IEEE Spectrum August, 2014 - 27

simon mills

resources_sTArT-uPs

job growth in the automotive, aero-
space, energy, and medical sectors,
and it plans to create 150,000 high-
skill jobs in electronics by 2020. The
growth of renewables, especially off-
shore wind in the United Kingdom
and Germany, is creating thousands
of jobs. But the British manufactur-
ing industry faces a constant dearth
of engineers with the right skills, re-
ports the Financial Times, with big
employers like Dyson and Jaguar
Land Rover struggling to fill hun-
dreds of positions.
A recent survey by international
employment firm ManpowerGroup
found that engineering jobs top the
list of hard-to-fill jobs in the Asia-
Pacific region. China, the largest
oil-product consumer in the Asia-
Pacific, plans to reduce dependency
on imports by increasing oil refining
capacity and establishing shale gas
production, so recruitment oppor-
tunities are booming, says Joshua
Schrijvers of NES Global Talent.
But the petrochemical industry
isn't the only hot spot. Thanks to the
growth of big data, cybersecurity
jobs and income-along with those
in mobile and cloud computing-
are on the rise. The current aver-
age salary for a cybersecurity hire
in government is $116,000, while
private companies often pay more,
says Eugene Spafford, executive
director of Purdue University's Cen-
ter for Education and Research in
Information Assurance and Security.
Businesses are also creating special
positions for computer scientists
and math whizzes with degrees in
data analysis. Candice Lewis, as-
sistant director of the new M.S. in
Business Analytics program at the
University of Texas at Austin, says
that a job event in the fall brought
53 companies in areas such as retail,
consulting, and oil and gas for the
school's first crop of 52 graduates.
-PraCHi Patel

start-uPs: breWbot
anD bonaverDe
better beverages through
next-gen home breWing

T

he poster child for the Internet of

Things is the smart refrigerator,
which keeps track of your groceries,
orders new ones, and acts like a digital bulle-
tin board. Alas, grocery management hasn't in-
flamed much passion among the early adopters
crucial to driving new consumer technology. But
maybe a new idea for the kitchen of tomorrow
can: do-it-yourself beer and coffee.
Two start-ups have recently successfully com-
pleted Kickstarter campaigns, one for a smart
home brewery and the other for a coffee roast-
er. The first start-up is Brewbot, based in Belfast,
Northern Ireland, whose eponymous product re-
places brewing's traditionally hand-tuned pro-
cesses-adjusting boiling temperatures and
tweaking fermentation times-with automated
algorithms and smartphone-app control.
"As a group of people, we got together and de-
cided to start brewing," says Chris McClelland,
Brewbot's CEO, of his company's origins. "We
were worried about plumbing issues and heat-
ing elements and...[then we thought,] why aren't

BreW WitH PanaCHe: Brewbot's largely
automated home beer brewery is monitored
and controlled with a smartphone app.

we looking at our phone and getting indications
that say something's happening or not, or when
to change something?"
So McClelland and his team of five developers
reengineered home brewing for automation. The
Brewbot is about the size of a small file cabinet,
with tubs and bins inside connected by silicon tub-
ing. An iOS app (an Android version is in the works)
keeps tabs on each step, automating some steps
and notifying the home brewerwhen it's necessary
to go to the Brewbot to complete other steps. "In
the app, you're able to choose the baseline recipe
that you want to make, like a pale ale or stout. But
you can swap in and out hops and customize the
beer to call it your own," says McClelland.
Brewbot is targeting its device at home-brewing
hobbyists as well as restaurants and bars that want
to have their own line of beers on tap, taking advan-
tage of the current popularity of craft beers. "I think
beer is the new wine," McClelland says, "the way

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum August, 2014
