Software AG has formed a partnership with James Cook University (JCU) under which it will provide its Cumulocity IoT platform and its industrial expertise to the university’s Bachelor of engineering (Hons) course, which offers a major in Electronic Systems and Internet of Things (IoT) Engineering.
Software AG has become involved in the fourth year of study in a hands-on capstone design project based on the industrial application of IoT that can include areas such as environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, smart cities and healthcare.
Prithvi Moses, solution architect at Software AG helps run Cumulocity IoT workshops at the university. He said Cumulocity IoT was 80 percent pre-programmed with out-of-the-box vertical solutions, so students only need to customise 20 percent after they decide upon their devices to reach their goals.
“Students are able to create IoT projects, using real sensors and applying them to real-world problems in a matter of weeks rather than months.”
James Cook aiming for IoT leadership
The four-year degree program began in 2016 and will see its first cohort of students graduating at the end of 2019.
The degree is accredited by Engineers Australia and claims to be the first of its kind in the country. JCU also started offering Master of Engineering (Professional) in IoT and Data Engineering from the first semester in 2019, which is claims to be Australia’s first masters course in IoT.
(However La Trobe University claimed to the first Australian university to offer a course specialising in IoT when it launched a two-year Master of Internet of Things course in September.)
Partners with Huawei
JCU is building up its IoT credentials. In February 2017 it formed a partnership with Huawei under which Huawei provided IoT technology and funding which JCU has used to host a dedicated NB-IoT lab to research and develop applications, smart devices and sensor networks.
The University is also involved in various local IoT projects including environmental monitoring projects with the Queensland government to protect the wet tropical rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef—both UN Heritage sites — and is collaborating with the Cairns Regional Council to monitor the quality of the city’s urban water discharge following the 2019 Queensland flooding.
Students’ prospects looking bright
Professor Wei Xiang, foundation chair and head of discipline of Electronics Systems and Internet of Things Engineering at James Cook University, said prospects for students doing IoT course were very bright. “We currently have about 10 students in their final year, and all have had at least one job offer and at least one student has received three offers so far.”
Partnership a first for Software AG
Stuart Rees, vice president, Software AG A/NZ said the collaboration with James Cook University was a global first for the company.
Xiang said that the university needed to partner with a technology company that could provide an IoT platform and work with the university and students on IoT-related projects.
“We evaluated several vendors, both paid-for and for free, before deciding on Cumulocity IoT, after testing signals and strength of connectivity,” said Xiang.
“Software AG and the Cumulocity platform ticked all the boxes for us, not to mention, the company has a lot of expertise in the area of IoT having partnered and worked closely with industry heavyweights such as Telstra and Bosch.”
In a note posted on its web site in late 2016 Telstra said it had chosen to partner with Cumulocity because it was an “award winning IoT platform provider (Frost and Sullivan) that has been rated as the most open and developer friendly (MachNation) across many players in the IoT platform market.”
In February 2019 Telstra announced it would use Cumulocity as the basis for a complete system to enable water utilities to gather and analyse information from digital water meters and other components of their infrastructure. The system is being trialled with Busselton Water in Western Australia.