IoT Ecosystem of the Year

About this award

The IoT Ecosystem of the Year Award recognizes the partnerships, alliances, and communities that drive IoT adoption and impact through collaboration. This category honors ecosystems that bring together device makers, platform providers, integrators, connectivity partners, customers, and industry stakeholders to deliver greater value than any one organization could achieve alone.

Strong IoT ecosystems create trust, simplify integration, and accelerate time-to-value for end users. They ensure that hardware, software, connectivity, data, and services work together more seamlessly while enabling new opportunities across industries.

This award highlights the importance of openness, interoperability, partner alignment, and shared success in IoT. By recognizing ecosystems that combine technical excellence with collaborative leadership, it celebrates the collective strength that advances the connected era.

What this award recognizes

• Cross-partner IoT programs, alliances, communities, or ecosystems delivering measurable customer outcomes
• Collaborations that simplify integration, accelerate deployment, and improve connected technology adoption
• Strong governance, partner enablement, trust frameworks, standards alignment, or shared technical models
• Ecosystems that demonstrate real value through customer success, partner growth, interoperability, or market impact

Who should enter

Entries are welcome from IoT consortia, alliances, partner programs, platform ecosystems, multi-vendor collaborations, and organizations leading connected technology ecosystems with measurable partner and customer impact.

Judging criteria

• Collaboration: Depth of partner engagement, alignment, governance, and shared execution
• Impact: Customer adoption, deployment outcomes, ROI, operational value, or broader ecosystem benefit
• Interoperability: Standards support, open APIs, integration quality, technical alignment, and ecosystem fit
• Scalability: Ability to expand across partners, customers, industries, geographies, or use cases
• Sustainability: Ongoing governance, business model viability, partner enablement, and long-term ecosystem health
• Trust and value creation: Evidence that the ecosystem reduces friction, improves confidence, and creates shared success

Eligibility

• Open worldwide to companies, organizations, partnerships, alliances, and communities operating in the Internet of Things
• Ecosystem achievements must be launched, expanded, validated, or significantly advanced within the applicable award year
• Entries should include evidence of partner collaboration, customer outcomes, deployment success, adoption, or market relevance
• Confidential details may be summarized or redacted for judging, with references included where possible

What to submit

• Overview describing the ecosystem, participating partners, shared value proposition, and outcomes
• Evidence of impact, such as case studies, adoption data, partner references, customer results, integration metrics, or governance model details
• Supporting materials, including partner pages, ecosystem diagrams, customer examples, press coverage, technical documentation, or deployment summaries
• Optional joint customer testimonial, partner statement, short video, or ecosystem overview deck

Best of 2026 schedule

• Entries Open: Tuesday, December 1, 2026
• Early Bird Deadline: Friday, January 15, 2027
• Final Entry Deadline: Friday, February 12, 2027
• Winners Announced: Tuesday, March 9, 2027