; always makes his audience laugh; and is always willing to tailor his lively, practical lectures to the specific needs of his audience.

Session Info

Monday, June 18 11:30 am – 12:15 pm Room 205BC

The Internet of Things: What's Now and Next in Industrial Applications

The term “Internet of Things” has taken on some of the qualities of a buzzword in recent years: something that is said more often than it is understood In this talk, Kevin Ashton, who coined the term and led the initial development of the Internet of Things at MIT, will explain exactly what the Internet of Things is—and is not—and discuss why it matters, with a particular focus on current and future applications in industry, manufacturing, and product design. At the end of the talk, audience members will have a clear understanding of what the Internet of Things, will be convinced it is important and will feel inspired and ready to apply it in their own work.

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