It’s been 34 years since the Coca-Cola/Carnegie Mellon University experiment resulted in a connected vending machine, the first publicly known Internet of Things (IoT) product. To commemorate, we looked at the top 34 IoT influencers you should be following on on Twitter.
Kevin Ashton
British engineer Kevin Ashton coined the phrase ‘Internet of Things’ back in the late 1990s and he has since built out a career as an influential technology speaker, author and start-up advisor.
He is also responsible for this video, which explains the Internet of Things to the uninitiated in just two minutes. Of all these IoT influencers, he’s been there right from the start.
Mischa Dohler is Professor in Wireless Communications at King’s College London. He and his team are pioneering the technology of the future, including investigating the use of 5G networks in healthcare, arts and other sectors.
He’s also launched a beginner’s IoT course, which is well worth signing up for. He’s one of the leading IoT influencers, especially in the UK.
As Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce, Vala Afshar is well-placed to comment on the technology market.
His Twitter profile is a treasure trove of thought-provoking ideas on tech, from the rise of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to commentary on IoT.
Digital Catapult consultant Paul Egan is a regular conference circuit speaker and industry commentator. Paul previously worked for start-up Neul (now owned by Huawei), which pioneered Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) for IoT in licensed and un-licensed spectrum.
Independent industry analyst Maribel Lopez talks about digital transformation through Big Data, mobile cloud and analytics.
She’s on top of the latest news – whether that’s the emergence of connected cars or the latest happenings at Apple. Currently, she’s focusing a lot on the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning.
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino is synonymous with IoT. She is the director of DesignSwarm, a design and consultancy firm focused on the Internet of Things, connected devices and physical connections to the web.
She’s also founder of IoTAngels, creator of The Good Night Lamp, and organizer of the excellent IoT London – all of which means she’s extremely busy.
Dr Boris Adryan is head of IoT and analytics at German engineering company Zühlke Engineering GmbH. He previously founded Thingslead Ltd, a data analytics firm for the Internet of Things, and was an academic leader on the subject at Cambridge University.
Matt Turck is a venture capitalist (VC) at FirstMark Capital and also organizer of ‘Data Driven NYC’ and ‘Hardwired NYC’ events.
He’s penned one of the best introductory pieces to IoT I’ve seen and he tweets at the interesting intersection of politics, venture capitalism and technology.
Alicia Asin is co-founder and CEO of Libelium, the IoT platform start-up which provides the Waspmote OEM sensor device on the hardware front, and then the Meshlium service which connects sensors to the cloud.
The Spanish firm has already worked on a number of interesting IoT projects thus far, including with cocoa farmers and a sea port.
Tony Fadell co-founded Nest, which is arguably the poster boy for smart thermostats and smart homes.
Once likened to Steve Jobs, he departed the now Google-owned firm earlier this year.
Rob Tiffany is the chief technology officer and global product manager for Hitachi’s Lumada IoT Platform.
His personal website describes him as an “entrepreneur, executive, architect, developer, strategist and writer of bestselling books on mobile and wireless technologies.”
Greg is CEO of the Internet of Things Consortium (IoTC), an advocacy group comprised of leading founders, executives and companies in IoT.
He’s often tweeting about the IoT landscape, whilst the IoTC newsletter is also worth a subscription for the news, analysis and commentary coming from its members.
Dave is evangelist for Alexa & Echo at Amazon, and online he’s happy to talk about Amazon’s hit smart home product.
If you follow his Twitter feed, you’ll get frequent updates on Alexa’s developer program as well as news in far-field voice technology.
Stanton is CEO of IoT start-up Open.Sensors and is a regular speaker at IoT conferences.
She shares lots of relevant market content, while Open.Sensors is often writing detailed breakdowns of emerging technologies or trends (like smart cities and the advantages and disadvantages of LoRa over SIGFOX).
Sam George is Microsoft’s lead for Azure IoT, which is powering a huge number of deployments, even in space.
On Twitter, he’ll update you on what Microsoft is doing in terms of products, services and new IoT case studies.
Simon Porter is VP of European Mid-Market Sales for IBM, and a seasoned tech veteran.
His Twitter is full of insight on cloud, analytics and IoT – even honestly discussing the pitfalls of these emerging technologies.
Stacey Higginbotham is a journalist at Fortune, and has 15 years’ experience in tech journalism, writing for a variety of other publications. She is now focused on the Internet of Things, and hosts her own podcast on the subject.
Jenny Fielding directs the IoT accelerator for Techstars in New York and thus has an insider’s view on everything from smart home and smart cities to the industrial IoT (IIoT).
She’s made numerous investments in IoT and shares her perspective and expertise on her Twitter account and the Techstars blog.
Tracy Hopkins describes herself online as a ‘mad cat lady’ but she’s actually pretty mad about two other things too; LPWA networks and the Internet of Things.
As CEO of Everynet and a leading ambassador for the LoRa Alliance, she can often be found online providing company and industry updates.
Scott Jenson is project lead for the Physical Web for Chrome, and is thus extremely knowledgeable about beacons, sensors and the IoT.
He has some serious industry gravitas, having previously been a UX director at both Apple and Symbian.
Andy Stanford-Clark is an IBM Distinguished Engineer for the Internet of Things, and also describes himself as a “master Inventor” interested in MQTT, M2M, Node-RED, Raspberry Pi, innovation and invention.
He’s been quoted on these pages on IoT business models and standards.
Harriet Green is one of the most influential women in technology right now, as global head of IBM’s Watson IoT division.
She’s a frequent commentator on all things IoT and is well worth a follow for watching both the evolution of Watson and IBM’s role in the nascent IoT market.
Guinard is CTO of UK start-up EVRYTHNG which has been working on some interesting IoT projects of late, including its roll-out with Avery Dennison.
He describes himself on Twitter as a ‘Web of Things pioneer and Internet of Things expert’. He’s also an author and a regular speaker at tech conferences.
Bill Ruh is head of GE Digital – the branch-out company from General Electric which is making waves with its cloud-based Predix platform.
He’s also spoken extensively on the Industrial Internet. GE is a fine example of how companies can change from the emergence of IoT technologies, and Ruh is one of the best-known IoT influencers from around the globe.
Marc Pous is founder and CEO of IoT platform player ThethingsIO, and also organizer of Internet of Things Barcelona and IoT Stars (an excellent evening event which is well worth attending if you happen to be at next year’s MWC – Ed).
Stefan Ferber is VP of engineering at Bosch Software Innovation GmbH in Germany, with the division responsible for the platform Bosch IoT Suite.
He represents Bosch on the board of the Eclipse foundation, is heavily involved with Germany’s Industrie 4.0, and is also a member of the European Internet of Things Council.
Dr Jacqui Taylor is an all-rounder, describing herself online as a “Top 100 UK Entrepreneur, Web Scientist and Author”.
She’s professor at London South Bank University and co-founder of Flying Binary, a web science firm focusing on Industrie 4.0.
Dan Shey is managing director and VP of B2B at ABI Research, emerging as an expert on the M2M/IoT and enterprise mobility landscapes. He also covers connectivity platforms, applications, Big Data and analytics.
Ian Skerrett is the VP of marketing and ecosystem at Eclipse Foundation, a consortium of companies focused on developing open-source protocols, frameworks and tools for IoT software.
Skerrett often tweets Eclipse news and market analysis.
Robert Scoble is a leading technology analyst and investor. He is a big proponent of new technology and on Twitter says that he will “give you a front-row seat on the future.”
VR and AR are particular passions, with Scoble previously suggesting that there will be no privacy in the VR world. It’s also worth signing up for his excellent newsletter and reading his website. Formerly of Rackspace, Scoble is now at UploadVR.
Massimo Banzi is the co-founder of Arduino, the low-cost, open-source board that is enabling developers around to world to build affordable and efficient IoT prototypes.
The team recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to launch an IoT invention kit.
Rob van Kranenburg is founder of the Internet of Things Council, but he also holds a number of other roles, including as chair of AC04 (a research body) and ecosystem manager of Horizon 2020 Project TagItSmart (which is backed by the EU).
He is also project lead for Dyne.org’s Dowse, the IoT router, while his http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/ site is a good aggregator of industry IoT news.
Timo Elliott is innovation evangelist for SAP, and well-versed on all things business analytics and future tech.
Timo regularly shares SAP IoT applications, including connected and “washrooms of the future”.
Sarah Cooper is general manager IoT solutions at Amazon, as well as vice chairwoman for the Internet of Things Community in Silicon Valley.
Holding a Ph.D. in physics, Cooper is a multidisciplinary entrepreneur and the inventor of an IoT medical battery that runs on body temperature.
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