GE Digital, IEEE and Schneider Electric Join OpenFog Consortium Board of Directors

OpenFog Consortium (OpenFog) announces an affiliation with The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE); new Board Directors from GE Digital, IEEE and Schneider Electric; 17 new members; and its first country team in Japan, signifying the rapid growth and market interest in fog computing. The new members are leaders in fog computing research and technologies and will support OpenFog’s work to create an open reference architecture for fog computing that supports intelligence at the edge of an end-to-end IoT solution.

GE Digital, IEEE and Schneider Electric have joined OpenFog’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. The new Board members are Greg Petroff, Chief Experience Officer at GE Digital; Pascal Brosset, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Technology, Schneider Electric Global Solutions; Dr. Douglas N. Zuckerman, IEEE Communications Society Past President and an IEEE Life Fellow; and Dr. Russell Hsing, Chair Professor of National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan and an IEEE Life Fellow.

“Cloud to edge to device integration and inter-operability, supported by the right standards, are key to the realization of the tremendous potential of Industrial IoT,” said Pascal Brosset, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Technology for Schneider Electric Global Solutions. “By joining the OpenFog Consortium, Schneider Electric reinforces its commitment to the development and adoption of such standards, in line with its pioneering adoption of open networking standards at the heart of automation architectures to bridge the IT/OT divide.”

“Breaking down the barriers of technology silos and supporting better integration of the various architecture efforts will be key to advancing the Industrial Internet,” said Greg Petroff, Chief Experience Officer for GE Digital. “Collaboration with the OpenFog Consortium will help unite the community around standards that drive integration toward solving the world’s toughest challenges.”

OpenFog’s new strategic affiliation with IEEE through its Communications Society will co-create and co-promote fog networking concepts and architectures and collaborate on marketing, education and standards initiatives. IEEE Communications Society President Harvey A. Freeman said “The IEEE agreement with OpenFog will strengthen IEEE's industry engagement in activities fostering the growth of this important technology area.” IEEE is the world’s largest professional organization advancing technology for humanity.

“This collaborative agreement with IEEE brings together a plethora of skills and experience that will lead to significant advancements in fog technology,” said Helder Antunes, chairman of OpenFog Consortium. “We anticipate more rapid progression towards our goal of establishing open architectures, along with education around best practices that will lead to industry innovation.”

Additionally, the first OpenFog country team was launched in Japan. SAKURA Internet, the first OpenFog Contributing member in Asia, will chair two innovation areas. The first area is to promote growth of IoT scenarios in Japan and the second area is leading future testbeds in Japan. Other OpenFog members on the team include representatives from ARM, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Intel, Microsoft and Toshiba. OpenFog regional teams meet in local time zones and languages, and focus on core regional initiatives, such as robotics.

“The industry is embracing OpenFog to lead in defining the next horizon of IoT transformation and architecture. Our newest Board members of IEEE, Schneider Electric and GE Digital will help us to accelerate in this direction,” said Jeff Fedders, president of OpenFog Consortium. “We are excited to welcome innovative stakeholders in the Japan region, with SAKURA Internet as the first contributing member from Asia to support our newly created Japan Country Committee along with our new influencing members Toshiba and Fujitsu. We are thrilled to have these IoT industry leaders bring their expertise to focus areas like industrial automation, robotics, and machine learning into the definition of fog architectures.”

“Fog computing will become the innovation to dramatically raise the value generated by the Internet and the computing power,” said Osamu Ogasahara, Fellow, SAKURA Internet. “The initiatives in OpenFog Consortium are essential to realize this innovation. SAKURA Internet is committed to contributing to the creation of new models such as the standardization of the data marketplace of the future along with its focus on Internet infrastructures.”

OpenFog workgroups continue to develop an open, interoperable architecture for fog computing, with focus on distributing the resources and services of computation, networking, storage and control across the Cloud to Things continuum. Following up on the release of its OpenFog architecture white paper, the Consortium has formed additional workgroups to address fog computing challenges in the areas of Communication, Security, Testbeds, Manageability and Software Infrastructure.

Joining in this work are the new Contributing Members GE Digital, SAKURA Internet and Schneider Electric. Other new members are Arizona State University, FogHorn Systems, Fujitsu, Georgia State University, MARSEC Inc., National Chiao Tung University, Nebbiolo Technologies, PrismTech, Real-Time Innovations, Dr. Steven Low of California Institute of Technology, Stichting imec Nederland, Toshiba, Vanderbilt University and Wayne University.

The next OpenFog meeting will be held at Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey, May 17-18^th. Keynotes will include Dennis Strigl, former President and Cheif Operating Officer of Verizon Communications; representatives from DARPA, National Science Foundation, the U.S. Airforce Research Laboratory; and prominent researchers from academia.

About OpenFog

Formed by ARM, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft and Princeton University in November 2015, the OpenFog Consortium has a global membership representing the leading thinkers and pioneers in fog computing technologies and deployments. For more information, visit www.openfogconsortium.org or on Twitter @openfog.

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Contact information

OpenFog Consortium
Jennifer Kupferman, 510-492-4027