Q: What is your name, and who do you work for?

Jochen Renz, Advisor to the IOTA Foundation

Q: What is your project/what are you working on?

IOTA is a 3rd generation distributed ledger technology (DLT) that is built for the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) economy. Unlike traditional blockchain technologies, it is not based on “blocks” and “chains” with its inherent limitations such as scalability issues, transactions fees and centralization of mining power. IOTA is the first DLT based on a “Directed Acyclic Graph” (DAG) called the “Tangle,” which essentially creates a mesh of transactions. IOTA has no miners. Network participants not only post transactions, but also validate other transactions. Unlike traditional blockchains, the more traffic there is on IOTA, the better it scales, and the faster it approves transactions. It also has no transaction fees, so micro-transactions in IoT and M2M become possible. 

Think of IOTA as a data transfer protocol with a built-in payment function. Data is the new oil. IOTA makes it possible to not only securely transfer data and verify its source and integrity, but can also make it immutable using the IOTA Tangle. And because IOTA has no transaction fees, it becomes possible to monetize, i.e., sensor data in the IoT generated by the Bosch XDK platform using feeless Peer-2-Peer (P2P) micro-transactions. 

IOTA is currently working on “Qubic,” which will introduce not only oracles and smart contracts, but quorum-based computing to the Internet of Things. With Qubic, it will become possible to create massive distributed computing and have machines pay one other for services. 

Our vision is a “machine-to-machine” economy, where “things” become their own economic agents. Several global organizations have already experimented with IOTA DLT technology, including Bosch, Fujitsu, Volkswagen, United Nations Ops, the City of Taipei, and more. The technology is open source and developed and standardized by the IOTA Foundation, a Berlin-based non-profit organization. 

Q: How long have you been working at the Connectory?

Since Fall of 2017. 

Q: Why do you work at the Connectory? What are its benefits for you?

The Connectory’s focus is on IoT, and IOTA is the backbone of IoT! Bosch and IOTA share the vision of IoT enabling the new mobility, smart cities, sustainable energy and Industry 4.0 and our shared goal is to create a thriving open innovation community around these topics. Of course, you can’t beat its location and connection to programming at 1871, which is a lighthouse in the U.S. IOTA had traction with Bosch before the Connectory was even launched – so it was natural to announce a partnership with IOTA and the Chicago Connectory.

Q: Where can we learn more about IOTA?

https://www.iota.org

Twitter Handle: @iotatoken

Q: Random, fun question: If you could trade places with anybody, living or dead for 24 hours – who would it be and why?

Julius Caesar. After I visited today’s Rome multiple times and watched the Gladiator movie, I thought to myself that it would be great to visit Rome and see these amazing buildings during their glory days. I would like to see them with the perspective of somebody in the time who was extremely powerful and influential. Also, living during that period was so completely different than the way we live today.