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By | March 27, 2020

Using On-Demand Talent for EdgeX Foundry IoT Exploration

Written by Clinton Bonner, VP of Marketing for Topcoder

Industrial IoT is coming into its own. A decade ago, the tech world was enamored with all things IoT and as routinely happens in tech, the narrative gets a bit ahead of the uptake and enterprise use cases. What typically happens is that while some of the buzz or dare I say, the promise of a new technology, dampens a bit after the initial boom, the hard work of democratizing the technology and the establishment of important enterprise use cases marches on.

Often behind the scenes and without a Cybertruck-esque introduction, an enabling catalyst of a new tech philosophy is introduced, gains favor, and builds a steady stable of developers and enterprises who use it. For the Industrial IoT, LF Edge’s EdgeX Foundry is this catalyst and the momentum is genuine.

Earlier this month, LF Edge and EdgeX Foundry collaborated with Dell, Intel, HP, IOTech and Wipro to create a challenge to gauge the interest of the growth of Industrial IoT adoption. Partnering with the Topcoder community, the challenge offers a chance for developers to create a unique use case to submit in a 3-phase approach:

PHASE I – IDEATION

Communities like Topcoder are a fantastic way to cast a wide net and bring in scores of interesting and unique concepts and approaches to using technology such as the EdgeX platform.

PHASE II – DESIGN

The five top ideas will be selected from the ideation phase and move into rapid design on Topcoder. In this phase, the focus will shift to creating and designing intuitive and useful UX/UI concepts that showcase how the idea would work within the technical framework that EdgeX Foundry provides.

PHASE III – PROTOTYPING

The top design concept from phase II will move on to prototyping, resulting in a functioning proof of concept with code-ready design.

This multi-phase approach is a fantastic use of on-demand talent to first explore ideas and then hone in on winning concepts to bring them further down the production life-cycle. It will be fast, focused, and provide an incredible example of how to use on-demand talent to accelerate successful innovation.

The pairing of the open EdgeX Foundry framework with the on-demand talent we provide access to at Topcoder is a smart accelerant and a combination we are excited to see in action!

To register for the challenge, visit the website: https://www.topcoder.com/challenges/30117605.