IoT and Blockchain: Technologies, Challenges, and Applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to transform our lives and unleash enormous economic benefit. In this talk, we discuss a wide range of IoT technologies and their applications, as well as the security and trust implications. Blockchain, a distributed ledger, was initially designed as a secure financial transaction tool. Remarkably, its cryptographic security benefits, such as user anonymity, decentralization, fault tolerance, transaction integrity and authentication, can be used to resolve security and trust issues of IoT. In UTS, we are working with industry to develop next generation IoT and Blockchain technologies to achieve real time tracking and monitoring from production plants through export supply chains to overseas markets. A Blockchain enabled data platform has been developed to secure IoT data records, enable transparent and trusted data sharing. Smart contracts are developed to manage and automate commercial transactions following the commodity flows. In this talk, we will discuss the benefits, limitations, and challenges of IoT and Blockchain. I will present some of our latest project results in IoT and Blockchain applications, including our award-winning project BeFAQT (befaqt.com).