PhD TIM-1. Dissertation Chapter 1
Honourable101
DIS-9901Av3.docx
“Emerging Trends in IoT in Development Countries: The SWOT Perspective of Ghana”
Francis Cobbinah
School of Technology: Northcentral University
DIS-9901A V3: Components of the Dissertation
Dr. Reddy Urimind
May 16, 2021
Chapter 1
Introduction
After decades of anticipation and discussion, the internet of things has become a reality across the globe. The IoT has come with new trends that are creating huge developments and have continued to extend the online world in a myriad of manner. Connecting things to people provides vast opportunities for new ways of learning, responding to issues, and monitoring situations. The IoT is now a single uniform network of connected devices, but its various technologies are put together and working in a coordinating manner to provide several benefits to people both in developing and developed nations. The emerging trends in the IoT are making life extraordinarily facile and accessible for different people. Notably, it's not only making life simpler, but it's also turning the world into a small place or village. Thanks to the increasing new trends and advancements, It has become hugely entrenched in the systems of even the developing countries. These trends positively change the different sectors in developing countries like health, business, agriculture, and people’s lives. These trends are now w connecting physicals things and work and promoting activities like people with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
In developing countries like Ghana, the impact of the emerging trend in IoT has also been felt. The country has continued to see the use of IoT technologies in the development of activities. For instance, in 2017, the government reported over 2 million individuals who become connects online through the technology (Hopalı & Vayvay, 2018). Not within the country has been put through the process of rural interconnection where people from remote regions can now access resources and information that were not previously available. The countries continue to increase their plans for IoT connections by introducing ICT technologies to help in the socio-economic developments. Through the IoT connection from urban to rural regions, the country has enhanced health, eCommerce, and education and made farmers' lives more accessible across the country (Hopalı & Vayvay, 2018). The new trends are used to facilitate the large and small businesses, which is also benefiting the country to leap big.
Since the technologies continue to move faster and with tremendous speed, the developing country’s consumers and businesses are expected to get significant innovations through IoT, where products are anticipated to be very successful. The massive growth sees different trends that will help elevate various sectors (Odoi-Lartey & Danso, 2018). However, despite the enormous positive growth, the trends in IoT come with critical challenges. One trend that is of great concern is the issue of security. Due to the huge increase in the IoT across the globe, more issues have also emerged. These issues are centered on security problems like cyber threats, which are a huge risk to organizations, industries, and individuals. Specifically, these issues are affecting both developed and developing countries. Thus a country like Ghana is no exception, and being a developing country when it comes to the IoT, it faces enormous risk compared to other countries with sophisticated technology.
The IoT is a huge chance that is highly gaining ground in the moderns computing world. Since the internet has become of great significance to people's lives, new technologies have continued to rise and creating rapid development in the IoT field (Odoi-Lartey & Danso, 2018). The IoT technology is characterized by the interconnection of smart objects like radio frequency identification and sensors, which help transfer data without human interactions. The progressive developments in informatics, telecommunication, and sensors that created a way to actualize pervasive intelligence have shown the IoT future. It has found its ways in various applications like transportation, logistics, health, agriculture, automation, and remote monitoring (Odoi-Lartey & Danso, 2018). The technologies have not only been felt in the developed countries. Still, they are also being experienced in the developing countries where governments have begun to venture and emphasize the utilization of IoT new trends. The developing countries are pressuring and investing in the public sector to become more innovative, collaborative, and open to help in the actualization of the new trends and be at the global per (Odoi-Lartey & Danso, 2018). This is because they have realized that the internet of things is transforming how people live, travel, work and conduct business. The IoT has become the center of the industrial and digitals transformation of cities, society, and organizations. Since the developing nations differ from the developed nation when it comes to IoT projects, it's essential to research the realization of IoT within the growing nations. Therefore, it's important to research the emerging trend in the IoT in developing countries. Moreover its also essential to have a survey on a country like Ghana as one of the developing countries to see where they have reached when it comes to development, adaptation, challenges, and utilization of IoT technology.
IoT technological advancements are primarily correlated with globalization. The information era has increased the globalization rate due to the widespread of the internets, which creates an interconnected world (Otu, 2019). Notably, the adoption of the emerging trend in IoT by the developing countries has had a profound impact on their economy when it comes to allowing individuals to communicate over long distances—reducing the national cost of production, promoting better health care, and establishing standard quantity. However, there is no apparent transformation and development process of how the developing countries have reached when it comes to IoT technology (Otu, 2019).
Additionally, people have only recently recognized the need for IoT technologies appropriate for developing nations' capabilities. The countries have also been faced with challenges of IoT technology diffusion and the uneven penetration and distribution of the technology within the countries (Ndung’u & Signé, 2020). For the developing nations to effectively participate in the IoT market places, they require adequate resources and expertise to avoid any rapid advances since they will create more challenges (Otu, 2019). Thus, it's important to research one of the countries to determine how it has progressed and how it has adopted the emerging trends in the IoT. It is also essential to look at some of the challenges, benefits, and vulnerabilities the developing countries face when it comes to adapting the IoT technology.
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