Paul Wealls from County Durham UK, Founder of IoT North, announced the new IoT North Marketplace is out of Beta and fully open for business, with 23 use cases currently registered and growing every day.
Paul, with over 21 years of working in technology across the globe, settled back in his hometown in 2017, where he unearthed an opportunity to bring together a community of IoT people.
IoT North started as a true passion project, I love developing tech communities and connecting people, what I have found over the past few years is that businesses are confused about what the actual value is of IoT, and so to make that easier I planned the development of IoT North and the IoT North Marketplace.
IoT Newcastle was created in Feb 2018, starting with 30 members, at Tuspark Newcastle, starting with beer, pizza and a platform for anyone to talk, network, demo, workshop or raise questions about the internet of things, and this became a monthly event, which grew to 600 members by early 2020.
“In 2020 we easily moved to being virtual events from in person, due to COVID restrictions, sadly a number of other IoT communities were unable to keep going, so we rebranded as IoT North and welcomed them in. Our tagline became “we give a North in IoT”, as in a direction, as it can be confusing understanding what the internet of things is. We livestream shows on YouTube, LinkedIn and Facebook to make it accessible to anyone anytime, and they can ask questions live by simply interacting, messaging, in the comments” said Paul Wealls.
Now the IoT North community represents over 5500 members across the UK and Europe, together they are highlighting and demonstrating the amazing benefits of incorporating IoT into almost any sector.
“When IoT is discussed at a technical level, it can leave potential buyers feeling confused, and unconvinced of the return on investment. The IoT North Marketplace will help change this perception, we advise members when they submit their use cases on wording to ensure they clearly demonstrate the value of their solution, this can sometimes be hard when your very passionate about the technology” explains IoT North founder, Paul Wealls.
IoT North has also launched an open online community to help educate, support and connect anyone wanting to understand Clearly delivering the value of the network and the importance of connecting users to relevant technology providers.
“While the roots of the group are firmly established from the north, the platform extends far beyond being just for northerners”, says Wealls. “We have global members and are driven to accelerate UK adoption through our monthly tech community meetup’s. Over the past four years, it has provided focused content and guidance for both buyers and IoT solution sellers.
Attendance at the monthly meetup’s has more than doubled during 2020 and this growth was officially recognised at the North East tech industry awards: The Dynamo Dynamites.
IoT North has created a set of useful guides on how to compile your value proposition, a library of use case content and a marketplace to promote tried and tested IoT solutions.
The Marketplace is independent; it does not support company branding, in order to remove bias and presumption on cost and validity. Users connect and relate to the problem statement, and then identify the clear use case format which enables them to quickly and easily understand the right solution to their challenges.
The Marketplace is open for registrations of use cases www.iotnorth.uk/marketplace
Once use cases are approved and made active IoT North will be leveraging its social profiles on Twitter @iotnorthu, Facebook IoT North page and Linkedin IoT North page, as well as working with vertical partner websites that can utilise the IoT North marketplace widget — this pulls the use cases directly on to their webpage.
Newcastle University Business School has supported the initiative through its Pitchin project: ‘Mapping and Facilitating the IoT Ecosystem’.
Led by Prof Savvas Papagiannidis, the project aims to extend a national IoT database, study the adoption barriers for IoT growth and support companies in the region by facilitating interactions.
Paul continues: “With the amazing support of our sponsor Newcastle University Business School, we have been able to create a simple but very effective approach to IoT Solutions promotion.”
“Sometimes as technologists, we become so familiar with the language, that we forget it can be quite an alien landscape for others to navigate. The marketplace presents an opportunity to break down barriers and demonstrate the true value to customers at a clear and understandable level for everyone to understand.
I have big plans for the future with IoT North, I am working with Global brands on creating virtual hackathons of value and purpose, I hope to be able to expand the livestream shows to be more regular and a wider audience”.
But my key focus currently is connecting marketplace businesses to customers that can solve real problems and deliver value. For example, the Incubator is to help local government support innovative solutions to solve problems to help better serve the public, please visit the website and register interest.
Paul Wealls, also hosts a weekly IoT North Breakfast Club, Thursdays 8:30am, these shows are panel discussions about the people as well as the things in IoT, if you would like to take part email info@iotnorth.uk
Follow @iotnorthu Twitter and IoT North on Linkedin and Facebook
Note to Readers:
About Devknct and IoT North: A company and community that is driven to help its members and partners in connecting and succeeding together. IoT North Host monthly meetups to share insight and experiences https://iotnorth.uk/events-content
IoT North Marketplace is available for IoT Solution providers to register use case’s now and will be available to publicly view and find the relevant solutions from April 15th 2021, it is a free service until the end of May 2021 for IoT Solutions providers, with a low customer connection cost from June 2021. For more information visit https://iotnorth.uk/solution-market-place.
