The Internet of Things is based on European Technology

As i digged a little bit into the Internet of Things and it’s technology for the first time there was really one big surprise. It’s a lot based on european technology – both the Arduino-Platform and the Raspberry are coming from „old countries“… and from the educational/public sector. Now you might think – ‚where is the issue’? Well, to understand my excitement one has to be aware of the fact that Europe has a decent tech-industry in other areas, like car manufacturing for instance or energy if you like. And we also used to have some important players in the earlier days of the web and for mobile devices like Nokia, Ericcson, Siemens etc. – but Europe pretty much gave up on it. Today almost every internet connection – even in Europe – is handled by US or chinese routers. Which does not need to be an issue at all, but after the NSA revelations i believe many Europeans would love to see more diversity and competition in this field again with a strong foothold of european players.

BTW – also my favorite tech-thinker Bruce Sterling expressed his love for this new development at the last Transmediale Conference in Berlin – “Arduino, a thing of wonder to be”…

Anyway – i also simply like to have a decent tech-industry in my home-region, therefore it’s just amazing to see that we are back – at least kind of. And we didn’t beat Intel with more power but with less – drastically less. The whole maker-idea and tinkering approach is not only asking for low-tech – this also opened the door for ideas like the Raspberry and of course the Arduino. And if you look how the Intel CEO celebrated the first joint project with Arduino (the Galileo) and presented it at Maker-Fair in Italy together with Massimo Banzi you can also get a feeling how impressed the „old-technology“ CEOs are by this new development…