Experiences from the event “IoTNext 2015”
This year’s edition of IOTNext 2016 event is approaching , I represented SAP Labs India in the previous edition of IoTNext 2015 event. Being an IOT enthusiast and evangelist I thought I should pen down by experiences from previous edition
To start with, IoT is ubiquitous & continuous – is all about sense, compute, communicate, analyze and actuate
TiE Bangalore and the India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) have teamed up with the Dept. of IT to launch the IoTNext series of conferences, to grow the Internet of Things ecosystem in India
The speakers at IoTNext included corporates like GE, Bosch, SAP, Cisco, Analog Devices, IBM, Siemens and Accenture. Smart Cities, Smart Agriculture, smart Healthcare are the primary tracks of interest along with interesting panel discussions among Industry leaders, academia and start-up stars.
Smart Agriculture track introduced the concepts involved in the digitization of agriculture
Companies spoke about Integrated Farming systems in the context of sustainable agriculture, Yield increases will come thru combination of advanced seed genetics, on-farm agronomic practices, software and hardware innovations.
Some of the interesting concepts are covered like agronomy apps to enable hybrid selection and mapping, Breeding, Variable Rate Fertility, Precision Seeding (is a method of seeding that involves placing seed at a precise spacing and depth), Fertility and Disease management and finally Yield monitor, Analytics for Irrigation and Fertigation (Fertigation is the injection of fertilizers, soil amendments, and other water-soluble products into an irrigation system).
Microsoft explained about the connected cow/cattle concept in which they leverages cloud computing, wearable technology and IoT to help farmers accurately predict the best time to get their cows pregnant, With that the two AIs meet each other, of course, artificial intelligence and artificial insemination
Smart Cities track, Bosch and IBM presented their smart city solutions, Vodafone mentioned about their connected city initiative in collaboration with IBM to provide intelligent services to Spanish cities and helping them ensure more effective management of city resources and address some of the most pressing needs today
IOT for Business / Enterprises: Srikanth Gopalakrishnan from SAP (VP, Digital Enterprise Assets) spoke about how IOT is blurring industry boundaries and transforming every business to technology business .he quoted some of the path breaking examples enabled by IoT .e.g. Kaeser Compressors Inc., one of the world’s largest suppliers of compress air systems . They have a service called “Sigma Air Utility” by which they sell cubic meters of compressed air rather than the compressors.
In an panel discussion among industry experts on accelerating Smart City adoption chaired by Ashwin Mahesh CEO MapUnity, panelists agreed upon the fact that every smart city has its unique requirements and companies have to partner at every level to meet the needs and also emphasized that they need to collaborate on creating the market first and later worry about market share.
Interesting talks delivered by stratup heros
Pramod Verma from Ekstep is often called as royal architect of India, being the chief architect of UIDAI project (AADHAR) explained the complexity and challenges of the project at that scale .He talked about the evolution of India stack and their vision to take India from data poor to data rich nation in next 5 years by making Paper-less, Cash-less & Presence-less transactions. He did mention about the upcoming project on automated identification of vehicles that can speed up toll collection from transiting trucks in cities like Delhi.
Viral shah – Julia Computing: Imagine if decisions can be delegated to edge assets so engines/machines now in effect have a mind of their own, yes this can be made possible with Julia’s fresh approach to create ‘brilliant machines’. Julia Lang is a dynamic programming language based on mathematical foundation for technical computing, data scientists. This is a common language for both Iron (programmed by engineers) & Silicon (programmed by computer scientists). With Julia’s approach, an engineer can become a programmer and their open source community has 100K users and is being used by a number of universities for teaching and research, and by businesses in areas as diverse as engineering, finance, and e-commerce, to name a few.
Dilip Chabria, co-founder of Team Indus presented their mission and vision, is an Indian aerospace startup that is literally taking IoT space to space with its lunar land rover projects. They are building a spacecraft that goes to the moon and they won the prestigious Google lunar X Prize worth around 30 million USD in their journey
Logistimo demonstrated the social enterprise angle to IoT with their mobile supply chain and logistics platform developed for rural and emerging markets. eVIN (Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network) has been launched in multiple districts in India and outside India; they help in vaccine logistics and cold chain management
A range of kiosks in IoT space were exhibited at the event– Interesting picks are as follows
NXP Semiconductors had displayed their Low-power, compact chipset for temperature logging using NFC.
It is equipped with RTC (real-time clock), NFC and on-chip memory and an is easy to configure solution for cold-chain applications, helping to ensure the quality of temperature sensitive products like vaccines, biologics and others. This cost-effective, small form factor solution enables long lasting TTIs (time-temperature-Integrators)
More details : http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?12721
CloseConnexions – a digital assistant for proactive and preventive health management and personal safety. They have a unified connected healthcare platform that helps Caregivers, Provider Network, Physicians & Individuals/Patients to monitor health proactively and address safety needs during emergencies, their solutions are powered by IoT, Wearables, Mobile Apps
EcoZen has come up with IoT solutions to monitor solar-powered cold storage units for farmers
Nimble Wireless has developed IoT solutions for cold chains for the pharma and food sectors
Riding Made Intelligent by ridelogic, with a connected motorcycle a rider could hear the voice of his machine be it tire pressure, fuel, engine health, oil, braking and battery
Two day IoTNext 2015 summit concluded with an interesting panel discussion on Academia‐Startup connect chaired by Prof. Sadagopan, Head, IIIT‐Bangalore with diversified panel
Dr. Charit Bhograj a cardiologist by profession and entrepreneur by heart and is the co-founder of Tricog – with the mission of saving lives by connecting healthcare with technology
Dr. Ashok Shettar, Principal, KLE Technology University
Prof. Partha Pratim Das, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT‐ Kharagpur
Prof. Rakesh Basant, Founder ‐ Centre of Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship, IIM‐Ahmedabad
Satish Mugulavalli, Co‐founder, RevvX and who believes that hardware start-up is really hard and is mostly an ecosystem play
Overall it was great to attend last year event and the learning’s gained from the Industry, startups and academia leaders ! Looking forward to a more exciting IOTNext 2016
About author:
PVN PavanKumar is working as Global Product Manager at SAP Labs India. Global IoT Evangelist – Follow me on twitter for IoT updates @_pvn_pavan
Disclaimer : The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of SAP.Blogging does not mean endorsement of any kind!