Next President Should Focus on Education, Research, Spectrum for IoT Growth, Panelists Say

Educating people about data to make better decisions, investing in basic research and infrastructure and developing good spectrum policy are areas the next president should focus on, said panelists Tuesday during a Roll Call-sponsored IoT discussion live-streamed during the Democratic National Convention. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said research investments and an educated workforce are needed to help with short-term thinking and long-term innovation and growth. McKinsey partner Michael Chui said investing and educating people on the use of data is "incredibly important" so they can get insight from "dirty" or "imprecise" data whether it's created from IoT or the internet, generally. Earlier, he said less than 1 percent of data is used for decision-making and much is wasted due to technical issues like the lack of interoperability or the uncertainty of how to use data effectively. Jeff Campbell, Cisco vice president-government affairs, said spectrum is "among the most indispensable resources" and the need for it is only going to grow, so good spectrum policy, including sharing and repurposing it and making it more efficient, will make a huge difference. Former Department of Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, now a Squire Patton attorney, said more investments are needed to develop IoT infrastructure to allow society to grow and get better connected. Chui said the economic impact from IoT is enormous to the gross domestic product and company profits, but also provides value to the individual user. Despite launching the congressional IoT caucus (see 1501130038) last year with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., DelBene said that many members are still at the "foundational level" because they don't have a lot of experience with or understand technology. That's changing, but she said legislation doesn't move as fast because some are unsure how to move forward. But she said that isn't a partisan issue.