Arctic Region and Alaska Challenges

The Internet of Things promises to transform the quality of human life, economic development, education, and healthcare, as well as situational awareness, and crisis response in Alaska and the Arctic. However, geography, the dynamically changing Arctic environment, lack of connectivity, and socio-economic and cultural factors pose unique set of challenges for the development and penetration of IoT in the Arctic. This track of the IEEE IoT Summit – Anchorage will focus on the potential applications and opportunities for IoT in the Arctic and on the effects and possible approaches to overcome specific key challenges including: limited broadband access, variable connectivity over immense distances, multiple cultural and regulatory regimes, sparse data sets, the need to develop Arctic-capable hardware, and resilient edge computing frameworks and infrastructure. Also maritime challenges including search and rescue missions, and the monitoring of vessel activity pose additional challenges that the IoT can help resolve. Alaska and the Arctic include many unique natural phenomena that affect our planet. The IoT is also an indispensable tool for improving our understanding of these phenomena, examples of which are: active volcanic zones; seismic activity from movement of tectonic plates; a complex maritime ecology; glaciers and ice caps; and the high latitude ionosphere and magnetosphere.