IoT is not hype, but it’s also not some magic technology: Sanjay Sarma

Sanjay Sarma, vice-president for open learning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), believes that the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem will work only if security is made part of the architecture and not implemented as an afterthought. He should know, having played a part in developing the radio frequency identification (RFID) prototcol, which can also be used to make the “cheapest sensor possible” for IoT.

Sarma was a key speaker at the SingularityU India Summit held in February in association with INK, which hosts events like INKtalks.

Sanjay Sarma, 47Sarma got his bachelor’s degree from IIT Kanpur, his master’s from Carnegie Mellon University and his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He has authored more than 75 academic papers in computational geometry, sensing, radio frequency identification, automation and computer-aided design. He also serves on the boards of GS1, EPCglobal, several start-ups and edX, the not-for-profit set up by MIT and Harvard.

In a phone interview, Sarma, who also leads the office of digital learning which oversees MIT OpenCourseWare and supports the development and use of digital technology for on-campus teaching and massive open online courses, shared his thoughts on how open online courses can reform education. Edited excerpts:

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