Sweden

IoT Sweden [35] is a national initiative to make Sweden a leading force in the usage of Internet of Things (IoT). IoT Sweden is a Strategic innovation program. The Strategic innovation programmes are funded by government research councils Vinnova, The Swedish Energy Agency and Formas.

The Swedish national IoT agenda describes the importance of a strong and modern ecosystem within the IoT [50]. How such an ecosystem can be developed by national mobilization of research and innovation power to create a sustainable strong development of business and society.

The innovation program IoT Sweden consists of a board, members, a number of projects and a supporting program office. The office works to gather actors, increase interactions between stakeholders and finance innovation projects in the area of IoT.

IoT Sweden finance innovative projects in IoT. In the coming years IoT Sweden will work with Internet of Things for innovative societal development. Today the programs has four larger projects all of them starting from different societal challenges and with municipalities as coordinating organisations for the projects. In the coming months a new call for proposals will open with the aim of increasing the number of projects and challenges addressed.

The municipalities located in vicinity of Lund/Malmö, Göteborg, Umeå and Skellefteå coordinate the projects running today. In each project, there are a number of companies collaborating with universities, research institutes and the municipality. The project starts from the challenges as defined by the municipalities and are investigating how IoT can be used to handle the challenges. The challenges in the projects are in fields of elderly care, buildings, monitoring environmental pollution and the flow of people and vehicles in the city.

When results are being produce in the projects efforts will be made to make more municipalities and other interested organisations to adopt the results and systems developed in the projects.