April 25, 2016 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — On a March afternoon at The Black Whale restaurant on New Bedford’s waterfront, steps away from docked fishing boats, Chris Rezendes signaled to waitstaff as his party gathered for lunch.
He was going to need more tables.
Guests included Ed Anthes-Washburn, port director for the city’s Harbor Development Commission; Kevin Stokesbury, chairman of the Department of Fisheries Oceanography at UMass Dartmouth’s School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST); John Haran, manager of fishery Sector 13 and newly elected member of Dartmouth’s Select Board; and Rezendes, founder of INEX Advisors and an affiliated Internet connectivity company, IoT Impact LABS, based in New Bedford.
Also present for the informal lunch were representatives from computer giant Dell and several other tech firms.
The subject was Internet of Things (IoT), generally defined as the merging of physical objects with connected, network technology.