Things. Is there a more generic word? Or, for that matter, a more descriptive one? “How are things?” “Do your thing.” “You know, that thingamajig.” “I have to pick up some things from the store.”
Things can illustrate situations or items concrete or abstract. At Tata Consultancy Services Delivery Center in Milford, the company is literally bringing things to life at its Bringing Life to Things laboratory, which opened in April.
Konstantinos “Kosta” Elefter has the title of Delivery Center Head but leans on the team instead of making the conversation about himself. “We believe in the ‘we,’ not the ‘I,’ ” says Elefter, who joined the company as strategic business manager in 2017 before taking the top job in 2022. “The community is not just a stakeholder in the business, but the reason for its existence.”
The new lab provides rapid prototyping, experimentation, and implementation of Internet of Things (IoT) and Generative AI (artificial intelligence) projects. For people still amazed that each piece of information in human history is available on their smartphone, Global Head of IoT Operations Brian Purvis explains the difference between the Internet and IoT. “The Internet is connecting one person to the next and connecting them in a web, not just a linear connection,” he says. “The Internet of Things is bringing life to the physical things around us by interconnecting them and getting them to work together to improve how we do things.”
One of Elefter’s favorite examples is outside his office. “We are bringing things to life in our community garden,” he says. “We have sensors throughout the soil telling us the pH levels or moisture levels so the IoT can coach us on when you need to water or adjust the soil. We have a 3,000-square-foot garden on our property and have donated all the produce we have grown there to community members.”
Whether it’s sensors in the garden or in Ring devices monitoring your home or the ability to adjust home thermostats remotely, the IoT is an everyday presence. Since it’s science, however, the frontier is constantly evolving. Tata has developed a digital twin of the heart, for instance, where information gathered through wearable devices and sensors is sent to provide real-time analysis of medical conditions. “We talk about practicing medicine, but I don’t like to be the one practiced on,” Purvis says, smiling. “Having concrete evidence and facts on how to treat ailments based on a digital representation instead of a prod or a poke is impactful. It’s about speeding up the diagnosis, because in the medical field seconds count.”
Something else that counts is Tata’s growing presence locally. “We have 1,000 employees here now, a lot of them under the roof,” says Elefter, “but many work at client sites with our customers. We also do a lot of recruiting from local universities. As a 600,000-person global company, we try to gather many of the best practices we have learned and bring them to Cincinnati.” And that’s a good thing.