About the Author

Pratik Desai, PhD, is the Principal Scientist and cofounder of a connected devices start-up, Imbue Labs, where he develops scalable and interoperable architecture for wearable devices and Internet of Things (IoT) platforms during the day. At night, he leads the development of an open source IoT initiative, the Semantic Repository of Things. Pratik has 8 years of research and design experience in various layers of the IoT and its predecessor technologies such as wireless sensor networks, RFID, and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. His domains of expertise are the IoT, Semantic Web, machine learning, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

Pratik completed his MS and PhD from Wright State University, Ohio, and collaborated with the Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-enabled Computing (Kno.e.sis) during his doctoral research. His doctoral research was focused on developing situation awareness frameworks for IoT devices, enabling semantic web-based reasoning and handling the uncertainty associated with sensor data.

In his personal life, Pratik is an avid DIY junkie and likes to get hands-on experience on upcoming technologies. He extensively expresses his views on technology and shares interesting developments on Twitter (@chheplo).

I would like to dedicate the book to my parents, who were responsible for building the foundation of what I am today. The book would not have been possible without the patience, support, and encouragement from my beloved wife, Sachi. I would also like to thank her for landing her photography skills that were used in development of some of the important images used in the book. I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to the editors for their valuable feedbacks.