Whether it’s agricultural solutions that let California’s drought-plagued farmers minimize the amount of water they use, health-care solutions that help over-worked nurses keep closer tabs on patients or facial recognition systems that monitor the temperature of workers to keep sick employees from returning to the office, the channel is getting creative when it comes to aiding customers in solving their biggest business challenges.

CRN ’s sixth-annual IoT Innovators list puts the spotlight on solution providers working with industrial IoT, connected systems, IoT security, machine learning and more to not only collect data but turn it into useful insights that businesses can act on.

Research firm Gartner has predicted that the number of IoT devices will triple from 2020 to 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent. Those devices will generate a plethora of data that needs to be analyzed, creating plenty of room for solution providers like Patti Engineering, an OT-focused solution provider in Auburn Hills, Mich., to help its manufacturing customers modernize, said CEO Sam Hoff.

“[Customers] are looking for companies that can help them analyze that data on a recurring basis, help them contextualize that data, help them figure out the analytics,” Hoff said.

Along with that IoT growth comes an influx of security concerns as more and more devices get connected at the edge. The OT side in particular is rife with security opportunities for solution providers as hackers and nation-state bad actors set their sights on public infrastructure as the next warfront, said Kevin Lynch, CEO of Denver-based security solution provider powerhouse Optiv.

“If you don’t have a strategy for playing in this space and winning in this space, you will be left behind,” Lynch said last week during a keynote address at CRN parent The Channel Company’s 2022 XChange Best of Breed Conference in Atlanta. “This market is going to wake up, and it’s going to be enormous.”

Patti Engineering and Optiv are among 25 solution providers being venerated in CRN’s 2022 IoT Innovators list. Here’s a look at the honorees.