For the 33 million adults in the UK who use the internet on a daily basis, it is almost impossible to remember what we did without it. How did we book a flight, look up directions to a restaurant or send a document to a colleague?
When Brent Hoberman and I set up lastminute.com in the late 1990s, we joined the first wave of entrepreneurs to use the power of computers talking to each other to change the way we live. I believe we are now seeing a new wave of innovation, in which technology will allow every kind of device in our homes and businesses to communicate with us and with each other.
The “internet of things” is the use of technology to take something static – a fridge say, or a boiler or a lock – and animate it by allowing it to send and receive data from other devices or to people. In practice, this could mean your central heating could be programmed to come on when you are a certain distance from home by accessing GPS in your mobile phone, so you get back to a warm house without wasting energy when you’re not there.
Washing machines or cars with a problem could go online, look up local repair companies and book themselves in for a service, cross-checking with your diary first for suitable dates.
These smart devices will not only help our lives run more smoothly and save us time and money, they also provide a huge opportunity for UK entrepreneurs.
Research by Intellect, the trade body for the UK technology industry, estimates that the market for the “connected home” could be worth £3bn a year within the next eight years. Include non-domestic uses, and Cisco Systems estimates the overall “internet of things” could be worth some $14tn (£8.7tn) worldwide. That’s a market British entrepreneurs and inventors absolutely must be part of.
Happily, a number of businesses in this country have already seen the opportunity and are leading the way in this potentially enormous new market with their products.
Some of the startups in this space have attracted the attention of British Gas, an established company with an enlightened view on the benefit of supporting innovation from newer, smaller businesses in making smart devices that will help people understand how they use and control energy and be more energy efficient.
Among the exciting young companies taking part in this year’s British Gas Connecting Homes competition are MyJoulo, the maker of a device which sits on top of your thermostat for a week, logging your home’s energy consumption, and allowing the company to provide personalised advice on how to get that usage down.
There is also Newcastle-based Radfan, which has developed a low-power fan to automatically direct the heat generated by radiators where you want in a room so it’s not going to waste, and Shutdown Scanner, which makes software to monitor how many computers have been left on at night or over the weekend in a school or office.
These are just some of startups at the forefront of developing the smart devices, which will transform the way we run our lives. The opportunities for more British entrepreneurs to join them are almost limitless.