Positioning internet of things application, and associated human behavioural changes in a developing context

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) is an evolutionary development with the potential to greatly influence and impact society, economy and environment. Through IoT, all devices become Internet connected. These connected devices are controlled by largescale Internet services (which make their decisions based on the data retrieved from the devices). The application of IoT is possible in many different domains, but impact through IoT is quite often dependent on the human changing his behaviour. In a developing context, IoT holds great potential. However, because of the context, prudent choices in selection of IoT application are required as both human attitude and the resource constraints heavily impact on the potential success of IoT. Through the presentation of various IoT application use-cases in a developing context and their relative position in a framework that utilises behavioural change barriers, a mechanism is presented to more effectively identify appropriate IoT application. The presented framework aids application developers, funders and government agencies to make more effective first choices in establishing IoT.