Ian Hughes is a senior research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence and has been covering the evolution of industrial IoTFull Bio

Ian Hughes is a senior research analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence and has been covering the evolution of industrial IoT from the basics of instrumentation to richer data applications such as predictive maintenance and machine learning at the edge. This coverage is now moving toward digital twins and the real-time industrial metaverse. He looks at changes to the way we interact with technology, and one another, through AI, IoT, game technology and media across what will become the metaverse at work and play.

He has over 34 years of experience in emerging technology, the first 20 years as a software engineer and architect building and sharing concepts, from early web and e-commerce, IoT, social media to virtual worlds. He became an enterprise metaverse evangelist in 2006, known for putting the Wimbledon Championship tennis experience into a shared avatar-based experience. Later, with his own consulting company, he built virtual training hospitals and educational experiences. Ian had his own slot on a Saturday morning TV show for 39 episodes in 2010/11, showing emerging technology to a younger audience. He has written and published two science fiction novels under his online name/nom de plume, epredator.

Ian has a Bachelor of Science degree in IT from De Montfort University. He was made an Honorary Doctor of Technology by Solent University in 2018, and he is chair of BCS animation and games specialist group.Minimize