An open virtual neighbourhood network to connect IoT infrastructures and smart objects — Vicinity: IoT enables interoperability as a service

The lack of interoperability is considered as the most important barrier to achieve the global integration of Internet-of-Things (IoT) ecosystems across borders of different disciplines, vendors and standards. Indeed, the current IoT landscape consists of a large set of isolated islands that do not constitute a real Internet, preventing the exploitation of the huge potential expected by Information and communications technology (ICT) visionaries and unfolding business opportunities facilitated by digitalization and automation. The VICINITY project will build and demonstrate a platform linking various ecosystems providing “interoperability as a service” for infrastructures in the IoT. The approach is bottom-up, decentralized, user-centric and standards-based without relying on a single standard.