Our 21st century economy runs on digital networks. Organizations of all kinds depend on a workforce educated to design, build and operate these networks. Analysts expect the information and communications technology (ICT) sector to generate an increasing number of high-skill, in-demand jobs across a broad spectrum of industries.  You may be familiar with computing “in the cloud” but have you heard about the Internet of Everything?

The Internet of Everything (IoE) brings together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before-turning information into actions that create new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented economic opportunity for businesses, individuals, and countries. The IoE is creating demand for a new kind of ICT specialist.

New Networking Focus

Today there are more things connected to the Internet than there are people in the world. In the very near future, pretty much everything you can imagine will wake up. Cisco Systems is leading the next step in the evolution of the Internet and helping change the way we work, live, play and learn. Cisco has announced a coalition that includes educational institutions and corporations to help retrain IT network engineers in security and the IoE. This initiative is designed to provide new skills for 2.4 million engineers and help companies prepare for cybersecurity risks and multi-device connectivity.

Cisco’s vice president and general manager of services, Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, recently remarked that there is a need to fundamentally overhaul the education system to re-skill the 2.4 million people in networking to be equipped with the skills for working in a world with connected devices. “The business world is going to be looking for people who can take all this information from these things and do something new with it,” she said. The biggest shift will be the need for cybersecurity analysts, Beliveau-Dunn said. “No one is going to connect all these things in an open IP network without securing it very tightly,” she said.

New Skills Needed

Cisco has a comprehensive Networking Academy education program designed to bring research and outcome based courses to schools, colleges, universities, and nonprofits worldwide.  Cisco Net Academy students can self-enroll in a course called Introduction to the Internet of Everything. It is about 20 hours long and provides instruction on how people, processes, and machines are all interconnected and the new opportunities this creates.

Here is a link to a presentation about IoE that will give you a good overview of the subject.

Here is a link to an entertaining video that you can show to your students to emphasize how our world is changing as billions of people and things join the IoE.

For additional information about the IoE course contact Karen Stanton, Cisco Net Academy, by email at karen.stanton@wastc.org or by phone: 661-362-5363.