World's 10 Best Drone Companies to Watch in 2022

ISSN 2582-127X

JULY 2022

World's

Best

DRONE COMPANIES TO WATCH IN 2022

Position Yourself in the Drone Business with these Marketing Strategies

SAMI AL ADAW CEO, ESBAAR

Introducing Cognitive Intelligence via AI-driven Robots and Drones in Industry 4.0

At the Forefront, Presenting Data from AI and Drone Technologies in a NewLight

Editorial

T

he drone industry is one of the fastest-growing

the mega-trend stage fairly quickly as more and more

industries in the world today. With technologies

businesses started to realize its potential, scope, and

making strides with each passing day, it would be

scale of global reach.

an impossible task to keep track of all upgrades available.

Unless flying drones is your main occupation, it will be a

Major companies like Amazon, UPS, and DHL are in favor

challenge, to put it mildly. Unmanned aerial vehicle

of drone delivery. Drones could save a lot of manpower

technology covers everything from the aerodynamics of

and shift unnecessary road traffic to the sky. Besides,

the drone, and materials in the manufacture of the

they can be used over smaller distances to deliver small

physical UAV, to the circuit boards, chipset, and software,

packages, food, letters, medicines, beverages, and the

which are the brains of the drone.

like.

With the rising accessibility of drones, many of the most dangerous and high-paying jobs within the commercial

Drones provide quick means, after a natural or man-

sector are ripe for displacement by drone technology.

made disaster, to gather information and navigate debris

The use cases for safe, cost-effective solutions range

and rubble to look for injured victims. Its high-definition

from data collection to delivery. And as autonomy and

cameras, sensors, and radars give rescue teams access to

collision-avoidance technologies improve, so too will

a higher field of view, saving the need to spend resources

drones' ability to perform increasingly complex tasks.

on manned helicopters. Where larger aerial vehicles

The emerging global market for business services using

would prove perilous or inefficient; drones, thanks to

drones is valued at over US$127 billion, according to

their small size, can provide a close-up view of areas.

PwC. And as more corporations look to capitalize on these commercial opportunities, investment in the drone

Today, drones are used in construction, photography,

space has grown.

agriculture, defense, and other industries to protect the

Over the past few years, drones have become central to

skies, repopulate forests and accomplish much more on a

the functions of various businesses and governmental

huge scale. Drone technology is only as powerful as the

organizations and have managed to pierce through areas

teams who create it, and with the innovation put on

where certain industries were either stagnant or lagging.

display by these drone companies, it's clear the future for

From quick deliveries at rush hour to scanning an

drones is sky-high.

unreachable military base, drones are proving to be extremely beneficial in places where a man cannot reach or is unable to perform in a timely and efficient manner.

Increasing work efficiency and productivity, decreasing workload and production costs, improving accuracy, refining service, and customer relations, and resolving security issues on a vast scale are a few of the top uses drones offer industries globally. The adoption of drone technology across industries leaped from the fad stage to

Arti Chaudhary (Content Analyst)

July

2022

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The content and images used in the publica on should not be reproduced or transmi ed in any form or by any means without the prior permission of Analy cs Insight.

Credits Adilin Beatrice

Aratrika Dutta

Sirisha

Editor-in-Chief

Content Manager

Content Analyst

Content Editor

Arti Chaudhary

Ashish Sukhadeve

Sayantani Sanyal

Satavisa Pati

Disha Sinha

Content Analyst

Content Analyst

Content Analyst

Content Analyst

Veda Sree

Nikita Das

Shruthi Talla

Kushagra Gupta

Content Analyst

Marketing Manager

Research Analyst

Creative Head

Anusha Polneni

Jyothi Pandey

Marketing Analyst

SEO Analyst

Srinivasa Reddy Akuri Web Developer

CONTENTS

08 Cover Story

Sami Al Adaw Esbaar

18

30

22

Nathan George

Antonio Augusto

Kurt Busch

Newmind Robotics

InnovBest

Syntiant

36

54

46

Anukool Lakhina

Nicolas Chee

Natsuo Akazawa

Guavus

ForwardX Robotics

PLEN Robotics

ARTICLES

28

Position Yourself in the Drone Business with these Marketing Strategies

44

Introducing Cognitive Intelligence via AI-driven Robots and Drones in Industry 4.0

C OV E R STO RY

At the Forefront, Presenting Data from AI and Drone Technologies in a NewLight

8

SAMI AL ADAW CEO, ESBAAR

9

C OV E R STO RY

“

Adopting an open mindset type of leadership where learning and improvement is part of the daily work and activities led ESBAAR to be recognized for its innovative solutions.

“

Sami Al Adawi CEO ESBAAR

w w w.esbaar.com

10

SBAAR is a provider of

E

has led the company to become the

By incorporating ESBAAR

artificial intelligence (AI) and

preferred provider of AI and drone-

technologies into operations, clients

autonomous systems

powered technologies for several of

have reported up to 70% of cost

solutions. Based in Muscat, Oman,

its clients in overcoming the most

savings, higher ROI, and a significant

the company is founded and led by a

challenging and dangerous tasks.

reduction in hazards and risk rates, along with the identification of new,

team of Omani entrepreneurs. In 2017, ESBAAR established a

With new innovative AI

valuable information and

national reach program across a

technologies and drone-powered

enhancement opportunities,

wide range of industries and

solutions, ESBAAR transforms aerial

resource optimization, improved

customers. Besides, ESBAAR is the

data and site footage into

risk management in the company's

first Omani company to be

comprehensive, accurate, and

portfolio, and streamlining of front-

recognized by the Civil Aviation

actionable insights to enable smart,

to-back operations.

Authority in the United Kingdom as

well-informed decisions. Those

a commercial drone service

solutions eliminate inefficiencies

ESBAAR offers drone and AI-

provider. ESBAAR is one of the

and information mismatch with

powered solutions to a wide range

leading companies in GCC to

discoveries and uncover hidden

of industries, including oil and gas,

provide complete solutions driven

depths, preventing costly decisions,

mining, utilities, infrastructure,

by revolutionary commercial and

easing the technical burden on

telecommunications, security, and

industrial drones, AI technology, and

operations resources, simplifying IT

surveillance, among others.

machine learning for a variety of

management, and decreasing capital

applications. Its proven track record

expenditures altogether.

Bestowing Industry Operations with Drone and AI Solutions ESBAAR was established with the vision to lead as a

of the largest oil and gas companies in the nation. Since

drone and AI solutions provider in the GCC. The

then, ESBAAR has expanded its offered services, and

company's mission is to help businesses and investors

eventually, the team inflated to 95 employees by 2022.

improve operational reliability, simplicity, and efficiency

Currently, ESBAAR is an approved and trusted provider

by enabling higher investment returns and reducing cost

of drone and AI-powered solutions to all major oil and gas

and risk. The team strives to provide services that meet

companies in the country. By 2022, ESBAAR has

regulatory requirements and are in line with industry

completed over 15,000 safe commercial drone flights in

best practices and transparency.

Oman, which is the highest record to be achieved by any local company. In 2019, the company launched its wide

ESBAAR was established in 2017 by Omani

range of AI services, enabling clients to build custom AI

entrepreneurs as the first local provider of drone and AI-

models to analyze aerial data collected by drones to offer

powered solutions in the country. ESBAAR conducted its

fast and accurate insights. Fast-forwarding to 2022,

first commercial drone operations in early 2018 for one

ESBAAR is set to launch the largest drone, Beyond Visual

11

C OV E R STO RY Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, in the GCC for a major

vision is to expand into other GCC markets by the year

oil and gas company that will enable the clients to

2023, offering its wide range of services for all major oil

conduct asset inspections more efficiently while

and gas companies in the region.

reducing hazards on its staff significantly. ESBAAR's

A Veteran Technologist Leading ESBAAR Sami Al Adawi is the CEO of ESBAAR and one of the

ESBAAR and turn it into one of the leading drone

founders of the company. He holds a degree in

companies in the GCC region.

Mechanical Engineering from the University of

Through the vision of ESBAAR's founding team, the

Kentucky in the USA and has developed a passion for

company managed to influence the industry and the

artificial intelligence and machine learning. Since 2017,

policies in Oman to support disruptive technologies and

he put his immense knowledge and experience to work

applications that led to putting the country on the top

along with his team towards building ESBAAR. Within 4

among other MEAN region countries.

years, Sami and the co-founders managed to lead

Denting the Oil & Gas Industry with Smart Tech By conducting safe commercial operations led by its

movement enabled several organizations to speed up

100% Omani team, the co-founders of ESBAAR managed

their digital transformation plans and processes by

to support the country's vision of 2040 by adopting and

relying on local resources. Sami reveals that he and his

developing new smart technologies that enable

team is benefiting the clients by providing services

sustaining the resources and sensitive industries such as

through collected data that is stored locally, which

oil and gas. Sami claims that ESBAAR is the first company

increases the security of operations. By having all the

in Oman to introduce new career positions such as 'drone

required needs and experiences of such technologies

pilots'. Along with that, ESBAAR has increased

next door, Omani companies managed to work closely

awareness about the use of such technologies among

with ESBAAR to make most of their artificial intelligence

different sectors including government, local companies,

needs possible at low cost and high value.

international companies, and others. This kind of

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Energizing the 'Innovation Leap' with Digitization The co-founders of the company believe that modern

and struggle to survive.

innovation is redefined by the new types of technologies

In Oman, some organizations are taking the slow path

which's potential has not yet reached its full capabilities,

into digital transformation over the fear of impact these

such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud services.

disruptive technologies will have such as loss of jobs, high

In most industries, such technologies are applicable and

costs of changing operation procedures, etc, claims Sami.

support the management and operations fields. For

ESBAAR understands the local and regional challenges

many applications, certain functionalities are still

and the impact of digitization. Therefore, within 2-years

running conventionally, and now, with such disruption,

of launching the drone operations commercially,

many organizations have started to adopt new methods

ESBAAR has introduced a wide range of customized AI

using digital products or even developing their own

solutions to support its clients and respond in an

solutions. Sami remarks that nowadays, the pace of

innovative way to aid their operational challenges and

change in the economical field is highly impacted by the

turn them into commercially feasible services and

4th industrial revolution technologies, and organizations

products.

that are not responding to this impact are going to fail

Real-World Challenges, Real Results According to the co-founders, adopting an open mindset

market in a fair way that will enable them to attract and

in leadership where learning and improvement are part

retain employees with an innovative mindset and

of daily work and activities is what makes ESBAAR a

advanced skills at all company levels and departments.

recognized innovative solution provider. Through its

Through that, the harmony and base of communication

market analysis and intelligence, the team records any

and work are uplifted to the company's vision and

past, current, and future challenges that the

mission.

organizations are facing in their industry of service. By

Sami says that ESBAAR also works closely with other

having this information, ESBAAR manages to either

organizations and SMEs in the local and international

introduce new technologies or develop new solutions.

market to develop new technologies and digitally

Also, to improve the way ESBAAR is innovating, the

transform others firms in Oman. This helps the company

company is headhunting the best candidates in the

make innovation even more possible.

13

C OV E R STO RY

Turning Drone Pains into Data Purposes Sami remarks that ESBAAR has faced several challenges,

speed up the process of acquiring drone permits for each

however, through its improved experience, the company

project and manage to conduct the jobs within the

has managed to overcome those obstacles and mitigate

project schedule. Also, ESBAAR has developed its own

its way of operations to ease the process. In Oman and

health and safety procedures and it is the first-ever

similar countries, flying drone policies are very strict,

company to do so. It is leading Oman's drone operations

which limits the use of technologies. Therefore,

and acquiring a record of Zero Lost Time Injuries as of

acquiring flying drones permits in an accelerated

May 2022. With its high profile, the company has

process. Other challenges include overcoming the

managed to convince most of its clients about the safety

clients' fear of applying drone solutions by having a

and benefits of drones and other artificial intelligence

drone fly above their facilities. ESBAAR has been

solutions.

working with the responsible authorities and clients to

Turning Drone Pains into Data Purposes ESBAAR is the first local dedicated provider of drone and

executed since its inception. Besides, this year, ESBAAR

AI-powered solutions in the Sultanate of Oman, the co-

was awarded the largest Drone Beyond Visual Line of

founders claim. ESBAAR holds the record for the highest

Sight (BVLOS) operations contract in the GCC with a

commercial drone flights completed in the country, with

major oil and gas company.

over 15,000 commercial drone flights being safely

To a Prosperous Future The co-founders of ESBAARdemonstrate that the drone

rescue, construction, and more, the use of drones is still

industry is still at the beginning of its potential cycle. A

limited. The enormous variations and use of drones are

drone is just a flying robot, a medium, where the potential

marking its potential to be developed and being further

of the technologylays in the significant value and

improved for many services. Commercially and on civil

importance of collected data. Drones can be used in a

bases, drones are going to be a primary part of daily

wide range of industries. In some industries like oil and

activities. The drone industry is thriving day by day, and

gas, agriculture, security and surveillance, and defense,

the human capital involved in this industry is also

the use of such technologies is reaching high and

increasing.

advanced stages. While in other sectors such as logistics,

14

ESBAAR Sami Al Adawi

Nathan George

CEO

Founder & CEO

ESBAAR is a provider of ar ficial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems solu ons. Based in Muscat, Oman, the company is founded and led by a team of Omani entrepreneurs. In 2017, ESBAAR established a na onal reach program across a wide range of industries. It is the first Omani company to be recognized by the Civil Avia on Authority in the United Kingdom.

Newmind Robo cs is a startup located in the Boston Area that creates robo cs solu ons, from fetching tennis balls, autonomously trimming plants, and automa ng naviga on for large vehicles.

Besides, conver ng robo cs ideas into robo cs business by crea ng so ware, hardware, and the infrastructure needed, it is also crea ng the most affordable outdoor autonomous robots to quicken proof-of-concept for robo cs startups.

www.esbaar.com

World's

Newmind Robotics

Best

DRONE COMPANIES TO WATCH IN 2022

www.newmindrobo cs.com

InnovBest

Syntiant

Guavus

ForwardX Robotics

Antonio Augusto

Kurt Busch

Anukool Lakhina

Nicolas Chee

Founder & CEO

CEO

Founder

Founder & CEO

InnovBest was designed to create differen ated applica ons of AI that automate the decision-making process in its most laborious part, instead of the BI analy cs or spreadsheets that require a long me and are very laborious. The InnovAI automa cally processes analy cs with more precision. Its value proposi on is AI solu ons that are ready and very simple to use.

Syn ant is enabling customized voice experiences at the edge, across mul ple products and use cases including wake word, command control, and event detec on, free from cloud connec vity, ensuring privacy and security. The company’s advanced chip solu ons merge deep learning with semiconductor design to produce ultra-low-power, highperformance, deep neural network processors for always-on applica ons in ba ery-powered devices.

Guavus was founded in 2006 with the sole mission to provide realme streaming analy cs for CSPs. In 2017, the company was acquired by Thales and is now a part of the Digital Iden ty and Security global business unit. The company enables its CSP customers to do more with less: drive more value from their data, at a lower cost.

www.innovbest.com

www.guavus.com www.en.forwardx.com

www.syn ant.com

PLEN Robotics

DJI

Natsuo Akazawa Founder & CEO PLEN Robo cs was established in July 2017 and u lizes robo cs, IT, and ar ficial intelligence to produce IoT solu ons that automize and streamline the hospitality industry.

The company’s first product offering “PLEN Cube” is a box-shaped AI assistant that uses face recogni on and tracking func ons to support cashless payments, hotel recep ons, drinks orders, and digitaliza on of the customer’s behavior history. www.plenrobo cs.com

ForwardX Robo cs is an awardwinning developer of intelligent robo cs with offices located globally. With a core focus on AI and its successful applica on within robo cs, ForwardX offers the world’s only visual autonomous mobile robot fleet for use in a wide range of business scenarios. The company’s solu ons address a number of problems across the supply chain, from manufacturing to logis cs.

Parrot

Skydio

Frank Wang

Henri Seydoux

Adam Bry

Founder &CEO

Chairman & Chief Execu ve Officer

DJI is the global leader in developing and manufacturing innova ve drone and camera technology for commercial and recrea onal use. DJI was founded and run by people with a passion for remote-controlled helicopters and experts in flight-control technology and camera stabiliza on. The company is dedicated to making aerial technology accessible, reliable, and easy to use for creators, innovators and businesses.

Parrot is a leading European group in the fast-growing industry of drones. The company is a real endto-end drone group from hardware and so ware, to services, with the mission to move the industry forward with new standards for drones at work. Parrot aims to provide best-in-class technology for inspec on, first responders, firefighters, search-and-rescue teams, security agencies, and surveying professionals.

wwwenterprise.dji.com

www.parrot.com

CEO Skydio is the leading drone manufacturer in the US and the world leader in autonomous flight.

Skydio leverages AI to create the world’s most intelligent flying machines for use by consumers, enterprises, and governments.

Founded in 2014, Skydio comprises leading experts in AI, robo cs, cameras, and electric vehicles from top companies, research labs, and universi es from around the world.

www.linkpop.com

NATHAN GEORGE Founder and CEO | Newmind Robotics

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TRANSFORMING INNOVATIVE IDEAS INTO ROBOTICS BUSINESS THROUGH AUTONOMOUS SOLUTIONS

N

ewmind Robotics is a startup located in the Boston Area that creates robotics solutions, from fetching tennis balls to autonomously trimming plants to automating navigation for large vehicles. The company converts any robotics idea into a robotics business by creating software, hardware, and the infrastructure needed. Newmind's core product is a robotics navigation app. Like how Microsoft created an operating system to allow computers to be massproduced, the company is creating software to drastically lower costs for a mobile robot. Newmind is also creating the most affordable outdoors autonomous robot to quicken proof-of-concept for robotics startups to generate series investments.

The company was founded with the mission to make robots as accessible as computers by lowering the cost of the most expensive component: navigation software.

The world needs robots to lower costs of goods, allow people to pursue more meaningful careers, and fix global issues like world poverty. Newmind is currently the only company tackling the most expensive part of a robot, with the potential to massively disrupt the space.

The company has a small team of engineers working to bring a new mind to the drone and robotics industry.

Newmind abides by the principle to make life better by innovating and revolutionizing machines.

While envisioning an astonishing future ahead, Newmind wants to create a robotics app store, similar to Microsoft's Windows or Apple's App Store. The company believes the only way to do this is through a navigation

platform: Newmind Navigation. Also, in addition to ground robots, Newmind wants to create autonomy software for drones and manipulators, to more affordably push the robotics revolution.

A Visionary Innovator Nathan George is the Founder and CEO of Newmind Robotics. He is also the founder of Synergy Ministries, a Christian non-profit building a free smartphone app to find similar Christians in their area and find help for their daily problems.

At Newmind, Nathan spends his time building up the company's various revenue streams. He creates robotics jobs and robotics contractors to work on them. Nathan built most of Newmind's navigation app, working with a small team to finish the alpha product, and finding a group of beta testers. He builds his network by finding relevant robotics content and posts it on LinkedIn. Nathan gained his bachelor's and master's degrees in Robotics Engineering from Worchester Polytechnic Institute. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he worked for Bloom Automation Inc as a Robotics Software Engineer and MedAcuity as a Software Engineer.

The Relevance of Funding for Startups According to Nathan, the United States is exploding with small companies trying to create robotics startups, but 99% of them fail. The major reason why companies fail is that they had received less funding than they needed, and costs were higher than expected. By

19

“The Robotics industrywill become a global revolution when creating an autonomous robot will be as affordable as creating a home computer was a few decades ago.”

Nathan George Founder and CEO Newmind Robotics

20

creating the most affordable outdoor robot and navigation software, these companies will have a much longer runway to beta test their product and achieve success.

Excelling with Innovation and Significant Partnerships Newmind's core innovation stems from its product Newmind Navigation. It is the only robotics navigation software than can give full navigation autonomy. Open-source ROS repositories only give a few features, specific software like BrainCorp's only work for specific robots, and solutions like 6 River Systems only work in specific areas. The company's software works for any robot and in any ground terrain. Newmind maintains the code long-term for improved features and reliability.

Nathan believes innovation within the computer or smartphone industries was based on a set of core software than needed to be maintained. Robotics is the same way and now has that software for sale. The company is augmenting its offering by partnering with various robotics hardware and software companies, like Freedom Robotics, for a cloud-based interface and data analytics.

Navigating Success with AI Applications Nathan says the core of Newmind Navigation is a type of Artificial Intelligence, known as Simultaneous Localization and Mapping. In addition to various algorithms, the company's end-user applications usually involve Computer Vision or Deep Learning. For example, Newmind is creating a tennis ball robot that employs AI to find tennis balls, navigate to them, throw them at a player, and return to a waiting position.

Invaluable Client Feedback After starting in August 2019, Newmind has worked on a dozens of robotics projects. Here are some feedbacks from the company's clients: “Hands down Nathan and his team are best we've had an opportunity to work with. They explained and answered every question we had, and listened to us. Very customer-

oriented, fully understands tasks, milestones, and feedback.

We recommend to anyone looking for quality and passion about the work they have.” – Mike Holmes “Excellent experience. Nathan is extremely knowledgeable in robotics and image detection. Working with him on a followup project now.” – Eric Guthrie Turning Challenges into Opportunities The biggest challenge to Newmind was a steady source of revenue. Because Nathan is waiting to secure seed funding while Newmind Navigation is in beta, the main source of revenue was either from family investments or contracts. As robotics is an emerging market, many clients undervalue how much the work is worth.

Newmind's largest challenge is convincing clients who don't have a background in robotics and that their projects will likely cost 5x while still creating a good experience, despite robotics projects tend to fail.

Initially finding robotics contracts was difficult, but the company found some ways to market online. Technically, the largest challenge is tuning hundreds of parameters, creating dozens of algorithms, and integrating them nicely into a package.

An Ambitious Roadmap of Future Expansion As Newmind continues to secure more and larger contracts, its goal is to continue to scale the agency work while creating many small robotics companies using Newmind Navigation. If the company can successfully help create other companies using this model, its brand will exponentially grow as the robots do, and Newmind can expand into other areas like arm manipulation and drones.

“We believe the robotics industry as a whole will become like the computer industry. In the beginning, it was expensive to own a personal computer and it didn't have many features. Over time, the costs will slowly reduce and the features will slowly increase to where robots will become vital to any individual, organization, or industry”, said Nathan.

21

ANTONIO AUGUSTO Founder and CEO | InnovBest

22

THE BEST IN AI TO AUTOMATE THE DECISION PROCESS

I

nnovBest was designed to create differentiated applications of AI (Artificial Intelligence) that automates the decision-making process in its most laborious part, instead of the BI analytics and / or spreadsheets that require a long time and are very laborious. The InnovAI automatically processes analytics with much more precision and agility.

When it comes to AI projects, there are always complexities that involve high cost and are time consuming, with the need for specialists, data scientists and complex modeling in the available AI tools.

The InnovAI application revolutionizes the way of using AI, without the need for AI modeling, without data scientists, without the complexities, deadlines and costs of a classic AI project.

Its value proposition is AI solutions that are ready for use and at the same time very simple to use – totally flexible.

An Experienced IT Leader Antonio Augusto is the Founder and CEO of InnovBest, technology lover and AI enthusiast. He has a background of over 45 years in IT industry and became familiar with several ever-changing technologies over time. Still, InnovBest is even learning new technologies and innovating with new solutions for its customers.

The Investment to Become an AI Expert InnovBest has made huge investments on AI Research & Development, trying several sets of algorithms until it gets to the actual stage of AI applications. Following the

hard work and dedication, the company's successful product InnovAI was created in 2020 during the pandemic. It is very new, yet the forecast for the next years is excellent as executives and IT professionals' reactions are wonderful for the product's best expectations.

InnovAI has been installed initially for some customers usage, which has increased the use of the solution, and reduces cost and expenses for CFOs and Controllers. It has also been used by Sales and Marketing Directors to leverage the best performance of sales teams with fewer costs and more efficiency.

Following the Three Major Steps The three major lessons, according to Antonio that InnovBest has learned from its presence in the industry are: never stop learning, innovation is essential and keep researching. It is clear that to manage a software company like InnovBest, changes are mandatory. The most astonishing thing that InnovBest has experienced is that what seems excellent for the moment might seem completely obsolete after years. This swift makes changes and research essential and the company sees these as the base of an innovative culture.

Conquering the Challenge of Lack of Confidence The initial challenge InnovBest faced was the lack of confidence in the market as a new company, mainly among enterprise companies. The same occurs with new technologies. If InnovBest takes AI as a new stream,

23

“Innovation in InnovBest is considered essential, and AI will invade in everyday life more. InnovAI is not only an evolution from traditional BIs, but it is a revolution. I am sure that it will change the corporate market dramatically.”

Antonio Augusto Founder and CEO InnovBest

24

there is a learning curve and the company sees very few early adopters. But with successful cases, InnovBest has a better adoption and understanding of the AI benefits.

market is very dynamic, and the innovation should see solutions where no one predicts how it can be solved before.

'Never Give Up,' the Perfect Slogan for Leaders Antonio asks emerging innovative leaders to 'never give up.' He presumes that research requires persistence; henceforth, leaders should be patient. Antonio adds that sometimes the research projects are unsuccessful, but it is a part of the process.

Beyond Accuracy and Agility, Get Savings in your Budget In addition to the low cost of the solution, InnovAI provides significant savings!

Antonio states that if your company has a BI, whatever it may be, InnovBest will be able to prove significant annual savings provided by the cost reduction, thanks to its product InnovAI. The InnovAI also brings innovation in values. The monthly value is very low and already includes the entire cloud infrastructure with unlimited use, clients can analyze the will and as many times as they want. They do not pay anything more.

And the most important: in addition to the low value of InnovAI, the InnovAI algorithms make analyses much more agile than any BI and with much more accuracy, therefore, an incomparable precision and agility.

When compared InnovAI with any other BI, instead of simply transforming data into information, clients will see that InnovAI has a much broader range of analytical resources that focuses on improving results, ready-touse AI analytics and with total flexibility for users.

Understanding Business Problems to Innovate Relevant RPA Solution InnovBest focuses on understanding the business problems to plan the architecture of RPA. The RPA must be relevant and essential to solve practical business problems. Otherwise, it will become another technology that has not adhered to business needs. In InnovBest's case, the InnovAI was planned to solve the specific needs of managers/controllers/executives by understanding the actual problems with BIs to construct AI applications that effectively solve the BI problems. These BI problems are in the market for over 20 years and are very wellknown.

InnovAI, the Brainchild of the Company's AI Innovation InnovBest believes that disruptive technologies are changing the world. It is not for the future, but the shift is happening now in several areas. For example, InnovAI's artificial intelligence application provides a big change in all decision processes. Activities that take between one or two weeks using BI and spreadsheets are done automatically in a few minutes with InnovAI. Remarkably, the AI application provides more accuracy and speed.

InnovAI provides a much complete and precise analysis than any BI tool in the market. The work of business analysts, managers and board of directors will have more than traditional KPIs and dashboards with the help of InnovAI, as well as understand the hidden detail of the KPIs easily. The leaders, too, need to change as the

The Future Ahead: Investing more on AI Research & Development InnovBest has plans to invest more in InnovAI Research & Development to create new disruptive solutions. The innovation needs to be a continuous process to stand ahead in the market.

InnovBest highlights that if other companies do the same for their software and applications, the differentiators will not exist. The software is designed to increase the value of customers and ease their day-to-day life. These developments make software automatic. With much more precision, artificial intelligence can even do impossible analysis using BIs and spreadsheets with a heavy volume of data.

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Position Yourself in the Drone Business with these Marketing Strategies

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D

rone services are a recent phenomenon that has arisen due to the rapid evolution in aerial unmanned technology. The technology basis of these services often leads people to think that their marketing strategy needs to be new and technologybased as well. If you own a drone business you already know how challenging it can be to drum up new customers. While it's true that some drone pilots can start small and scale their business quickly, for many drone pilots it can be a challenge to find new work.

Focus on Your Objective Once you have found your niche, you will be able to better understand your target audience and cater specifically to your intended clients. By doing so, you will learn the major influence points that you need to market to connect with future customers.

Determine Your Marketing Outlet Today, there is no doubt that having an online presence is absolutely essential. With that said, there are many outlets to choose from. A dedicated business website is an essential part of every marketing plan.

Create Your Social Media Profiles Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube have a very large reach and they are pretty easy to start with. These channels allow you to get exposure, advertise your work, and also create a gathering of people to communicate with (customers and peers alike).

Focus on Your Business Name Reflection First of all, choose an original name. Your name reflects you, your service, and your vision. Before finalizing, make sure to Google search your desired name, and see that there are not too many other companies already using the same name. Don't overdo the name, keep it short and simple. If you decide to make a site, have it designed to reflect your character and professional record.

Connect to Professional Forums Aside from the social media platforms mentioned above, there are many popular drone forums out there. Finding the right forums, that are relevant to your work, can be a good place to reach clients who are looking for your exact specialty. Adding your input on these forums, and advertising your website or social pages, will give your

business validity and show that you are active and engaged.

Customers Testimonials Kindly ask previous clients to share their experiences working with you. On your site, you could use customer quotes as endorsements, and this will in turn help you become credible. On social media, you could ask followers and clients to re-post your images or tag you on their own pages. Regardless, these testimonials will show that you are active and have a following for your service and business.

Provide a Contact Section and Respond Quickly By having a 'Contact Me/Us' section on your site (and social), you are showing your potential clients that you are approachable. They will feel more comfortable reaching out to you when you put yourself out there.

Once people start reaching out, you must make sure to respond in a timely manner.

Your Professional Record, Visible One of the most important things to share with your potential client base is that you hold a Part-107 certification. Today, many clients know to look for pilots who are Part 107 certified and that already have dedicated drone insurance. You want to make this information noticeable to your users immediately, whether it be on your site or social pages.

Always Stay Active and Promote Relevant Content Customers and followers want to see that your business is up and running, so posting regularly to your social media channels, and your website will keep them interested. With this being said, you do not need to go overboard. Posting too often may end up backlashing. If you begin to take over followers' social media newsfeeds, this could result in unfollows.

Attract New Clients with Google Marketing requires effort, time, and even money.

However, in the early stages of your business, there are lots of things you can do before you have to worry about spending money on paid advertising. Adding your business to Google will help you attract new clients when they use the Google search engine.

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KURT BUSCH CEO | Syntiant

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OPTIMIZING SILICON AND DEEP LEARNING MODELS TO CUSTOMIZE VOICE EXPERIENCES AT EDGE

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yntiant is enabling customized voice experiences at the edge, across multiple products and use cases including wake word, command control, and event detection, free from cloud connectivity, ensuring privacy and security.

Headquartered in Irvine, California, Syntiant Corp. is moving artificial intelligence (AI) from the cloud to edge devices. The company's advanced chip solutions merge deep learning with semiconductor design to produce ultra-low-power, high performance, deep neural network processors for always-on applications in battery-powered devices, such as hearing aids, earbuds, smart speakers, mobile phones and laptops.

Backed by some of the world's strongest strategic investors, including Intel Capital, Microsoft M12, Bosch Ventures, and the Amazon Alexa Fund, Syntiant's deep learning “intelligent voice” solution opens new markets and business opportunities for customers as demand for speech grows globally.

The company's highly accurate, ready-to-use, always-on voice solution adds wake word and speech control (in multiple languages) to any smart device, with ultra-lowpower and greater efficiency. Other applications include sensors, event detection, and speaker recognition.

Custom built to run AI workloads, the Syntiant® NDP100™ and Syntiant® NDP101™ microwatt-power Neural Decision Processors™ (NDPs) improve efficiency by 100x and throughput by 10x vs. traditional microcontroller units (MCUs).

The company also protects user privacy and security by

deploying deep learning at the edge, while lowering costs due to die size, as well as enabling implementation into the smallest devices. Syntiant also collects and trains its own data. Technical specs on the company's NDPs can be found by clicking on the following links: https://www.syntiant.com/ndp100 and https://www.syntiant.com/ndp101 A Mission to Succeed in Disruptive Market Founded in late 2017, Syntiant is driven by a global mission of bringing AI voice solutions to edge devices, free from touch and cloud connectivity, and that are more useful, more efficient, and more safe and secure.

The company's deep learning voice technology is leading the way toward universal hands-free functionality, changing the way people interact with their devices.

Syntiant has moved very fast, from closing its Series A round in October 2017, to sampling its first products in June 2018, to closing its Series B round in October 2018.

In September 2019, the company started shipping its Syntiant Neural Decision Processors (NDPs) to customers across the globe.

Designed into a wide range of battery-powered devices, Syntiant expects the first of these NDP-embedded consumer products to be available this year.

A Leadership with Futuristic Vision Tech veteran and CEO of Syntiant, Kurt Busch is quickly building Orange County's next great chip company. He along with Jeremy Holleman, Ph.D., Chief Scientist;

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“Syntiant is focused on the wide adoption of AI-powered smart devices. At first, the keyboard was used to interface with MS-DOS, then the mouse enabled Windows, and the touchscreen controller brought us the smartphone. Using edge-based artificial intelligence, Syntiant is enabling the next generation interface of voice to recognize and react to sounds and speech, rather than touch.”

Kurt Busch CEO Syntiant

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Pieter Vorenkamp, COO; and Stephen Bailey, Ph.D., CTO, and Chief Architect; founded Syntiant using a cleansheet design for AI processors to make voice the new user interface of the future.

Kurt has extensive experience in product development, having driven the successful launch of new products, ranging from SAS and semiconductors for telecom and broadcast video to consumer electronics and data center systems. Prior to Syntiant, he was President, CEO, and a member of the Board of Directors at Lantronix (NASDAQ: LTRX), a global provider of secure data access and management solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) and information technology (IT).

Kurt has also served as a Senior Vice President and General Manager of a high-performance analog business unit at Mindspeed Technologies, acquired by MACOM. He served at the University of California at Irvine's (UCI) alumni board for six years, dedicating his time to help graduates find success after college. Kurt is a member of the UCI CEO Roundtable and an inductee of the UCI School of Engineering Hall of Fame. He recently was recognized by UCI's School of Engineering with the school's Lauds & Laurels Distinguished Alumni Award.

Also, a member of the Global Semiconductor Alliance, Kurt earned Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and biological science at UCI and holds a Master of Business Administration from Santa Clara University.

Extending Quintessential Innovations for IndustryDemands Using a co-design methodology that optimizes silicon and deep learning models together, Syntiant's architecture achieves breakthrough performance by slashing power consumption while increasing throughput. The result is an inference solution capable of intelligent processing with months of always-on life from a coin-cell battery, providing consumers a smart device experience in battery-powered edge devices.

With over 500k parameters, far more than available on typical microcontroller-based neural solutions,

Syntiant's NDP100 and NDP101 microwatt-power processors provide the neural capability for accurate inference on challenging tasks, supporting up to 64 different events that could include words, audio events such as breaking glass or gunshots, or other sensor inputs such as gas or vibration.

Syntiant's NDPs also can serve as an always-on gatekeeper, providing a significant classification of events, allowing larger systems to remain dormant until absolutely needed. With support for multiple programmable words, Syntiant's technology expands the voice interface from simple wake words to a command language model, enabling a local speech control interface that does not require a cloud connection, increasing security and ensuring privacy.

Syntiant's NDPs are now available for use with the Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS). As a low-power processor for close-talk voice-enabled devices, the company's neural network technology allows customers to offer a built-in Alexa experience to even the most power-sensitive battery-powered devices.

Moving Towards an AI-Driven Reality Kurt believes that “As our world becomes increasingly interconnected through data and technology, we are inching closer to a reality that's driven by artificial intelligence, the merging of our physical and digital lives.”

According to him, Edge AI is at the heart of this paradigm shift. More importantly, Syntiant's technology is enabling customers to bring deep learning to batterypowered devices at the edge with significantly less power consumption than current MCUs and without cloud connectivity.

In remote parts of the world, for example, Syntiant's NDPs easily can enable the lowest-cost feature phone to listen to the human voice, enable a voice assistant and use the Internet just like a very high-end smartphone.

Similarly, high-performance neural networks at the edge are essential for demanding public safety environments and industry operations. According to Scott Mottonen, Corporate Vice President, devices at Motorola

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Solutions, “Syntiant's deep learning neural decision processors can provide users working remotely in the field with enhanced safety and efficiency by powering a new breed of applications at the edge.”

The company's NDPs incorporates an optimized neural network architecture supporting more than 500,000 weights to bring significant neural processing power to a very small energy footprint. This level of neural processing enables voice interfaces in even the harshest environments.

At the nexus of technology and social reform, lies the concern over security and privacy. By running inference on the local device, the company's neural technology avoids the privacy risk incurred by transmitting personal data to potentially insecure servers.

From enhanced functionality and better productivity to improving safety and privacy, Syntiant's technology is impacting innovation, making AI at the edge a reality.

Advancing with New-Age Technologies and Significant Partnerships Deep learning has provided a toolset that yields vastly superior decisions to traditional methods based on human intuition, essentially making devices smarter through the use of AI voice solutions.

However, deep learning methods are computationally intensive. Traditional semiconductor solutions for advanced deep learning at the edge are severely limited by excessive power dissipation.

With a power consumption of less than 140µW and package sizes down to 1.4mm X 1.8mm, the company's neural decision processors provide battery-powered

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consumer products typically 100x more efficiency and 10x the throughput of the typical low-power MCU solution.

Here are some of the significant partnerships: Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS): Syntiant® NDP100™ and Syntiant NDP101™ microwatt-power Neural Decision Processors™ (NDPs) are available for use with the Amazon Alexa Voice Service).

Qualcomm: Syntiant is a member of the Qualcomm® Extension Program, offering OEMs and ODMs accelerated integration of its ultra-low-power neural network technology with Qualcomm's audio platforms and systems on chip (SOCs).

Sensory Inc. – Syntiant has partnered with Sensory Inc., AI, and speech recognition pioneer, to deliver a deep learning, multi-lingual voice interface for batterypowered devices. The combined solution merges Sensory's larger, higher-performance TrulyHandsfree™ wake word engine and voice control with Syntiant's microwatt-power Neural Decision Processors™ (NDPs), bringing low-latency, real-time inference to edge devices, enabling consumers to seamlessly “voice” commands in dozens of languages.

Infineon Technologies: Syntiant also has partnered with Infineon Technologies, a world leader in semiconductor solutions, to service the rising demand for the voice user interface (VUI) in electronic devices. The joint solution enables developers to easily create custom, always-on voice user interfaces, allowing exact voice pick-up from long-distance, with whispered speech or in noisy environments.

MSI: Syntiant has partnered with MSI, the global leading

gaming brand, to develop edge AI computing, giving users access to voice command features regardless of cloud connectivity.

Prestigious Awards and Testimonials Syntiant is the first and only commercial silicon designed to put deep learning processing into almost any consumer device.

Syntiant's award-winning technology was developed by top minds in semiconductors and deep learning, receiving numerous accolades, including: Fast Company's prestigious list of the World's Most Innovative Companies for 2020; The Linley Group's 2019 Analysts' Choice Award in the Best Embedded Processor category; CES® 2020 Best of Innovation Awards Honoree; “Outstanding Emerging Technology Company” by OCTANe; Best Deep Learning Company by AI Breakthrough; CB Insights AI 100 List of Most Innovative Startups; and 451 Research's “451 Firestarter” Award; among others.

Here's what others have said about Syntiant: “Syntiant's neural decision processor technology takes a unique approach to wake word detection on voiceenabled devices,” said Sanjay Voleti, Senior Manager of device enablement with the Alexa Voice Service. “We recently conducted acoustic performance tests of their latest solutions and were impressed by their ability to support compute-on-edge and wake word detection on low-power devices. We're excited to see developers begin using this technology in their devices and deliver new Alexa experiences for customers.”

“As a member of our Qualcomm Extension Program,

Syntiant can combine its always-on word recognition and event detection solution with our ultra-low-power Bluetooth audio platforms,” said Chris Havell, Senior Director, Product Marketing, Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd. “Technologies like this enables powerful compute-on-edge processing to be offered in headsets, earbuds, and hearables without an Internet connection and with very low power consumption.”

“Infineon´s best-in-class XENSIV™ MEMS microphones are redefining the acoustic, electric power consumption and robustness standards for voice user interfaces,” said Dr. Roland Helm, Ph.D., Head of Product Line Sensors at Infineon Technologies. “Together with Syntiant we are facilitating clear voice commands at the edge that support audio and keyword classifications, on and offline, in a variety of challenging, power-critical always-on and battery-driven environments.”

A Progressive Roadmap to Prosperity According to Kurt, Syntiant is creating real value with its deep learning technology, making edge devices smarter with its AI voice solution, as global consumer demand shifts from touch screens to speech control.

The company believes consumers soon will be controlling all kinds of edge devices with its built-in voice technology.

Given the ease-of-use of its solution for putting deep learning into battery-powered devices that is a low cost, cloud-free, low power, and super-efficient, Syntiant is uniquely positioned to address the growing AI voice market opportunity.

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ANUKOOL LAKHINA Founder | Guavus

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HELPING CSPS DRIVE MORE VALUE FROM THEIR DATA USING AI-DRIVEN ANALYTICS

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uavus (a Thales company) has been built from the ground up with a singular focus – serving communications service providers (CSPs). The company enables its CSP customers to do more with less: drive more value from their data, at a lower cost.

With more than a decade of experience in streaming data analytics for CSPs, Guavus understands the needs of CSPs and their highly complex networks which process huge volumes of data every day. The company has consistently met these needs with carrier-grade solutions that deliver definitive success and reliability.

Guavus' commitment to the CSP market has led to a resilient and extensible product portfolio that easily integrates into mobile network operator (MNO) and mobile system operator (MSO) network architectures.

The company's real-time streaming data collection is highly available with local redundancy and has the ability to replay data in the event of system failures. The flexibinning methodology utilized allows Guavus' solutions to intelligently and automatically handle data delays or mismatched speeds when aggregating data from multiple sites without any manual intervention. This is an important part of why the company can handle the scale and performance required in CSP networks, which are often massive and complex.

Abiding by the 'Analyze First, Store Later' Principle Guavus was founded in 2006 with the sole mission to provide real-time streaming analytics for CSPs. In 2017, the company was acquired by Thales and is now a part of

the Digital Identity and Security global business unit.

Guavus has locations in the United States, Canada, India, Singapore, and Australia, and caters to a global customer base of MNO and MSO customers.

Historically, Thales has been involved in the aerospace, defense, transportation, and related industries.

However, in 2016, it started acquiring software companies, with the aim of supporting its own digital transformation and to enable its clients' transformations. In particular, it has focused on the following areas: security, artificial intelligence (AI), and real-time advanced analytics. From a technical perspective, Guavus offers AI-based analytics at the network edge and in the core of the network for central processing, which can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud.

Unlike some other data science-oriented analytics providers, Guavus has, since its inception, been very focused on providing CSP solutions rather than generic products. Currently, these include operational i n t e l l i g e n c e , s e c u r i t y i n t e l l i g e n c e , m a r ke t i n g intelligence, and smart industry and IoT solutions among many other use cases.

The founding principle of the company was based on an 'Analyze First, Store Later' model as opposed to the traditional paradigm of centralized store-first analytics which in actuality doesn't work for large-scale, distributed, real-time analytics. It's key is to analyze the data as it comes in and, once people can do that, they can

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“Our priority is building advanced analytics and artificial intelligence solutions that help CSPs transform not only the way they run their networks but how they engage and service their subscribers,”

Anukool Lakhina Founder Guavus

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start pushing out timely decisioning applications for realtime insights and support.

AI-driven Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics for Improved CX and Lower Opex Anukool Lakhina is the Founder of Guavus. While doing his Ph. D project at Sprint Advanced Technology Labs, Anukool realized the importance of analyzing data in a timely manner. “The lab had a really audacious idea, some would even call it crazy. The idea was this: what if we could collect every single packet from our network?” recalls Anukool. “Back then, we only had enough storage to collect data for an hour. So, we would turn on the sensors and after collecting an hour's worth of data we would fill up all the drives and turn the sensor off.”

At that time, it was much cheaper and faster to physically ship the data to a central lab via FedEx versus the backhaul network. Once the data had arrived, the labs would run an analysis that would effectively reveal many interesting insights about customer demands on the network, security threats, etc. Though this was seen as interesting, such insights were of limited value to the business and operational teams as most of them were latent and only seen in hindsight. This feedback led to the genesis of Guavus, a real-time big data analytics firm based in San Jose, California. Since its inception, the company's sole purpose has been to solve the problem of enabling real-time decisions with massive volumes of data.

The original idea of Guavus was born and the purpose was to instrument the networks in such a way that enables the collection of all the data from the associated CSP networks efficiently. “This was before there were phrases like big data, AI and data science,” recalls Anukool.

The emergence of AI has allowed the company to go beyond statistical analytics to arrive at accurate conclusions and predictions. This goes beyond recognizing patterns to machine reasoning, thus putting data into context and enabling the network to predict and prescribe actions. By leveraging machine learning

(ML) and AI, CSPs can predict the needs of their customers and their systems, automate preventative actions, enable more comprehensive customer care, and create personalized offers based on subscriber behavior and interest.

Serving Clients with Powerful AI/ML Accelerators Guavus has a long history of working with the top service providers worldwide – analyzing their huge volumes of high-velocity data and enabling actionable insights through the analytics it performs. The company's suite of products is powered by a rich AI-driven behavioral analytics engine running behind the scenes. Pre-built advanced ML algorithms packaged as “accelerators” are applied on hundreds of terabytes of real-time streaming events to solve a wide range of use cases across network operations, marketing, customer care, experience management, security, IoT and subscriber-based monetization.

These actionable insights allow Guavus customers to integrate their orchestration systems to enable true close-loop automation of their processes. The company has solved use cases ranging from diagnostic to predictive and prescriptive analytics which assists its customers in their daily workflows without the need for advanced analytical training.

For example, the AI/ML accelerators powering Guavus products address problems such as incident prediction, anomaly detection, behavioral analysis, root cause analysis, ensemble classification, concept extraction, risk bucketing, sessionization, continuous learning, and reasoning.

Exploring New Ways to Apply AI/ML Analytics Anukool believes AI and ML are shaping the landscape with their capability to provide innovative solutions to some long-standing problems. They are enabling new ways of problem-solving and automation capabilities, whose impact is manifested in every software interaction in our day-to-day lives – from healthcare to

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finance, from education to social media, from shopping to online gaming.

Guavus has realized the disruptive potential of AI/ML and the powerful impact it has for CSPs and their customers across industries. One of the many success stories is in the field of customer service where reducing the mean-time-to-diagnose (MTTD) and mean-time-toresolve (MTTR) network issues have a positive impact on customers' experience. This is emerging as a big area of success for AI across many different industries. In addition, the company's products offer AI/ML-powered decisioning in optimized network operations, IoT connectivity services, connected vehicles, fraud detection, dynamic pricing, customer personalization, asset management among many other applications.

AI/ML can help CSP networks become self-optimizing and even self-healing. Behavioral techniques are used to analyze normal and abnormal behavior and predict fraud. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is heavily used to parse large amounts of training and support material to create an accessible knowledge base that can be used by operators to resolve issues quickly. The cost savings along with the competitive advantage offered by these solutions are huge incentives for Guavus' customers to be interested in these innovative solutions.

Industry-leading Solutions Driven by Experience with

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Top CSPs Anukool says that the company's experience with the top CSPs has driven its architecture and design of its products to handle the scale and data quality needs of the most demanding environments – processing petabytes of data at high speeds, each day. Guavus created stream processing software before Spark was invented and has years of expertise in this software capability. The company focuses not only on the stream processing of data but also on the curation of the data in real-time. All of this is done while making the data highly available and suited to meet the end application's need.

Remarkable Success with CSPs and Industry Accolades The world's largest CSPs rely on Guavus to increase efficiencies, create new revenue streams, and improve t h e i r c u s t o m e r s ' ex p e r i e n c e . T h e c o m p a ny ' s deployments span the globe with installations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Guavus is driving digital transformation at all of the Tier 1 MSOs and at 6 of the 7 world's largest telecommunications providers.

Moreover, the company's customers are able to analyze big data in real-time and take decisive actions to lower costs, increase efficiencies and dramatically improve the end-to-end customer experience – all with the scale and security required by next-gen 5G and IoT networks.

The top 4 MSOs in North America and Europe use

Guavus' operational analytics solutions to unify siloed data, optimize operations, and reduce time to resolve issues. The company's earliest technology was focused on the collection of data at extremely high data rates from locations across large geographies.

Guavus has won many industry awards and accolades throughout the years. Some of these include: Ÿ Data Breakthrough Award – Cross Infrastructure Data Analytics Solution of the Year (2020) Ÿ Frost & Sullivan Award – Global Smart Data Analytics Enabling Technology Leadership (2019) Ÿ Insights Success – The 10 Most Disruptive AI Solution Providers (2019) Ÿ Analytics Insight – The 10 Most Innovative AI & Cognitive Solution Providers (2019) Ÿ insideBigData Impact 50 – The Industry's Most Impactful Companies in Big Data (Q2 2019) Ÿ Global Telecoms Awards – Advancing Artificial Intelligence finalist (2019) Ÿ The AIconics Awards – Best AI Application in Customer Service finalist (2019) Ÿ Frost & Sullivan Award – Global Big Data Analytics Customer Value Leadership (2018) Ÿ CIOReview – 20 Most Promising Big Data Solution Providers (2018) Ÿ The CEO Views – Top 10 Most Admired AI-Solution Providers (2018)

The Silicon Review – 50 Most Innovative Companies to Watch (2018) However, the highest award that the company has received has been its customers' business. “It is an honor to serve the CSP community and to be installed at leading service providers throughout the world,” says Anukool. Ÿ

The Future Roadmap Guavus is focused on business value problems it can solve for its CSP customers and how it can leverage AI and ML for that purpose. The company is driven by the current problems seen by CSPs such as achieving higher levels of subscriber satisfaction, reducing subscriber churn, and improving the availability/quality of services on the mobile network.

Anukool believes the mobile network will continue to change and evolve as new services demand higher levels of security, performance, and scale. Requirements will evolve over the next 2-3 years, with the advent of 5G, which will increase the need for greater automation, control, and insight as CSPs are seeing ways to enable the n e t w o r k t o a c h i eve i t s o w n o p t i m i z a t i o n a n d maintenance. It's Guavus' belief and the prediction that AI and advanced analytics will be critical in achieving this vision and that it will need to be deeply embedded in their operational DNA.

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Introducing Cognitive Intelligence via

AI-driven Robots and Drone IN INDUSTRY 4.0 44

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igitalization and globalization have started transforming Industry 4.0 with cutting-edge technologies in the global tech market.

Innovations through cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, IoT, and many more have already started accelerating the rate of productivity in a wide variety of industries. These constant innovations have a huge impact on how customers and companies work and adjust in this fast-paced life. All because of automation and its power in robots and drones. The global tech market has experienced some dramatic growth in the performance of industries with the integration of AI-driven robots as well as drones. Smart initiatives like this have pushed the boundaries to embrace digital transformation efficiently and effectively without affecting the existing professions of human employees. The combination of human-machine partnership in the global tech market is flourishing to bridge the gap between productivity and performance.

Thus, Industry 4.0 has introduced the new concept of integrating cognitive science and artificial intelligence as cognitive intelligence through AI-driven robots and drones. Cognitive intelligence tends to help robots and drones with proactive decisions in the nearby future.

This, in turn, can help human employees to focus on other key areas of a company to boost the decision-making process and drive customer engagement within a short period of time.

The market share of cognitive intelligence is expanding day by day with more use of AI-driven robots and drones.

The major digital disruption has occurred with artificial intelligence performing and mimicking human work and human intelligence. The codes are written with machine learning coding from the vast amount of data-structured, unstructured, and semi-structured.

Researchers are working hard to integrate cognitive intelligence into AI-based robots and drones with appropriate steps to avoid any potential accident with miscommunication. AI-driven robots and drones must have a deeper understanding of how human communicates with a wide variety of accents and jargon.

Some AI and robotics experts often claim that robots and drones can perform better than human employees with

automation and RPA. But these advanced machines lack cognitive intelligence without any properly trained data.

Industry 4.0 is observing phenomenal changes and improvements with the intersection of robotics and inspection systems. By introducing cognitive intelligence with AI-driven robots and drones, cognitive robots are set to overlap multiple disciplines such as artificial intelligence, robotics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and many more. Smart functionalities through cognitive intelligence include perception process, planning, complicated motor coordination, attention allocation, and so on for the benefit of the industry.

Cognitive intelligence exploits AI models such as robots and drones based on biological recognition to act ashumans in real-life ecosystems. It is also known as IQ in machines because machines also tend to acquire knowledge from relevant data and gain somatic experiences. Machines like AI-driven robots and drones can learn and utilize the information for navigating such real-life scenarios in different industries.

Cognitive functions in advanced artificial intelligence machines may include remembering and storing memories, acquiring new information, data processing, decision-making abilities, as well as problem-solving skills. AI-based robots and drones can perform better automated analysis and interpretation of relevant data with an automated decision-making process for the integration of cognitive intelligence. Hence, the global tech market is expecting these machines to offer faster response times, higher efficiency, better job satisfaction, and better flexibility to the workplace in Industry 4.0.

With the combination of cognitive science and artificial intelligence, humanoid robots can carry out different human tasks in different industries with appropriate training. Companies in the global tech market have to figure out different ways to utilize cognitive intelligence without sacrificing any existing human staff as well as computer systems.

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NICOLAS CHEE Founder and CEO | ForwardX Robotics

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TRANSFORMING BUSINESSES WITH THE WORLD’S ONLY VISION-BASED AMR FLEET

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orwardX Robotics is an award-winning developer of intelligent robotics with offices located globally. With a core focus on Artificial Intelligence and its successful application within Robotics, ForwardX offers the world's only visual Autonomous Mobile Robot fleet for use in a wide range of business scenarios. A globally recognized AMR leader, ForwardX solutions address a number of pain points across the supply chain from manufacturing to logistics functions.

ForwardX Robotics currently serves a number of Fortune 500 companies across a wide range of industries, such as SF DHL, ITOCHU Logistics, TCL, and more. Its solutions have delivered real value to each and every customer leading to 50% labor cost reductions, 200%-300% increases in productivity, and accuracy increases up to 99.5%. ForwardX Robotics currently possess over 160 pending patents with a team of 180 people, which includes 120 engineers of which 10 hold PhDs. ForwardX is comprised of the world's top computer vision scientists and robotics experts as shown by its award-winning work, such as two 1st-Place Prizes at TRECVID and a 1st Place Prize for IEEE's VOT-RT. Mission to Add Business Value Founded in 2016, ForwardX is built on a vision of the future where intelligent robotics contribute more to the society, freeing people from menial tasks and allowing everyone to live more meaningful lives. Since its

conception, ForwardX's mission has been to add value to people's lives and businesses' operations through the development of cutting-edge automation technology.

Unlike many high-tech organizations, ForwardX's prides itself on practically applying next generation technologies to areas where they really matters.

ForwardX first received public attention through OVIS, the world's only side-following suitcase, which crowdfunded over US$1 million and earned coverage in a number of leading publications, including Forbes, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and more.

ForwardX's technological capabilities also have a huge positive impact within the supply chain, where a number of external pressures are creating chaos for the manufacturing and logistics functions within large-scale enterprises and SMEs alike. While developing OVIS, ForwardX began to develop its automation platform, ForwardX Matrix, which combines fleets of visual Autonomous Mobile Robots, also known as vAMRs, with intelligent fleet management infrastructure to automate a number of labor-intensive tasks within warehouses, distribution centers, and manufacturing plants. To date, it has developed a number of different solutions for use across a wide range of scenarios; its current offering consists of the ForwardX FLEX and MAX solutions, each integrating a combination of its vAMR range and f(x) fleet management software for a comprehensive material handling solution.

A Global Technology Leader

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“ForwardX continues to work tirelessly on developing collaborative mobile robotics that solve real problems and improve lives. Our mission to deliver bottom-line value to warehousing and manufacturing environments remains the ultimate motivation for us.”

Nicolas Chee Founder and CEO ForwardX Robotics

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Nicolas Chee, the Founder and CEO of ForwardX Robotics is considered a forward-thinking leader in the industry. Before beginning his postgraduate degree in Integrated Circuits from Beihang University, Nicolas competed in and won ABU's Robocon, an international robotics competition that attracts the most talented students from programming, mechanical design, and electronic circuit design majors across Asia.

After completing his master's degree, Nicolas joined SAP as a Project Manager and Senior Business Consultant, working there for close to 5 years before moving to Oracle to head up its SaaS division as a Regional VP. While at Oracle, Nicolas's hard work resulted in a number of honors, from being recognized as a Global Top 100 Performer and China's Top 10 to being awarded a Global President's Club membership. However, it was after six successful years at Oracle that Nicolas conceived his vision of the future and, in April 2016, founded ForwardX Robotics committing himself to his vision.

Since its early beginnings, ForwardX has devoted itself to pushing the envelope technologically and putting new technologies to test. As a company with a clear technological advantage, Nicolas saw ForwardX as a pioneer of the automation industry with a responsibility to deliver mature solutions that could provide tangible benefits. Since founding the company, Nicolas has not shied away from his technical background nor his acute talent for leadership. Recruiting and collaborating with recognized experts, from computer vision scientists to technical project managers to supply chain professionals, Nicolas has been able to assemble and lead a team with his deep technical and industry knowledge.

While every startup's voyage faces ups and downs, Nicolas has proven to be a worthy captain steering the ship with a level head and staying true to the company's mission.

Developing the Best of Autonomous Technology According to leading industry analysts, the United States

and China combined are expected to account for nearly three-quarters of all Autonomous Mobile Robot revenues within three years while also representing half of the supplier market. These predictions show how important intelligent robotics already are and will to continue to be in the future of world-leading economies.

As part of this exploding landscape, ForwardX stands as a visionary; while other vendors focus on more rudimentary technology, ForwardX puts the “intelligent” back into “intelligent automation”, with a clear focus on developing the best of autonomous technology.

Furthermore, with the fallout of COVID setting in, material handling automation has moved to the forefront of the supply chain priority list; accelerating ecommerce growth, rising high mix, low volume (HMLV) production, and a widening labor gap have proven to be the key drivers behind the overall trends towards intelligent automation. During this time, ForwardX and its solutions are proving to be indispensable for its global client base. With the flexibility of the Matrix platform, clients like SF DHL, ITOCHU Logistics, and TCL are able to make the best of ForwardX solutions to address general demand instability, spikes in e-commerce orders, and the need for health and safety initiatives. With production returning in the U.S. and the production in China all but recovered, its clients have seen industryleading levels of resiliency in their operations within the four walls of their warehousing and manufacturing facilities.

Strategic Partnerships Driving Innovative Solutions ForwardX is a company founded on innovation and drive to push the world forward. This core axiom can be seen across every function of the company, from product management to R&D to marketing. The team at ForwardX prides itself on strong lateral thinking and a holistic outlook of the world. These competencies combined give them an ability to innovate and develop solutions with clear value and a strong product-market fit. Furthermore, operating in a relatively infantile market, ForwardX understands that many of the

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situations facing customers are being experienced for the very first time and, in many cases, the company is developing solutions to entirely new problems with very little established data. With this in mind, ForwardX sees tremendous value in its customers as a deep pool of knowledge to guide innovation.

ForwardX believes that, while the mobile robotics market is relatively young, automation itself is very much established due to Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) having penetrated a huge portion of the market already.

Furthermore, with very complex value streams, supply chain activities will always require a number of different vendors contracted to automate different parts of the process. Because of this, the need for strong strategic partnerships is vital to ensure its solutions are not siloed within one piece of the process and that the data its solutions are able to gather can be used effectively across different platforms. With this in mind, ForwardX works with a number of hardware providers, related automation providers, and distributors to ensure continuous innovation and growth.

Valuable Feedbacks and Awards ForwardX has received a number of awards for its work in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. It secured 1st place prizes for Pedestrian Detection at NIST's TRECVID, 1st place prize for Multi-Object Tracking at IEEE's VOT-RT, 95% accuracy and 65% first hit rate with Market-1501 and ViPER datasets respectively, Best Paper award at ACM Multimedia

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2013, and a Gold Medal at TAAI 2017. Furthermore, the company has been recognized by the Zhongguancun Frontier Technology Innovation Contest as a leader in the fields of Smart Technology and Industrial Internet-ofThings (IIoT). As the developer of the world's only visual AMR fleets, the ForwardX team is proud of its status as one of the most innovative robotics providers in the world.

With customer centricity as a core brand value, ForwardX has always aimed to deliver above and beyond the expectations of its customers. With customers who are results-driven multinational enterprises, ForwardX aims to deliver substantial productivity increases and cost reductions that make its solutions a truly valuable asset to its customer's operations. The company's aspiration to overdeliver has helped it to develop deep relationships with all of its customers, who value determination and focus when it comes to ensuring that the solutions offered to them are in the best position to succeed.

Transforming Challenges to Opportunities Like most startups, especially within a new market, the company faces new challenges every day. It asserts that, every startup will face challenges from their culture, recruiting and retaining talent, product development, marketing, etc. and these challenges are to be expected for the most part.

For ForwardX, its strength has always been in its technology and its technical expertise. But, with disruptive technologies, it is all about entering existing

markets and trying to address complex, nuanced problems that have been problems for a long time.

The company believes that, as a startup, it is approaching these problems with a fresh approach to try to reimagine the problem and apply technical expertise to a new solution. The main challenge with this is truly understanding the problem, the people experiencing the problem, and all of the complexities that come with that.

For example, in a traditional industry like the logistics industry, there are some set “rules” that are followed across the industry, but every operation will have its own way of doing things. This makes attaining a deep understanding impossible without speaking directly to countless sources and experts on the subject. ForwardX has managed to make the best of this challenge through strategic partnerships and some great hires.

Other than that, like most other startups developing a disruptive technology, ForwardX has faced challenges in trying to convince traditional enterprises who have always done things a certain way to change the way they do things. Particularly in the case of Autonomous Mobile Robots, there is always going to be some fear that robots will replace humans and create more unemployment.

ForwardX, however, believes that robots are a complement to humans and that solutions will actually serve to create more jobs and elevate society to new levels of productivity. The company reasons that the level of automation in the world is at its highest and yet, until COVID, unemployment had not been negatively affected at all. As time goes on, ForwardX is starting to see fewer and fewer worries around that subject and more of a focus on how enterprises can reskill workforces, increase worker satisfaction, and, ultimately, get the best out of their workers.

Promising Future Ahead Looking at the industry as a whole, ForwardX believes that the next five years are set to be transformative for those in the robotics industry. By now, everyone has seen the plethora of research reports predicting huge growth in the robotics industry but, particularly in the AGV/AMR

market, widespread adoption is expected over the next three years.

In supply chain functions particularly, with the outbreak of COVID, the amplified need for intelligent automation across logistics, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare environments can be seen. As a result, there is more willingness to adopt next-gen technologies due to major shifts in mindset and a lot of age-old beliefs being thrown out of the window; a key example of this is the belief that one can be productive or flexible but not both. It's long been thought that achieving high levels of productivity and flexibility was impossible. Companies were forced to choose between the two and, with the rarity of major disruptions and the temporal distance between those events, most tended to choose a highly productive but rigid operation. But, in doing so, they left themselves entirely susceptible to an event like COVID. Supply chains are starting to understand that they cannot afford to sacrifice agility and flexibility anymore.

As a result, many companies are starting to look for solutions that can offer equally productive and flexible operations. ForwardX believes that technological advancement, and particularly robotics advancement, will present opportunities for companies to achieve both. An obvious example can be seen in autonomous robotics where supply chains can implement highly flexible and scalable solutions that increase productivity and efficiency almost immediately.

The robotics industry will act as a point of convergence for a lot of advanced technologies. Furthermore, ForwardX expects to see robotics go through a phase of i n t e r o p e ra b i l i t y d eve l o p m e n t w h e r e r o b o t i c s developers unify and use their individual strengths to develop complete solutions. Through robotics, traditional industries will be able to apply the latest and greatest technologies to areas of their operations that have previously been unsuitable for automation.

Through its mission to add value where it matters, ForwardX aims to continue to develop and deliver robust next-gen solutions that achieve positive bottom-line results.

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NATSUO AKAZAWA Founder and CEO | PLEN Robotics

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HARNESSING IOT SOLUTIONS TO AUTOMIZE THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

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LEN Robotics Inc. established in July 2017, utilizes Robotics, IT, Artificial Intelligence, to produce IoT solutions that automize and streamline the hospitality industry. The company's first product offering “PLEN Cube”, is a box-shaped AI assistant that uses face recognition and tracking functions to support cashless payments, hotel receptions, drink orders and digitalization of the customer's behavior history.

PLEN Robotics' client base includes medical and welfare facilities, accommodation facilities, and the hospitality industry. The company is scaling up its client base to include co-working spaces that come with membership systems. Recently the company developed the PLEN Cube named “PLEN Cube health check version” for protecting essential workers against COVID-19 or any medical problems. The cube can detect human temperatures and ask medical questions, and will be commercially available this month.

PLEN Robotics Inc. was established with the mission of building a social infrastructure to solve the problem of workforce shortage in the service industry. Prior to founding PLEN Robotics, Founder and CEO, Natsuo Akazawa devised and developed a prototype compact AI communicator PLEN Cube, as a solution to workforce scarcity.

A Charismatic Leadership Natsuo Akazawa is the Founder and CEO of PLEN Robotics. Natsuo aims to support companies and people

seeking to counter the problem of a declining workforce by providing them with AI and Service Robot solutions.

He believes that the most difficult element into the social implementation of communicators, lies in the communication between humans and machines and UI/UX is the most important technology communicator to overcome this hurdle.

Natsuo asserts that even with a good speech recognition technology like Google and Alexa if people did not feel comfortable, they could not build a good relationship with their communicator. He believes that a simple design communicator with UI/UX capabilities incorporating movements and gestures is suitable to improve user compatibility for social implementation.

Leve ra g i n g R o b o t i c s Te c h n o l o g y f o r M u t u a l Collaboration The company believes that robotics will take on a lot of roles in the future under the influence of COVID-19.

PLEN Robotics is focused on developing a communicator for the service industry to reduce the risk of human contact and comfortable user adoption. The nonintrusive body temperature health check-up version of the PLEN Cube scheduled to release in July 2020 combines the measurement of body temperature and a medical questionnaire, to let all people monitor their health with an affordable device.

The AI assistant-PLEN Cube communicator is not a large-scale system, but an affordable one with edge computing solutions perfect for proving robotics

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“PLEN Robotics focuses on paying attention to not only software but also to various kinds of intelligent hardware networks created to help people. The company estimates that in 2025, 20 billion global IoT products will be shipped in one year, aggregating to a cumulative total of over 80 billion products all over the world. “

Natsuo Akazawa Founder and CEO PLEN Robotics

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technology used in the field of human activity. Leading to the introduction of robotics to protect essential workers at hospitals, nursing facilities, etc. against infection, the company visions that it will be able to mount this service to the Robotics industry in the US. Partnership that Drives Innovation Natsuo adds that “at PLEN Robotics we don't do selfsufficient development and don't want to”.

PLEN Robotics has always credited its communicator services to create and add communication with its partner customers. The company believes that as the number of customers increase, its services will be synergistically enhanced to develop into something that blends into society. The company values its each and every customer as an important partnership that drives its innovation goals.

Fostering Intelligent Technologies PLEN Robotics focuses on paying attention to not only software but also to various kinds of intelligent hardware networks created to help people. The company estimates that in 2025, 20 billion global IoT products will be shipped in one year, aggregating to a cumulative total of over 80 billion products all over the world.

To support this vast number of services, in addition to artificial intelligence and machine learning, edge computing and edge AI technologies are essential, and indispensable for IoT innovation. The company is developing a communicator that utilizes these technologies.

Remarkable Awards for Achievements PLEN Cube communicator was recognized at the Monozukuri Hardware Cup for Japan-based hardware startups, where it stood at second place in the

competition. It was also awarded the A'Design Award (Radical Innovation and New Technologies Design Category: Bronze 2017) and International Design Award: Bronze 2017.

Additionally, Natsuo was awarded Gold at the 2006 and 2007 Robo Games (Freestyle/Acrobat category).

Overcoming the Challenges to Succeed Most startup companies which entertain lofty ideals have the problem of fundraising but PLEN Robotics overcome it with strong support from investors after successfully raising funds on the world's largest crowdfunding platform. The company has successfully raised CNY21 Million to date.

Not only this, but it also had to run together with its competitors with the latest technology innovations in the world, sometimes even had to run faster than them.

Before finishing to mount a similar technology to its product, the bigger companies had already finished to mount it. However, it felt affinity overcoming challenges, mounting the newest technology before competitors, for example, the UI/UX. The actuation settings made it come true.

Insights into the Future of Robotics Disruptive technologies like Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning/Deep Learning/Automation/Cloud Computing now include Edge Computing capabilities.

With this inclusion, Natsuo views that the Robotics industry is coming to a growth stage truly valuable for helping people. He further adds that, as COVID-19 expands around the world, intelligent machines will have to handle a lot of tasks more than now. All players related to the Robotics industry have a greater responsibility to foster partnerships to a collaborative future ahead.

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