The term "Internet of Things" was coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999, but it was not until the year 2008 that IoT began to emerge as a force of growth and adoption, coupled with the explosive growth of mobile devices and rapidly decreasing costs of sensors and networks. It was then that major tech conferences and exhibitions began incorporating IoT elements into their show content.

Fast forward to 2018, the world is now spoilt for choice in terms of IoT conferences and exhibitions. Today, there are evidently a lot of IoT events happening every week around the world. In this list, I have sought to cover the better publicized and established IoT conferences and exhibitions.

For the purpose of this list, I consider shows that have IoT as their primary agenda and exclude other shows, however major, that cover IoT but not as a primary theme. From this calendar, we can observe that IoT has gained mainstream awareness and acceptance worldwide, with major shows now scheduled in every region and continent throughout the year of 2019.