By Brian Rogers, Vice President of Product, Augmate
Blockchain has emerged as an important enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT), providing ironclad security that can unlock the full value of IoT capabilities. That’s why I was honored to represent Augmate at the recent Blockchain Connect conference in San Francisco, accepting the “2018 Pioneers in Applying Blockchain Technology in Industries” award from SV Insight. The award recognizes pioneering enterprises that provide innovative blockchain-based solutions for challenges faced by IoT, energy, healthcare, and other industries.
Integrating blockchain into Augmate’s products has been a passion for me because that is what enables our industry-leading management of IoT devices. When every transaction, every communication, is authenticated and immutable, IoT device managers can have complete confidence when they establish safety policies for wearable devices, or when they download sensitive product information to remote field service engineers.
Before accepting the award, I was excited to be able to speak on the conference stage about Augmate’s leadership in Industrial IoT device management — beginning with our Wearable Environment Manager™ (WEM) for smart wearable devices. In the last four years, our work with customers deploying WEM has given us invaluable insights that are now helping us build a world-class device management platform for all intelligent devices, Augmate Connect™.
The Augmate Connect platform combines traditional centralized device management with the decentralized distributed architecture of blockchain. This approach will transform the way intelligent devices are managed because there will no longer be trust issues or third-party intermediaries needed to bridge data between partnering companies. The decentralized architecture and cryptographic digital signatures of blockchain will make it virtually impossible for large scale breaches such as the highly publicized botnet attacks we’ve seen recently.
Augmate Connect is designed as a modular platform, allowing Augmate and third-party developers to build special applications on top of it. That means enterprises will no longer have to manage intelligent IoT devices through multiple platforms or products. In addition to the first module, WEM, Connect will support capabilities such as predictive maintenance, advanced machine learning and AI modeling, and asset tracking. A developer’s portal will be also available for third-party application developers. In all of this, Augmate’s goal is to hide the complexity of multiple advanced technologies behind a simple, straightforward interface for both users and developers.
Augmate’s use of blockchain doesn’t stop with our products. We also use it for our investment platform. In addition to traditional investment opportunities, we’ve partnered with Securitize, a blockchain-powered compliance platform allowing us to offer digital securities as well. Securitize was also one of the 30 recipients of the 2018 Pioneers in Applying Blockchain Technology in Industries award, and I was proud to share the stage with Securitize president, Jamie Finn.
In product and in business, blockchain is part of Augmate’s DNA. We were honored to accept the award as a pioneer in blockchain technology, and we look forward to creating new possibilities in 2019.
