Track Description
The digitization and automation of a wide swath of business processes and the industrial infrastructure is creating a disruptive change for the energy, power and oil & gas sector. This is affecting production processes, service processes, environmental processes, facilities management, and transportation and logistics systems in a profound manner. The digitization and automation are being driven largely by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Sometimes also referred to as the Internet of Things, Services & People (IoTSP).
The deployment of low cost yet powerful sensing and actuation, communication and computing resources combined with the wide availability of data-driven services are the key enablers.
When the utility industry adopts IoT, it is creating new opportunities to manage the grid and connect with the consumer. Suddenly there is an influx of data streaming into the utility that they can harness to make decisions. For example, companies can utilize home automation to monitor consumer use, then adjust access as necessary. They can gather information on how to deliver services, manage infrastructure, and continue to meet consumer needs. Simply, the investment in a smart grid, smart meters, and home automation can allow utility companies to comprehensively recapture the energy industry, drive top-line growth, and improve consumer perception.
The impact of data-derived insights and digital technologies is especially strong within the full oil and gas value chain — upstream, midstream, downstream, services and capital projects. A granular view of network connected assets when linked with data-driven business systems helps generate quicker and better insights to drive competitive performance. The technology is creating opportunities for greater efficiencies and enhanced safety and creating agile organizations that can keep up with all manners of external changes.
This vertical track will feature invited speakers who are thought leaders and leading practitioners in the IoT space and who will report on work that is transforming the energy, power and oil & gas sectors of the global economy. Topics that will be addressed include
- The Internet of Things and the digital twin
- Large scale deployment of connected sensors
- Edge and mobile cloud computing in industrial IoT
- Dependable networks for automation systems
- Industrial IoT Cybersecurity
- Robust and Reliable IoT
- Lessons learned from deployment of IoT technologies
Track Chair
Harshavardhan “Harsh” Karandikar, ABB Inc., USA
Dr. Harsh Karandikar is an accomplished technology leader with over thirty years of experience in the engineering and product management of industrial products and services and with a focus over the last decade on technologies for medium voltage electrical power distribution. He has a track record of innovation and extensive international experience with strong background in technology strategy development, operation of global engineering organizations, management of complex product development projects, technology transfer, technical consulting and business development. Harsh has co-authored numerous technical papers and is a holder of several patents. Harsh is currently the Global Product Manager for ANSI Medium Voltage Switchgear and for ANSI Switchgear Digital Initiatives for ABB. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Fellow of the ASME. He holds a PhD from the University of Houston.
Track Speakers
Benton Calhoun, Co-founder and CO-CTO, Everactive
David Lawrence, Manager – Emerging Technology Office, Duke Energy
Steve Beamer, VP Customer Success & Transformation, ElementAnalytics
Rajit Gadh, Director of Smart Grid Energy Research Center (SMERC), UCLA
Glen Endress, Manager – Emerging Digital Technology, ConocoPhillips
Oluwatobi Oyinlola, Entrepreneur & Consultant, (Rwanda, Africa)
Dr. Rajit Gadh is a Professor at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA, and the Founding Director of the UCLA Smart Grid Energy Research Center (SMERC). He is also Founder and Director of the Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium (WINMEC). Dr. Gadh’s research interests include Smart Grid, Micro Grids, Electric Vehicle to Grid Integration, Electric Vehicle (EV) and Autonomous Vehicles (AV), Smart Transportation, AI and machine learning in EV and AV management. He has over 200 papers in journals, conferences and technical magazines, and, 5 patents granted. He has a Doctorate degree from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He has taught as a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, has been an Assistant, Associate and Full Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and did his sabbatical as a visiting researcher at Stanford University for a year. He has won several awards from NSF (CAREER award, Research Initiation Award, NSF-Lucent Industry Ecology Award, GOAL-I award), SAE (Ralph Teetor award), IEEE (second best student-paper, WTS), ASME (Kodak Best Technical Paper award), AT&T (Industrial ecology fellow award), Engineering Education Foundation (Research Initiation Award), William Wong Fellowship award from University of Hong-Kong, etc., and other accolades in his career. He is on the Editorial board of ACM Computers in Entertainment Publication and the CAD Journal.
Havard Devold, Manager – Digital Technologies for Oil & Gas, ABB Norway
Rami Zewail, R&D Consultant and Co-Founder, Smart Empower Innovation Labs Inc.
Rami Zewail received a BSc. and MSc. In Electronics & Communications Engineering, Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Egypt, in 2002 and 2004 respectively. And a PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada, in 2010. He has over 15 years of academic and industrial R&D experience in areas of embedded computing, machine learning, and signal processing. Dr Zewail’s research experience spans different fields such as Energy industry, Computer vision, biomedical, BlockChain, and IoT. Dr. Zewail has over 12 years of R&D experience in Oil &Gas sector. He has contributed to the scientific community with a patent and over 20 publications.
Dr. Zewail is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Association of Professional Engineers & Geoscientists (APEGA), The Canadian Association for Artificial Intelligence. He also has served as a reviewer for the Journal of Electronics Imaging, Journal of Optical Engineering for the SPIE society.
Talk Title: Accelerating Digital Transformation in Energy Industry Through Edge Computing and Decentralized Intelligence
Abstract: With the emergence of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and low power efficient processors, Embedded Machine learning and edge computing have recently received much interest over a wide range of fields including predictive maintenance, tele-medicine, and wearables. Big players like Google and Microsoft are now moving from Cloud-based intelligence to Embedded Edge-based intelligence. Edge computing refers to processing, analyzing and storing data at the origin hardware layer instead of the Cloud. Lately, Edge computing has drawn a lot of attention as a key infrastructure and the backbone in IIoT and Industry 4.0 initiatives. Edge Computing is about de-centralization of computing power and intelligence. This has potential to overcome a lot of the current challenges in BIG DATA and Cloud Computing. Examples of foreseen benefits include reduction of decision latency, enabling real-time intelligence, improved operational efficiency, and robustness of connected applications. On the other side, it is well known that the oil and gas industry has traditionally been slow in adopting new technologies and innovation. However, due to the current challenges in the industry, a lot of the companies are now turning towards digital transformation technologies as a means to optimize operations, and maximize financial gains.