Why IoT should be on the Radar for Data Scientists?

As you read, over 6 billion devices are connected to the internet right now, generating billions of data. Right from the GPS that runs on your smartphone and fitbits that you wear to devices that make up your smart home, everything is part of the biggest IT revolution of today called the internet of things. The autonomous cars that are making news every day work on the principles of IoT as well.

For the uninitiated, here’s a quick run through on what IoT is all about. The internet of things (IoT) is an ecosystem of devices connected to the internet. The devices, with sensors embedded in them, send/receive data and communicate with other devices through the internet. A simple example of this is a smart home, which allows you to control your devices at home from the remote.

How does it matter to a Data Scientist?

When two connected devices communicate with each other, what’s transferred between them is data – or unprocessed pieces of crucial information. These sets of data contain information on diverse things such as customer behaviour, trends, the behaviour of the devices, activities carried out through the devices (heart rate as recorded by your fitbit) and more.

All these are crucial for data scientists to uncover tons of information that influence business and operational decisions. Such vital information also helps companies be on track with customer expectations, market trends and competitors.

With the number of connected devices increasing by the day, (it’s estimated that over 30 billion devices will be connected in the IoT infrastructure by 2025) there’s definitely a need for thousands of data scientists to talk to data, understand, interpret and gain valuable insights from it.

Besides just helping in business decisions, the data is also helpful for better automation and personalization, which is achieved through machine learning. One of the simplest examples of this is Siri. When you notice, you’ll realize that Siri gets better in its response and comes back with more personalized responses when you keep using it. So, the data generated from connected devices can deliver better efficiency and convenience to customers.

The Future for Data Scientists

Simply put, analytics and data science are inevitable components of the internet of things. For every set of data that is produced, there must be a data scientist or an analyst at the other end of the spectrum working on it.

So, an aspiring data scientist should never overlook the importance of IoT in his career. It’s also highly recommended that you take up specialization courses that will open avenues for you to work on the internet of things. If IoT is the future, data scientists are the ones that will give it a shape.