Accelerating a Connected New Zealand

Communications Minister Simon Bridges welcomed the launch of the New Zealand IoT Alliance on Friday at The Grid, saying it would help harness the potential of IoT.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that involves connecting devices to the internet, enabling them to ‘talk’ to each other and to people. IoT is impacting the way consumers, businesses and governments interact with each other and the world around them.

“IoT is a transformative technology, one that promises to boost productivity across all major sectors of the economy, assist in monitoring our health, make transport and logistics more efficient, help reduce energy consumption and tackle environmental issues,” Mr Bridges says.

“Initial research by the Alliance, which will provide an evidence base for future work, already suggests potential economic benefits to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars for the New Zealand economy through the deployment of IoT across a variety of sectors.”

The Alliance is one of several new initiatives included in the new Building a Digital Nation report, which Minister Bridges released at the Alliance launch event.

During his welcome, NZTech CEO Graeme Muller said that much of the current hype around IoT has been derived from consumer IoT, but the real value to be had is in enterprise and government applications. The Alliance will pave the way to find new opportunities, manage risks and set policies to help make New Zealand more prosperous he said. Significant research is underway on the impact of IoT, but already rapid developments are creating the ideal platform for social and economic growth.

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