In 2019, the Brazilian Government published the National Plan for the Internet of Things, which works towards fostering the development of this area in four priority environments: agribusiness, health, smart cities and industry. The plan also states that to establish a basis for solutions in these domains, investments in the following strategic fronts are needed: human capital, innovation, technology, and regulation. We here summarize important scientific and technological advances in IoT, conducted by Brazilian institutions in the aforementioned strategic fronts: Code IoT education platform (human capital); Caninos Loucos SBC family and SwarmOS (technology); telecommunication regulation and the General Law for Personal Data Protection (LGPD) (regulation, security and privacy); and five applications (innovation) - Smart traffic lights, Smart surveillance, health monitoring of childhood cancer patients, Sleep apnea diagnosis, and Internet of Turtles.We also discuss regulatory aspects towards flexibilizing IoT services, and a recent law that protects the privacy of citizens in Brazil. These efforts clearly show a growing development of IoT in Brazil, particularly in areas that solve urgent problems, such as health and the environment. Additionally, the existence of a national IoT platform leverages the massive creation of high-impact applications in the near future.