In November, the Internet Society Rural Development Special Interest Group (RD SIG) organized an event called the Internet Connectivity Tag 2019 in Bangalore, India to deliberate on emerging technologies for the Internet of Things (IoT) and security, and what this means for rural development in India.
RD SIG invited a number of distinguished speakers to the event, many of whom are Chapter members. Adarsh B.U., for instance, is the president of RD SIG, a member of the Bangalore Chapter, and the program chair of the Hyderabad Chapter, which is currently being established. B.U. has been recognized as one of the top eight IoT thought leaders for his contribution towards the advancement of IoT in India. At the event, he organized an interactive, hands-on session with Contiki OS and Cooja Simulator.
Leading up to the event, RD SIG issued a call for fellowship applications from which over 300 expressions of interest were received. Out of the applicants, seven fellows from different parts of India were selected to participate in the event.
Highlights from the event included a presentation by Abhijan Bhattacharyya on IPv6 in the context of 5G for digital convergence. In his talk, he looked at the promise of 5G in fueling a convergence of applications and the essential role of IPv6 in supporting the core network for this convergence. Towards the latter part of the event, Bhattacharyya demonstrated the use of SimuLte for 5G simulation.
Adding more depth to the conversation on 5G and IPv6 was Nicolas Fiumarelli, who presented remotely from Uruguay. He focused on current and future applications of the technologies and shared some of the activities undertaken by the Internet Governance Forum Youth Ambassadors in his country.
The other remote speaker was Mohit Sethi from Finland. He spoke on the topic of wireless LAN security. He examined two new features: WiFi Enhanced Open for verifying open systems and Simultaneous Authentication of Equals for insurance against word reference assaults in home systems. He clarified the deficiencies and security vulnerabilities of WPA3, and gave a few thoughts on security in an enterprise wireless network with IEEE 802.1x and Extensible Authentication Protocol.
Sanjay Adiwal gave an informative talk on the Domain Name System and its security, while Prasant Misra delivered a fascinating presentation on the real-time analysis of traffic flow and how this has helped traffic authorities make better decisions and policies.
Oh behalf of RD SIG, we would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all the participants, speakers, and sponsors for making this event a success and allowing us to reach out to multiple communities. The event was supported by IEEE Ramaiah Students Branch, IEEE Bangalore Section, Ramaiah Institute of Technology, and Moradabad Institute of Technology.
If you’re interested in knowing more about the Rural Development Special Interest Group, drop us an email at [email protected]!