Australia bids to help establish Hypercat as new global standard for IoT and smart cities
An alliance of Internet of Things (IoT) industry players, corporates and government, has launched Hypercat Australia as a technology standard to support the development of smart cities.
Hypercat is a UK-developed alliance and standard that enables free communication from any connected IoT sensor or device being used to monitor an environment. Increasingly, IoT is being used by smart cities to help inform decision making and improve city services, from air quality and energy usage to traffic flows and asset utilisation. The Anglo-Australian collaboration aims to establish Hypercat as a global standard.
Hypercat Australia was launched by the Hon Angus Taylor MP, assistant minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, and Nick McInnes, British Consul general and director general for Trade and Investment, at a special roundtable breakfast hosted by KPMG in Sydney.
Assistant minister Taylor said, “The Commonwealth is exploring relationships with different jurisdictions to build smart cities that improve our lives. Hypercat Australia is one such partnership which will allow a platform to facilitate cutting edge technology solutions to be applied to urban problems.
Justin Anderson, founder and director of the Hypercat Alliance
This will be the focus of our recently announced Smart Cities and Suburbs Program. I congratulate Hypercat on recognising the benefits for industry in sharing data – which can be measured not only in collaborative formal partnerships, but in strong economic rewards.”
Nick McInnes, British Consul general said, “Hypercat was established in the UK three years ago with government support to enable Britain to take a lead on smart city investments. We are very pleased to help build on the success of Hypercat by supporting its launch in Australia as an Anglo-Australian collaboration in smart cities and IoT.”
Hypercat Australia is being established as an independent, not-for-profit organisation and will be administered by the Knowledge Economy Institute led by Dr Mike Briers AO, Australia’s first Industry Professor of IoT at the University of Technology Sydney. It is hoped that Australia will be a major step for the adoption of the standard, which has been developed in partnership with BSI.
Justin Anderson, founder and director of the Hypercat Alliance said, “The goal of Hypercat is to accelerate the global explosion of the Internet of Things – by enabling connected devices and data to work together to improve how cities work, and how people live.
In just a few years, Hypercat has already been applied to multi-million dollar smart city projects including London and Bristol, attracted more than 1,000 industry members such as KPMG, Cisco, BT, Symantec, Flexeye and WSP, and gained support in 47 countries. We’re excited that Australia is coming on board as our first international alliance – and hope to use this as a launchpad for global expansion.”
Piers Hogarth-Scott, National IoT leader of KPMG Australia said, “We believe the formula for establishing a world-leading smart, IoT-enabled Australian economy that drives growth and prosperity involves industry and Government working together in focused sectors including Smart Cities.
The launch of Hypercat in Australia aims to unlock the benefits of Smart Cities by creating an interoperable IoT ecosystem that gives confidence to cities and local government. More importantly, if we can play a role in fostering a global standard we can unlock the power of the Internet of Things for everybody.”
Australian based companies and organisations can register their interest to join the local chapter at www.hypercat.io
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