The 20 most innovative IOT companies to watch 2018

www.insightssuccess.com April 2018

The

20

Most Innovative

IOT

Companies to Watch 2018

Mentor’s Insight Key Challenges in the IoT Landscape

Industry Concern IoT Technologies Contributing to the Renewable Energy

Keith D. Jackson President & CEO

ON Semiconductor: Enabling the Internet of Things

Editor’s Note

Building Blocks for the Future of IoT

W

ith organizations ramping out deployments and incorporating IoT technologies in their products, processes and workflows are taking place in a manner that has happened never before. It is expected that IoT and IIoT will breakout in the near future. According to a research firm, by 2020, there will be nearly 20 billion devices connected to IoT, additionally IoT industry will generate more than $300 billion in revenue.

With the increase in use of IoT devices, those who previously said smart home technology is an unrealistic product for lazy people are finding it very hard to resist the use of smart home devices which are powered

by IoT. As expected, these devices are getting very much popular in 2018 as they become highly intuitive and innovative which is resulting not just into home comfort but also home security. This kind of IoT powered devices will soon gain a huge popularity in 2018, mostly due to their easy to use nature and affordability.

One of the most important applications of IoT is definitely in the field of healthcare, and this year will see the true power of IoT devices mostly due to the high adaption rate of these devices by the healthcare sector. According to research, internet of medical things could see a massive growth rate of as much as 26.2%. Wearable devices, sensors, health monitors, and other medical devices is all set to be connected with IoT. Mobile health applications, and virtual assistants will eventually reshape the world by monitoring patient’s health.

With the increase in IoT adaption, more and more devices will be connected to the internet. Thanks to the network expansion, data volume will be increased exponentially, which will eventually attract attackers. Till now, IoT devices lack the needed security features. However, this will have to change, and soon biometric logins will be the norm in the industry.

According to an independent research, weak passwords are the biggest reason behind malware attacks on IoT devices. Most of the manufacturers ships their IoT devices with a default password and doesn’t provide an option to change that, which eventually leads to the highest number of DDoS attacks on IoT devices. However, this will soon change as both the manufacturers and clients are getting aware of the situation.

So, to highlight companies that are working endlessly with their innovative solutions, Insights Success has shortlisted “The 20 Most Innovative IoT Companies to Watch.”

Our Cover Story features ON Semiconductor, which has become a global, broad-based supplier of energy-efficient electronics innovations. The company delivers high-quality, energy-efficient solutions to solve its customers’ electronics design challenges with a world-class supply chain and ethical culture committed to global corporate social responsibility.

ON Semiconductor has successfully completed 13 corporate acquisitions and now generates annual revenue of more than $5 billion, transforming itself from a standard products supplier to a leading provider of differentiated power, analog, sensor and wireless connectivity solutions.

ON Semiconductor operates a responsive, reliable, world-class supply chain and quality program, a robust compliance and ethics program, and a network of manufacturing facilities, sales offices and design centers in key markets throughout North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region.

Happy Reading!

Kaustav Roy

Cover Story

10

ON

SEMICONDUCTOR Enabling the Internet of Things

Editor’s Pick Fog Computing On a Surge

Editor’s Choice The Universality of IoT Technology

28 44

Go Green

80

Industry Concern

How can IoT Decelerate the Climate Change?

60 IoT Technologies Contributing to the Renewable Energy

22

CONTE NT S Mentor’s Insight Key Challenges in the IoT Landscape

36

Expert’s Insight

52

Why Do We Need to Create Mobile Apps for Business?

Mentor’s Viewpoint What Drives Customer Experience

86

Industry Insider Rising Mobile Workforce and its Challenges in the Mobile-cloud era: Data & Endpoint Management

InPerspective Miguel Valdes Faura: Digital Transformation through Connecting People with Technology

66

24

BeSpoon An Indoor Tracking System with Unmatchable Accuracy

26

CopSonic

Ensuring the Propagation of Secured Encrypted Data

Cubic Telecom

EVRYTHNG:

An Industry Leader with Futuristic Connectivity Solutions

32

Making the World a Smarter Place

EIGHT:

40

Helping People Conquer Sleep Related Problems

34

50

42

FlyingBinary:

Changing the World with Data and Technology

Mnubo:

Creating Business Value from Data Using Unprecedented IoT Insights

48 KMC Controls

50 Years of Intuitive Innovation

56

Nikola Labs

Bringing Wireless Power to Commercial Reality

58

ParqEx:

The Smart Way to Find Parking

Praemo:

Unleashing the True Potential of Digital Solutions

64

relayr:

Helping Manufacturers Embrace Digital Transformation

70

72

Riot Micro:

Simplifying Cellular Connectivity through Unique Chipset Architecture

76

Tinfoil Security:

Inventing Innovative Solutions for Cyber Security

84 78

Ubidots:

Helping Organizations Connect the Dots

Vigilent:

Frontrunner in Dynamic Cooling Management Market

Editor-in-Chief Senior Editor Managing Editor Executive Editors Assistant Editors Visualiser Art & Design Director Associate Designer Co-designer

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Kaustav Roy Jenny Fernandes Sourav Mukherjee Brian Smith Bhushan Kadam David King Amol Kamble Nagesh Tembhekar Poonam Mahajan

Art & Picture Editor Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Passi D. Business Development Manager Peter Collins Marketing Manager David Martin Business Development Executives Steve, Joe, Alan, Yogesh Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Sagar Technical Head Jacob Smile Technical Specialist Amar, Pratiksha Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Online Marketing Strategist Alina Sege, Shubham Mahadik, Vaibhav K SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses Circulation Manager Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes sales@insightssuccess.com

April, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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Keith D. Jackson President & CEO

Cover Story

ON

Semiconductor: Enabling the Internet of Things

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Our products, tools, and solutions are engineered to help you design, build and think more efficiently.

ENERGY EFFICIENT SOLUTIONS

fast-moving, high-growth sectors, putting the company in a strong position in terms of growth and market penetration.

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hrough a combination of strategic acquisitions and organic product development, ON Semiconductor has become a global, broad-based supplier of energy-efficient electronics innovations.

The company has successfully completed 13 corporate acquisitions and now generates annual revenue of more than $5 billion, transforming itself from a standard products supplier to a leading provider of differentiated power, analog, sensor and wireless connectivity solutions.

ON Semiconductor operates a responsive, reliable, world-class supply chain and quality program, a robust compliance and ethics

program, and a network of manufacturing facilities, sales offices and design centers in key markets throughout North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region.

It works closely and collaboratively with its customers to solve their unique design challenges using innovative technologies, robust designs, and energy-efficient products and solutions.

Staying Agile in a Fluid Market By leveraging it scale, engineering expertise and technology delivering, ON Semiconductor has established themselves as a top-tier provider of enabling technologies in a number of strategic end markets. The organization’s strategic focus is on

Additionally, in-depth industry knowledge has allowed it to stay ahead of market shifts. Continuous alignment of R&D investments to customer needs has made ON Semiconductor the key solutions enabler in the industry. The company’s broad product portfolio comprehensively addresses those needs while delivering innovation and leadership at the component level.

ON Semiconductor focuses on remaining agile to meet business and market needs in this ever-evolving industry. Through its targeted investments in high-growth segments and in highly-differentiated products in automotive, industrial internet of things (IoT) and power conversion and motor control solutions, it has radically transformed the nature of its business.

The IoT specifically is the aggregation of major advances in wireless connectivity and sensing,

Cover Story

With the acquisition of Aptina Imaging and Trusense Imaging in 2014, ON Semiconductor has vastly expanded its image-sensor business and established the company as a leader in the fast growing segments of automotive and industrial vision. This imaging expertise combined with ON Semiconductor’s R&D, manufacturing and global logistics infrastructure addresses a wide range of endmarkets including Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), machine vision, surveillance, traffic monitoring, medical and scientific imaging.

In 2016, ON Semiconductor acquired Fairchild Semiconductor. This made ON Semiconductor a global power management leader and expanded its reach into the high and medium voltage power markets. It is now uniquely positioned to support customers across multiple sectors in creating a range of power solutions spanning smartphones to renewable energy systems that meet everincreasing energy efficiency mandates.

Recently established advanced sensor design centers have uniquely positioned the company to provide sensor fusion solutions for next generation industrial, machine and automotive vision. With a diverse product portfolio of market-leading products, a highly competitive global manufacturing footprint and resilient customer relationships, ON Semiconductor is well-positioned to lead in its focus markets.

Based on market leadership in verticals such ADAS, machine vision and surveillance we are uniquely positioned to deliver on the promise of vision IoT spanning video door bells through smart agriculture to advanced medical procedures.

Addressing the Need of the Hour: IoT The IoT is the culmination of progress that has been made in a number of different interrelated technology disciplines. Through major advances in wireless connectivity and sensing, as well as support from processing, control and power management devices, the stage is now set for the IoT to start seeing widespread deployment in both consumer and industrial spheres.

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Leveraging our leadership position in image sensors and power management, we’ve expanded our portfolio to include best-in-class wireless connectivity products as well as embedded processing solutions.

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supported by processing, control and power management.

ON Semiconductor comprehensively addresses all of these requirements for IoT devices.

Historically customers have procured elements of their system solutions from a variety of suppliers, and this has posed a challenge in prototyping, trials and systems deployment. By providing innovative solutions such as node–to-cloud platform solutions, ON Semiconductor addresses this critical drawback, and allows customers to focus on value-added applications and services.

The organization is working with its ecosystem partners to deliver holistic solutions. It is leveraging its manufacturing scale, supply chain and quality programs for its partners’ success and to create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Customers are increasingly relying on ON Semiconductor as a key provider of enabling technologies for emerging, disruptive applications in automotive, industrial IoT and power conversion and motor control solutions.

Solving the Challenges of Designing for the IoT There are a few challenges that come up with developing for IoT. First there is the growing trend in today’s electronics industry for OEMs to seek to minimize the time their engineering teams spend selecting components

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With tens of billions of connected nodes expected to go into operation in the next few years, the huge potential of IoT is evident.

However, supporting the variations and nuances of multiple industry segments and delivering comprehensive, ready-to-use solutions that are power, size and cost efficient is imperative.

and creating discrete designs. They want these teams to quickly implement solutions that free up internal resources to concentrate on the core competencies that engender competitive advantage and product differentiation.

Secondly, extending operating life in hard to access environments is a key challenge. Greater functionality often means increased power consumption.

For devices that operate on coin-cell batteries for long periods of time, battery life is of prime importance, so it’s crucial for the IC’s power management to be optimized.

To address the latter ON Semiconductor products, from sensors to connectivity solutions, are ultra-low power and best in class in the industry. As an example, our latest Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) system on chip is two to three times more efficient than the closest alternative.

Our environmental smart passive sensors are completely battery free and based on energy harvesting. This leadership portfolio enables wireless remote sensing, aggregation, and analysis of temperature, moisture, proximity, and pressure, for various IoT applications.

ON Semiconductor has played a pivotal role in helping those customers drive down the time from initial concept to end product. By giving access to ecosystems that comprise a varied combination of products, tools, reference designs, engineering support and third-party hardware and software, the company helps customers speed up design cycles.

One example of this investment can be seen in the recent introduction of a

modular IoT Development Kit (IDK) that provides engineers with all of the hardware and software building blocks needed to speed the evaluation, design and implementation of medical, home and industrial IoT applications. The objective was to provide an intuitive IoT platform to help customers prototype and develop node-to-cloud solutions for various IoT verticals and deploy them much quicker and with greater cost effectiveness.

A wide selection of energy efficient connectivity options, image and environmental sensors, lighting and motor control elements, and battery and power management products give ON Semiconductor unmatched capability and flexibility in creating comprehensive IoT solutions.

Experienced Leadership Boasting more than 30 years of experience in the industry, Mr. Keith D. Jackson was elected a Board Director and appointed the President and CEO of ON Semiconductor Corporation in November 2002.

Before joining the organization, Keith served as executive vice president and general manager at Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. He also served as the president and a member of the board of directors of Tritech Microelectronics in Singapore, a manufacturer of analog and mixed signal products.

From 1986 to 1996, Mr. Jackson worked for National Semiconductor Corporation as vice president and general manager of the Analog and Mixed Signal division. He also held various engineering and management positions at Texas Instruments Incorporated from 1973 to 1986.

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Cover Story

In 2016, 2017 and 2018, with Mr. Jackson as the president of ON Semiconductor, the company was named as the World’s Most Ethical Company® by the Ethisphere Institute, and a Supply Chain ‘Pro to Know’ by Supply and Demand Chain Executive publication. ON Semiconductor has also been recognized in the Philippines with the Outstanding Employer Award for the third consecutive year and has been named a global competitive employer in Malaysia.

On the other hand, Dr. Hans Stork is the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at ON Semiconductor. He oversees the development of wafer process technologies, modeling and design kits, design libraries, as well as packaging technologies and assembly support.

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Customers are increasingly relying on us as a key provider of enabling technologies for newly emerging and disruptive applications in automotive and industrial end-markets.

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He has also served on the board of directors of the Semiconductor Industry Association since 2008 and joined the board of directors of Veeco Instruments Inc., in February 2012. In February of 2014, Mr. Jackson became a Leadership Fellow of the National Association of Corporate Directors Board (NACD). This is the highest level of NACD credentialing for corporate directors and corporate governance professionals.

Before joining ON Semiconductor, Dr. Stork was group vice president and CTO of Silicon Systems Group at Applied Materials. From 2001 to 2007, he was the senior vice president and the CTO of Texas Instruments. Before that, Dr. Stork held various R&D and management positions at Hewlett Packard Laboratories and at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center.

Dr. Stork serves on the supervisory board of ASML, is a member of the Scientific Advisory board at IMEC and has previously served on the boards of Sematech and the SRC. He is also a longstanding member of the SIA Technology Strategy Committee.

He has authored more than 100 cited papers and holds 11 U.S. patents. Dr. Stork was elected IEEE Fellow in 1994, and served on several IEEE-sponsored conference program committees. He is currently vicechair of the technical field awards council and a member of the awards planning and policy committee.

Dr. Stork was born in Soest, The Netherlands, and received the Ingenieur degree in electrical engineering (EE) from Delft University of

Dr. Hans Stork Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Ofcer

Technology, Delft, The Netherlands. He holds a Ph.D. in EE from Stanford University. Dr. Stork is fluent in English and Dutch.

Drawing the Future Roadmap There are a number of market segments that are wellpositioned to achieve very high growth in 2018 and beyond; these are areas that ON Semiconductor considers to be underpinned by exciting global megatrends.

For example, there is strong demand for innovative semiconductor and general electronic component solutions in the automotive sector as electrification of the vehicle powertrain and the proliferation and consumer acceptance of electric and hybrid electric vehicles continues to gather pace.

In addition, growth in the extent and value of general electronic content throughout passenger vehicles shows no signs of slowing. It is being driven by new body and interior systems, LED lighting and, most notably, ADAS which now seems certain to lead us to fully autonomous driving at some point in the next decade.

The combination of diverse technologies by companies like ON Semiconductor is providing engineers from a hugely diverse range of industry areas with practical, integrated end-to-end solutions for the IoT. The organization continues to see strong demand for its IoT solutions for most end-markets and from most geographies. This is because customers are increasingly relying on them as their key partner in segments ranging from industrial automation, AR/VR, robotics, predictive maintenance, machine vision and process control through agriculture, environmental controls and traffic systems to wearables and connected wellness.

The components, including devices such as the company’s energy harvesting, battery-free Smart Passive Sensors, are supported by tools like the mentioned Internet of things Development kit (IDK) that lower the barriers to adoption and make transitioning a concept to a working solution easier, more intuitive, faster and cheaper.

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Management

Brief

Arm arm.com

Simon Segars CEO

Arm architects the pervasive intelligence that is transforming our daily experience. Arm-based chips and device architectures orchestrate the performance of the technology that makes modern life possible.

Ayla Networks aylanetworks.com

David Friedman Co-founder & CEO

Ayla Networks is the number one platform for leading manufacturers, providing the industry’s first Agile IoT Platform, accelerating the development, support, and ongoing enhancements of connected products for the Internet of Things.

BeSpoon bespoon.com

Jean-Marie André CEO

BeSpoon offers a robust and precise indoors tracking system that acts as an indoor GPS, which tracks small tags within inches, in real time.

CopSonic copsonic.com

Emmanuel RUIZ Founder & CEO

CopSonic is a patented technology that provides a new communication channel, which is using ultrasound as a way to interact or transmit data between electronic devices.

Cubic Telecom cubictelecom.com

Barry Napier CEO & Chairman

Cubic Telecom is a global connectivity platform company offering solutions for IoT, M2M, and device manufacturing companies.

EIGHT eightsleep.com

Matteo Franceschetti CEO & Co-founder

EIGHT help users to wake up refreshed, the Eight Smart Mattress uses a smart alarm to wake users up during light sleep.

EVRYTHNG evrythng.com

Niall Murphy Co-founder & CEO

EVRYTHNG provides digital identity and data management for physical products, helping consumer product manufacturers to gain efficiency in their supply chains and deliver digital services direct to their customers.

FlyingBinary flyingbinary.com

Jacqui Taylor CEO

FlyingBinary is a team of dedicated and passionate individuals who are leading the way to the adoption of a cloud-based IT strategy.

KMC Controls kmccontrols.com

Richard Newberry CEO

KMC Controls is an independent American manufacturer of building automation and technology solutions for systems integrators, system distributors, IT solution providers, and OEM partners.

Frederic Bastien CEO

Mnubo is an IoT analytics company. It offers a SaaS solution to connected product manufacturers and service providers so that they can collect, organize, enrich and analyze data. Mnubo’s SaaS offering benefits customers in consumer, enterprise and industrial verticals.

Company Name

Mnubo mnubo.com

Company Name

Management

Brief

Nikola Labs nikola.tech

Will Zell CEO & Founding Partner

Nikola Labs develops and demonstrates RF harvesting technology, which will be embedded directly into devices to achieve wireless power.

ON Semiconductor onsemi.com

Keith D. Jackson President & CEO

ON Semiconductor delivers high-quality, energy-efficient solutions to solve its customers’ electronics design challenges with a world-class supply chain and ethical culture committed to global corporate social responsibility.

ParqEx parqex.com

Vivek Mehra Founder & CEO

ParqEx is a technology company that connects owners of private parking spots to people looking for parking.

Praemo praemo.com

Michael Martinez CEO

Praemo provides predictive and prescriptive technology to help customers increase productivity and reduce costs.

relayr relayr.io

Joseph Brunner CEO

relayr is a rapidly-growing IoT company providing enterprise middleware and IoT solutions for the digital transformation of industries.

Riot Micro riotmicro.com

Peter Wong CEO

Riot Micro designs purpose-built silicon for wireless IoT applications for its customers including manufacturers and suppliers who are at the forefront of the Internet of Things.

SAP sap.com

Bill McDermott CEO

As the market leader in enterprise application software, SAP is at the center of today’s business and technology revolution.

Tinfoil Security tinfoilsecurity.com

Ainsley Braun CEO & Co-founder

Tinfoil Security is a cyber-security solution provider that lets you scan your websites for vulnerabilities and fix them quickly and easily.

Ubidots ubidots.com

Agustin Palaez Co-founder & CEO

Ubidots has become known within hardware, software maker, and embedded engineering circles as the affordable, reliable, and most useable platform in an ecosystem filled with strong competition.

Vigilent vigilent.com

Dr.Clifford Federspiel Founder & President/CTO

Vigilent Corporation is a pioneer in the area of industrial IoT, which develops and provides dynamic cooling management solutions.

Mentor’s Insight

I

oT has a power problem. The promise of IoT is that of invisible connectivity that allows for sensors and devices that disappear into the environment and provide important information so that we all can live healthier, more efficient lives.

Wireless communication makes this possible, but there’s a catch, batteries.

The finite capacity of batteries, presents a difficult trade-off between performance and device life. Some electronic devices can operate for years on a single battery, but only if they perform their function and report infrequently. Other devices provide rich streams of data, but these have far shorter lives. High functioning, longlived devices, are only possible with a reliable power supply, such as that offered by Nikola Labs’ radio frequency to direct current (RF to DC) wireless power solutions. The supply of consistent power allows for a need breed of IoT networks that are completely wireless, data rich and maintenance free.

The use case described below illustrates well the value of Nikola Labs’ wireless power, but it is only one of many valuable applications of this game changing technology.

Manufacturing plants rely on machines to move, mix, make,

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process, package, pallet, and so much more. These machines are driven by motors with gear boxes and axles on bearings. Every motor and machine requires maintenance, but ‘how much?’ and ‘how soon?’ Historically, these questions have been difficult to answer and often completely unanswerable. So, the choice was either run equipment until failure or perform scheduled maintenance to avoid unexpected shutdowns. The latter became known as Preventive Maintenance, or simply PM. PM was the best practice in industry for decades, but new tech is offering a better way, Predictive Maintenance, or PdM. The availability of low cost wireless sensors enables the monitoring of vibration, temperature and other parameters that together with sophisticated software can foretell equipment inconsistencies, and better guide maintenance efforts.

PdM offers two key benefits: improved process uptime and lower maintenance cost, both of which directly impact profitability. With such promise, PdM should be in every factory, but it’s not. A key factor behind slow adoption, ironically, is the burden associated with placing hundreds or thousands of batterypowered sensors in any given facility.

Even with years long anticipated

battery life, they eventually need to be replaced or recharged, and the prospect of adding a new maintenance activity when the goal is to reduce maintenance is a significant deterrent.

Wireless power is the answer. By reliably providing power at distance, Nikola Labs’ technology enables PdM sensors to offer all the benefits without the added burden of changing batteries. A single transponder transmits power to multiple sensors and acts as a communication hub gathering the vibration, temperature and other data periodically and sending this information to the cloud or a local network, where it is visualized and used to guide maintenance decisions.

Beyond PdM, wireless power can improve a wide range of IoT offerings that serve industry as well as those used in Smart homes/buildings, health/medical, connected cities, as well as military and space. Promising applications include: Ÿ

Smart City - Success of smart cities hinges on acquiring, analyzing and acting on large amounts of data collected across often sprawling urban areas.

While big data gets most of the attention, it is simply an

April 2018

aggregation of data points from strategically placed sensors.

Today, such sensors are powered by batteries or mains power and require frequent maintenance or retrofitting and infrastructure disruption. Nikola Labs’ technology offers a better solution that can greatly reduce the cost and complexity of implementing smart city networks. By harnessing energy from radio and TV broadcasts, cellular networks and magnetic fields from electrical distribution infrastructure, the tech provides the power needed for critical, long-range sensors. Ÿ

Ÿ

Smart Home - Mankind has long desired a home that thinks and acts to keep its occupants safe, warm and well cared for, and now IoT is making this dream a tantalizing reality. However, finite battery capacity limits device life and constrains performance.

Wireless power is the answer, enabling perpetually powered networks that allow IoT to fulfill its potential and help us to live smarter, healthier and more efficient lives. Nikola Labs’ wireless power technology allows for the proliferation of embedded sensors that never need to be maintained. So, smart homes of the future will be highly functional and aware, as well as aesthetically pleasing.

Health/Medical - In the coming decade, tiny medical implants will provide early detection of diseases, pain relief and myriad other health benefits. These devices must operate for many years but nobody wants to plug themselves into an outlet. A better solution is Nikola Labs’ wireless power that will charge implants in situ. The technology can also

April 2018

Will Zell

CEO & Founder

Nikola Labs, Inc.

enhance health care by improving hospital operations.

Completely wireless sensors and devices can monitor patients, room conditions and much more, ensuring the highest level of care and best health outcomes. Ÿ

Space & Military - The vastness of space and what secrets it may hold have inspired and propelled us to escape the gravitation pull of Earth and venture into the beyond. Over the past decades, great strides have been made to reduce the cost of lifting cargo into orbit.

However, despite these gains, liftoff weight remains a critical metric that must be minimized. Eliminating wires and leaving power cables at home can help.

Nikola Labs stands ready to support efforts as mankind endeavours to be an interplanetary species.

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BeSpoon: An Indoor Tracking System with Unmatchable Accuracy

D

igital transformations are revolutionizing and dominating each and every industrial sector. Some of the technologies have a notable ability to catalyze the progressions of every industry. Real-time tracking is one of them.

The technology has admirably increased efficiency of production processes, operating and has improved cost control as well. In addition to performance tracking technology, indoor tracking systems are gaining the admiration for all the right reason.

Precise indoors location is a central part of Industry 4.0, and one of the most prominent use cases for IoT in the smart factory. Global industries have also witnessed the benefits of such system and employing it at the every level of business.

Thus, Real Time Location Systems are growing at a CAGR of 31% and is expected to reach a total size of 3.7B$ by 2020. Looking at this success rate, hundreds of startups across the world have jumped into the sector but very few have succeeded to endure the headway, BeSpoon is one of them.

BeSpoon offers a robust and precise indoors tracking system that acts as an indoor GPS, which tracks small tags within inches, in real-time.

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A Key Factor of Productivity BeSpoon has designed a radio chip that measures distances in inches, across walls. The company is using a technology named Ultra Wide Band. It is both low power and cost-effective.

The chip is tailored to fit into consumer electronic goods. It is also designed to address the needs of Real Time Location Systems at a fraction of the cost of existing solutions. The solutions have various benefits in numerous sectors and have been a key factor of productivity for associates. Ÿ

In warehouses, it locates forklifts, and makes sure a pallet, even misplaced, is never lost.

Ÿ

In factories, it track semi-finished goods throughout the manufacturing process, and ensure the latter is run smoothly, saving days of lead time.

Ÿ

On industrial sites, it never lose track of tools, and pinpoint isolated workers at any time, within inches.

Ÿ

Retail stores have also saved kilometers of walk to their employees by utilizing the BeSpoon tracking solution.

Ÿ

It even enables indoor athletes to have the best position analytics to raise their game.

X/Y/Z coordinates of each tag allow monitoring the manufacturing process in real-time and bridge the ultimate gap between the physical factory and its digitized model.

Long Road of Struggles Leading to Dream Destination Genuine disruption is not incremental.

BeSpoon took the long road, built a chip and developed a full ecosystem around it. In the early days, the company struggled to get funded.

BeSpoon has realized very early that a new radio paradigm was necessary to offer reliable distance measures.

Legacy radios estimate roughly the distance based on the strength of a radio signal, a highly versatile metric.

Instead, BeSpoon measures accurately the time it takes to a radio signal to travel. This is a difficult exercise because radio flies at the speed of light. To perform precise distance measurements, it was then necessary to develop a super-accurate and superstable chronometer.

On the technology front, countless experts predicted that the BeSpoon circuit would never fly. Only a few prestigious labs (MIT in US, CEA Leti in France) around the world had demonstrated the concept on very short ranges and yet with very mixed results. One day, the radio guru of a

April 2018

“

Think of factories where everything can be found at once, offices where robots can navigate smoothly. Think of a world where accidents can be prevented a few seconds before they occur, yes at BeSpoon we can do it.

famous operator offered a fine demonstration that its chip would never range beyond a few dozen meters.

It was highly stimulating for BeSpoon to take on those challenges. Hence, the BeSpoon team worked hard with French Lab CEA to build a state-ofthe-art device and industrialize it. Two months later, the same chip broke the world record with a range of 880 meters.

Leading the Innovation Trails with Technological Developments Jean-Marie André is CEO and Pascal Fabre CTO of BeSpoon. JeanMarie and Pascal met at Philips in the mid-nineties and co-founded several successful ventures in the Consumer Electronics space. With the privilege of observing the boom of the cellphone industry over twenty years, and the luck to design one of the first smartphone in the world, years ahead of Android or iPhone, they learned a fundamental lesson: true innovation requires intense technological

April 2018

Jean-Marie André CEO development both in silicon and in software.

A conviction shared with the German group TRUMPF GmbH + Co. KG, and it immediately accepted the proposal. Location technologies had been thoroughly benchmarked by the leader of sheet metal machine tools, and none was able to deliver decent result in the terrible environment of a metal workshop.

A Turn-Key Solution Precise indoor location is a central part of Industry 4.0, and one of the most prominent use cases for IoT in the smart factory. Visiting prospects, the company quickly realized that they were looking for a turnkey solution, ready to go. Rather than emphasizing on a wonderful chipset or a large software stack BeSpoon deployed several systems in places where competitive solution had badly failed.

Today, BeSpoon is the only player in its field to propose a comprehensive offer to its licensees.

Conquering the Emerging Market with Better Partnerships BeSpoon has been efficiently providing in Indoor Tracking System since the last eight years. Its partnership with TRUMPF GmbH + Co. KG has been a remarkable evolution for the company. It has significantly generated the revenue, and built a fantastic momentum in the industry. With technologies evolving at an unbelievable pace, massive market is just emerging, and pioneers like BeSpoon, have a nice card to play.

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CopSonic: Ensuring the Propagation of Secured Encrypted Data

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opSonic is a patented technology that provides a new communication channel, which uses ultrasound as a way to interact or transmit data between electronic devices. CopSonic was originally founded in 1989. Its Audio R&D Laboratory has been studying for over 20 years the communication and encryption of digital data, and the team discovered the possibility of encrypting digital data into sound.

In 2013, the company filed patent applications around this innovation and started introduction of the technology in the international market as a contactless universal mobile payment solution. The CopSonic SDK allow effortless and cost wise integration of these ultrasounds communication as an alternative or complement to NFC, Bluetooth or QR Codes within activity areas related to Digital Security, Smart Detection, and of course IoT connectivity.

Astounding Services For end users and IoT autonomous devices worldwide, it is very difficult nowadays to pair or communicate with an environment. According to the use case, regular existing communication technologies such as NFC, Bluetooth, or QR codes have difficulties in providing a universal, secure and/or

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user-friendly experience. Strong dependencies on specific hardware components, cross-version issues, or user experience are hindering the massive adoption of new usages.

Unique Approach The team at CopSonic states, “…there are only a few competitors worldwide that position themselves as technology providers like CopSonic does.”

Ultrasounds are a universal and costefficient solution that allows addressing 100% of the end users with a hardware agnostic solution. The CopSonic SDK allows the integration of such solutions as an alternative or hybrid complement to other technologies for use cases related to digital security, smart detection, and IoT connectivity.

The company’s specific approach is related to a strong proprietary IP distributed in the B2B mode for integration inside the existing vertical activities of its partners. CopSonic provides an SDK, which integrates a new codec dedicated to data transmission over the air. This codec allows achieving better results than the competitors with regard to bitrate, security, resistance against noise, and most importantly, it allows answering to the need for a real full-duplex communication. CopSonic is selected

by Novares to produce a prototype for ultrasound communication for the automotive industry.

Ultrasounds can be used as an alternative or hybrid complement to existing technologies such as NFC, Bluetooth, or QR Codes depending on the use case, the added value can be universality, security, UX, absence of electromagnetism, or web-to-mobile compatibility. CopSonic is distributing the ultrasound expertise, IP, and technology through an SDK that is provided in B2B mode. The idea is to empower its partners with all the necessary elements to integrate ultrasounds as a communication channel within their existing infrastructure for their own vertical applications. CopSonic considers other topics such as blockchain security as the next logical step for its technology.

Hurdles Crossed Launched in 2013, CopSonic is a near field communication technology based on ultrasounds to interact or transmit data between electronic devices. For CopSonic, the most difficult step was to convince the first partners that there could be some strong interest in using an alternative channel with regard to the state-of-the-art technologies that were applied until now (NFC, BLE, etc.).

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We are working on a technology that can change the future of healthcare through specific eHealth projects.

Mr. Emmanuel RUIZ By the end of 2016 and over 2017, the global market witnessed a shift in demand toward alternative communication channels among which ultrasound topics such as standardization, regulation, and operating system evolution spurred in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Large corporates have been able to understand the limits of the existing technologies and now understand the use of hybridizing ultrasounds with other technologies to solve problems related to user experience, specific environments, and even security.

A Leader Holding Years of Experience Mr. Emmanuel RUIZ, the Founder and CEO of CopSonic, has over 20 years of experience in audio technologies coupled with the management of overseas digital companies. With a Master in Business Informatics, he followed a MIAGE in Toulouse (France). He and his teams were among the first pioneers of DJ software and the first in the world to scratch on MP3 files in the 90’s (Virtual Dj+ software, Hercules Dj Console).

He launched CopSonic in September 2013 after several years of Research and Development and has been actively leading the access-to-market April 2018

Founder & CEO of this disruptive technology ever since, backed by his strong team of dedicated engineers.

Competitive Differentiators CopSonic focuses on solving technical problems faced by its customers rather than business needs. Ultrasounds as a communication channel can bring multifarious advantages that can influence use cases according to the specificity of each project. As IoT use cases expend through daily lives, ultrasounds can represent a disruptive approach, which can combine UX, absence of electromagnetism, and security.

In most cases, the solutions remain hardware agnostic as the components (microphones and/or speakers) are already present in the devices. When not, these solutions remain costefficient when considering the price of the simple audio components required to operate the communication channel from both ends.

Owing to the less significance of hardware constraints, use cases can be adopted by a larger volume of end users and therefore the Return on Investment of projects carried by companies/industries will be

optimized. Also, as they will address these solutions to a large number, it will facilitate the adoption of new usages among end users.

Evangelizing CopSonic Technology CopSonic is now scaling its activities over all continents through different use cases that have been identified until now with the large corporates with whom it is already working. The company is multiplying the number of projects that will go live in the upcoming months. “In the meantime, our teams will keep up the evangelization of our technology and the use of ultrasounds as an alternative communication channel. Until now, we have worked on software and electronics but we are preparing at the horizon of 2019, a technology that can change the future of healthcare through specific eHealth projects,” asserts Mr. RUIZ. In the long term, through its IP and expertise, CopSonic is eyeing to contribute at creating a new standard for ultrasound communication worldwide.

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Editor’s Pick

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orld is growing at a fast pace and so is data.

Agility and flexibility of big data applications are gradually taking the form of the Internet of Things (IoT). Internet of Things brings more than an explosive escalation of endpoints. It is unconventional in several ways. The surge and escalation of IoT gave rise to a colossal increase in the volume of digitally generated data.

The limitations of current cloud computing is a subject of broader discussion. To the answer to these emerging challenges new computing technologies have arrived.

Introduction to Fog Computing A simple definition of fog is ‘cloud closer to the ground,’ which gives us an idea of functioning of fog computing.

Fog computing is now positioned as a layer to reduce the latency in hybrid cloud scenarios. The terminology refers to a new breed of applications and services, particularly when it comes to data management and analytics. It is a layer in

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the middle of cloud and the hardware. In cloud computing data needs to be accessed to the central mainframe. Fog Computing offers local and faster accessibility to edge devices.

There are two planes in a fog computing network. The ‘Data Plane,’ also referred as forwarding plane, and the ‘Control Plane.’

If anything happens to the data packets, it is determined by the data plane. The computing resources can be placed anywhere in the network with the help of data plane. The distribution can be done on the edge of the network.

A critique of the network is provided by the control plane, functioning with the routing protocols which run in the architectural control element. IoT data can be undertaken in a data hub or smart device which are closer to the sensor with the help of fog computing.

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Fog Computing On a Surge

The data in fog computing can be accessed in between devices locally without any help of the cloud repository.

This will help to boost accessibility, and collaboration among devices and data centers.

Fog Computing Under IoT Fog computing is an archetype that extends cloud computing and services to the edge of the network. The distinguishing fog characteristics are its proximity to the end users. Fog infrastructure redistributes the data and compute, so that much of the action takes place on the edge devices right on your ďŹ nger tips. The application services are hosted on the network edges.

The data from the things where sensors are attached on the object of interest is transported to the services to the edge of network (a fog network). From the fog network the data is transported to the remote services hosted on the internet to store, manage and process data (cloud network).

The goal of fog computing is to improve the eďŹƒciency and reduce the amount of data that needs to be transported to the cloud for analysis or processing or storage.

April 2018

Emergence of Fog Computing The world is marking a colossal rise in terms of digitally generated data from IoT and connected devices. The growth of smartphones and applications is enabling more users to access data, computation power as well as control and manage their end devices in real-time. A littlest data is required by conventional cloud architectures to send to the central cloud through edge fork devices for computation and analysis, which eventually adds latency. Fog computing allows the edge node devices to carry out some local data processing, cache data management, local resource pooling, local device management, dense geographical distribution, load balancing, latency reduction for better quality of service and edge node analytics. It results in enhancing overall user experiences.

Functioning of Fog Computing The cloud is becoming congested due to more and more devices connecting to the internet. In fog computing, most of the processing takes place in data hub or on the edge of the network. The implementation of fog computing separates the data obtained from the closest IoT devices on the most biting aspect which is time.

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Fog-empowered edge node devices locally analyzes the most time-critical data. It results in the lowest latency and prevention of major damage before it may even occur. Time-critical data can consist of alarm status, device status, fault warnings and much more.

For a persistent or periodically storage less time-critical data is sent to the central mainframe. It can be retrieved as and when required. Less time-critical data includes files, device logs, reports for analysis and much more.

How it is Beneficial for Business The bottom-line impact adds instant value to business. Fog computing makes the production of revenue-generating products and services more efficient and therefore is more cost-effective. It helps in acceleration of rollout cycles, reducing costs and broadens revenue bases.

The new revenue streams creates value for IoT. The streams will come from both IoT and Embedded AI and 5G. It will foster the development of long-awaited revenue-generating applications and services.

With the help of shred-and-spread nature of the fog architecture, the business will run more efficiently and costeffectively. Fog provides highly functioning internal business services.

It also provides a common framework for collaboration and communication. It helps IT and OT business teams to enable work together and bring in cloud capabilities closer.

Advantages of Fog Computing Fog computing have several advantages over its ancestor, cloud computing. Basic cloud computing technology is utilized by fog computing at its core. It helps to boost usability and accessibility in different computing environments.

The advantages that fog computing offers are as follows: • • • • • • • • • • • •

Globally distributed network helps minimal downtime Place data close to the end-user Load balancing Create dense geographical distribution Maximize network bandwidth utilization Adopt numerous verticals Optimal operational expense Business Agility Support mobility and IoT Better Interconnectivity Enhanced Quality of Service (QoS) Latency Reduction

Cloud computing is going out-of-date and is relevant when it comes to Internet of Things. In the near future, fog computing will take over and cloud will be pushed to the side lines. Fog computing will be handling all critical work.

The way the IoT is growing, it needs a special infrastructure base that can handle all its requirements. At present, fog computing is on a surge and it seems to be the most feasible option available.

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April 2018

Cubic Telecom: An Industry Leader with Futuristic Connectivity Solutions

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elecom is one of the fastest growing industries. Numerous telecom companies across the globe are providing best-in-class solutions and making the market more competitive with notable acquisitions.

Due to its burgeoning market, it is increasingly tough to mark your presence, and dominate the market with innovative and comprehensive solutions.

Based in Dublin, Ireland, Cubic Telecom has become one of the leading technology enablers for automotive OEMs, M2M and mobile device companies, and pioneering IoT players across the globe. An expert in mobile connectivity management, Cubic Telecom’s proven software platform empowers its partners to deliver industry-defining services in areas like content management, location-based services, subscription management, and entertainment.

Impressive Benefits of Seamlessly Connected Intelligence Platform Cubic provides connected mobility solutions to IoT, M2M, and mobile device companies. Its connected intelligence platform provides connectivity solutions for some of the world’s top automotive and PC/mobile companies including Audi, VW, Porsche, Panasonic, HP, and Lenovo.

Cubic delivers mobility solutions that

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connect, empower and enable global connectivity and business productivity. The company provides consistent 4G LTE for data, voice and SMS on a single embedded SIM (eSIM), at affordable rates. The company even bestows its users by eliminating roaming around the globe.

Cubic primarily offers products for the automotive industry. Audi connect® is one of its leading customers. Cubic’s global platform supplies the technology behind the Audi connect® services employed in several Audi models including the A3, A4, A5, Q2, Q5, Q7 and A8. The company also offers an international LTE-based platform. It partners with some of the best tier-one mobile network operators, ensuring reliability and high-quality local connectivity at competitive rates.

The company enables seamless switching from one mobile network to another, which allows the Audi owners enjoy qualitative connectivity for infotainment services along with access to competitive bundled connectivity plans. This includes telematics, Wi-Fi hotspot services, personal apps, and much more.

Empowering Seamless Connectivity It is worth noting that traditional mobile operators leverage their SIM

cards to tether users with their limited network footprint and billing plans.

Cubic’s innovative Multi-IMSI eSIM technology empowers a new global footprint and seamless connectivity at affordable rates for data, voice and SMS through a single eSIM. Today, eSIM technology of the company collaborates with more than twenty-five mobile companies, operating worldwide across one hundred and eighty countries. Cubic’s client portfolio includes some of the world’s largest mobile operators such as Orange of France, Tele2 and China Mobile Ltd, along with the largest telecom operators in the U.S. The Key Differentiator Cubic supports the many moving parts of seamless connectivity through its provisioning and management of SIMs, billing structure, prepaid bundled rate plans, and overall development and management. This has propelled Cubic as an obvious choice for solution provision for leading automotive and enterprise brands.

The eSIM is installed at the point of manufacture in mobile devices and automotives. This is pre-configured to support Cubic’s entire mobile operator footprint. Such cost-effective features have been its key differentiator.

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Leave today behind you.

The future of connectivity is just ahead.

In addition to these, Cubic is a technology enabler to its customers, and the company has an arsenal of software and hardware platforms in place.

A Prominent Leadership Barry Napier is the CEO and Chairman of Cubic Telecom. Napier has resourceful experience of over eighteen years in the Telecom field.

He is a seasoned executive for successful M&A transactions.

At Cubic, Napier oversees various departments like strategic development, investor relations, and strategic partnerships. He has also spearheaded the development of key practice areas, including the most recently undertaken connected car/infotainment initiatives.

Under Napier’s direction, Cubic has gone on to become a fully-licensed GSM (Global System for Mobile Communication) carrier and has closed agreements with more than 40

April 2018

Barry Napier CEO & Chairman mobile operators. This includes leading mobile operators like China Mobile, Digicel, Orange, Sprint, and Vodafone.

Since 2005, Cubic Telecom has raised approximately $88 million in funding.

Back in August 2017, the company closed a $47 million Series C round led by Audi, Qualcomm, Valid and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.

Initial Impediments: Raising Funds and Assuring Excellence Although Cubic has an exceptional suite of products as well as admirable capabilities to its name, the company struggled to raise funds during its period of inception. Assuring automobile and telecom leaders of the platform’s abilities was hard-hitting for the team during its early inception.

However, Cubic has gone on to boast one of the largest independent LTE footprints in Europe.

Introducing Innovative Services for Valuable Clients Cubic initially focused on providing its services in European markets. Over the last decade or so, the company has gained many satisfied clients across U.S., China, Japan and other international markets. The company now envisions expanding its territories across other Asian nations.

To address the growing needs of its worldwide customer base, Cubic is employing more and more innovative services such as data analytics. It aims to deploy some novel creative customized services, which are capable of enhancing content management processes in the near future.

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EIGHT:

Helping People Conquer Sleep Related Problems

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e live in an environment where around 35 percent of the total population is sleep deprived. Still, this remains one of the most neglected aspects of human activities. Eight was born in 2014 with the mission of improving the way we sleep through technology. In 2015, the company launched its first product, The Eight Sleep Tracker. After months of preparation, it launched a successful crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, which raised over $1.5 million in pre-order sales. Eight has been successful ever since Indiegogo, launched the first smart mattress by early 2016 and adding two more smart mattresses to the collection by 2017, making Eight the most advanced sleep enhancement system on the market.

A Leader who believes that Sleep can be engineered to Perfection Not so long ago, Matteo Franceschetti, the CEO and Cofounder of Eight started taking interest in sleep. He was quite frustrated with how tired he felt in the morning regardless of how long he slept at night. Soon, Matteo started to question the status quo of

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sleep and realized that the way we sleep hasn’t fundamentally changed for centuries. Humans lay down on a padded surface and close their eyes, that’s it. Matteo wanted to disrupt this notion and upgrade sleep by using technology. He believed in technology and thought it can help every person in the planet to sleep better, so Matteo formed Eight.

Thanks to his vision, the whole team of Eight is driven by a belief — sleep can be engineered to perfection. Now the company develops the most innovative, and data driven products for sleep enhancement.

Catering to the Needs and addressing all the Common Causes of Bad Sleep Unlike all the other mattresses, the smart mattresses from Eight are designed to cater to the needs of the users. It addresses all the common causes like discomfort, wrong temperature in bed and bedroom, light in the environment, and an inconsistent routine that leads to a bad sleep. One of the main USP of the mattress is dual-zone bed warming, where one can easily warm up each side of the bed individually.

Eight designs its mattresses for

couples, so one person can turn on the bed warming while another can keep it off. In fact, everything about the smart mattress is designed for two people in mind. This means that two people can share the bed but can have totally different experiences. In addition to these, Eight’s smart mattresses are built to be the hub for the users’ smart home. It can connect to any WiFi device such as Amazon Alexa, Philips Hue, and Nest Thermostat. One can even create automatic triggers that will dim the lights as soon as the user gets into bed and can brew coffee as soon as the user wakes up. These automations are not just gimmicks, they allow the user to design his ideal environment conducive to the best sleep. The technology takes care of everything, so the user can be fast asleep. Eights’ smart mattress is also entirely controlled through an app, which is constantly being improved based on user feedback.

Enhancing the Sleep Experience To help users wake up refreshed, the Eight Smart Mattress uses a smart alarm to wake users up during light sleep. It also coaches them to sleep the hours they need and sleep them

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Our products are designed to promote health, energy, productivity, and happiness for everyone.

well, by seamlessly tracking sleep every night and following up with personalized recommendations. Eight senses and analyzes over 15 factors from user sleep patterns and bedroom environment to determine the conditions that helps them to get the best rest possible.

When most Sophisticated Technologies are a Core Part of its DNA R&D, machine learning, and the most sophisticated technologies are a core part of Eights’ DNA. Even though the company sells smart mattresses, it is not a mattress company. Eight is a tech company first, and the products are enabled through powerful software that continues to improve. Eight is one of few companies that holds patent in the smart sleeping space. While everyone is getting excited in 2018 regarding sleep technology, Eight already has the advantage with years of tracked data. Having tracked over 20 million hours of sleep and

April 2018

Matteo Franceschetti CEO & Co-founder analyzed over 200 billion data points to date, Eight is leveraging machine learning to extract information from sleep data and discovering things that have not yet been discovered in the field of sleep research.

Personalizing the way People Sleep According to Eight, humans are living in an increasingly tired society where more than 35 percent people is sleep deprived and more than 60 percent Americans are suffering from sleep related problems. The last major innovation in sleep was memory foam, and that was invented back in 1966. Since then nothing much has changed and Eight aims to change that. It is redesigning the traditional concept of mattresses by making them smart.

technologically-advanced sleep enhancement company on the market. Look out for its new products and features coming soon.

The company believes that smart mattresses will eventually replace standard mattresses. In a few years from now, sleep will be different from now and technology will be driving this evolution. Sleep will come down to personalized optimization. The environment will adapt to every human individual need in real-time, so people can achieve maximum recovery and rest.

Eight is constantly evolving to become the most aspirational,

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Expert’s Insight

Why Do We Need to Create Mobile Apps for Business?

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ocial media pages and responsive websites are great ways to start bringing digital life to your business. However, if you are seriously looking to give an additional punch to your company, you, might need to consider launching a mobile app.

Worried About the Size of Your Business?

Well, you shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter if you are not a Fortune 100 Company, imagine your client is choosing between going to your business or your competition’s: Ÿ

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If you have your mobile app and your competition doesn’t. Then he/she can easily learn more about you and your product or service and probably purchase or make the reservation straight from there. He/she won’t be able to get any info from your competition unless going in person or making a call. Is your chance to outstand within your industry.

If your competition already has a mobile app, well the problem is

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About the Company Amplemind is an app development-focused technology agency based in Guadalajara, Mexico with offices in Culiacán, New York City, and San Francisco. Our nimble, multi-disciplinary team works seamlessly with agencies and startups that are looking for senior developers and technology professionals to help them tackle their backlog of product ambitions.

We specialize in mobile apps and responsive websites.

time on mobile, according to emarketer. That’s definitely a time you should take advantage of to connect directly with your clients.

The information you would like to send to your customers can be instantly at their hands through push notifications. You can easily remind your audience about your offers, discounts or general new info you want them to know at the right time.

Let me show you some primary benefits of helping your business with a mobile app:

Optimize Your Shopper’s Journey People are used to execute a purchase as simple as through a finger touch, the less intermediary steps, the better. They are looking to reduce the time spent to make the purchase, I mean, if you know you will always choose the same perfume or the same hands cream, then, why spending so much time going to the mall?

Can Operate a Direct Marketing Channel Statistics show an average person in the U.S. spends 3.6hr of its daily

If your product or service can be sold through a mobile e-commerce, then the purchase process can happen easily. The consumer experience will

explained by itself. You are losing many chances to get to new customers.

Ÿ

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be faster, increasing your sales productivity. Ÿ Provide Value to Your Customers Nowadays, customers are more educated about the service or product they are looking for. It’s all about a search on Google, reading reviews from current customers or just seeing its ranking in the online stores.

A mobile app enables customer interaction by providing constant feedback on how the user is feeling with the navigation, business model, etc. Constant communication between clients and brands is so much easier now. The owners can recognize what the clients are expecting for and create a product that generates value for them.

Stronger Brand Developing a brand is a challenging task, but building a STRONG brand is even more complicated. You need to be as close as possible to your target audience, gain their trust and recognition, as well as get more people to know you.

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Mobile app stores had become such important search engines and exposure points. A good positioning inside them will expand your reach to a global view (or you can just segment those territories where your brand should live.)

business, you have the power of making your audience stay (and make them interested in your business) or leave.

This point is all about the customer experience inside your app. A walker study reveals that customer experience will be more important than price and even that product by 2020. So, making every process intuitive, clear and fast will be the key to develop an engaged customer.

a Specific Market: 22% - Parent Company Suggested the App: 10%.

The positive results in these areas forced small businesses to adopt mobile apps.

We are in the middle of the digital era transition. Technology has come to revolutionize how businesses are done. And as in any other revolution is all about adaption and innovation or die.

If you are still not sure about whether adopting a mobile app for your business or not, take a look at Clutch survey , where the results showed that mobile apps were really effective to improve in these areas: Increase Sales: 39% - Improve Customer Service: 30% - Compete in

About the Author Fernando Mendivil is the CEO of Amplemind and President of the Mexican Association of Entrepreneurs. He is also a board member of The PoolMX, Global Shaper of the Global Shapers Community, and the Co-founder of PITZ Amateur Football/Soccer Technology.

Improve The Customer Engagement Have you used an app that you don’t even understand how to navigate to obtain what you are looking for?

Then you just close and uninstall it?

When you develop an app for your

Ÿ

April 2018

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Omnichannel Agent and Customer Engagement Solutions Simplify and personalize the customer experience, empower agents and achieve business success with one workspace for all channel interactions, application integrations, and CX reporting.

EVRYTHNG:

Making the World a Smarter Place

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VRYTHNG, the Smart Products Platform, aims to bring to life a vision where every physical product in our world participates in the digital ecosystem with its own unique web identity.

The company’s technology provides this identity, called an Active Digital Identity™, through intelligent software in the cloud. It allows products to appear as a web service API to applications, to share data, and to drive applications with cloud-based analytics and machine intelligence.

As a business model, EVRYTHNG provides a B2B enterprise platform-asa-service to global consumer product manufacturers, making it possible for these organizations to collect and manage data about their physical products throughout their respective lifecycles.

EVRYTHNG is backed by private equity, and staffed by a team of 50 people operating across offices in London, New York, San Francisco and Minsk. The company has worked closely with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on the standardization of the web of things framework, and with GS1 on the digitization of global product coding standards.

Transforming Products Through digital printing, printed electronics, embedded computing technologies and sensors, digital identification can now be attached to almost any type of physical product.

This means that the approximately four trillion products made and sold to consumers each year can generate data about themselves and deliver

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information and digital applications to anyone interacting with them.

This transforms everyday objects into powerful digital assets for the companies that make and sell them.

Whilst product digitization offers transformational opportunities for businesses, it is not possible without large scale data management. This is the problem EVRYTHNG addresses through their Smart Products Platform managing billions of Active Digital Identities™.

This identity provides perpetual access to the web and makes use of standard web protocols to provide APIs so applications can work with product data regardless of how the product is physically connected. Data can be collected from products scanned with a smartphone or connected to the internet.

EVRYTHNG’s integration with GS1, the world’s coding standards for physical products, means that almost every product can be digitized, leveraging well-established mechanisms in the supply chain. The pervasiveness of the web and the standardization of web protocols makes it possible for multiple stakeholders to interact with the same product identity on the web to aggregate and share data.

Real-time analytics and machine learning technologies within EVRYTHNG’s platform processes diverse sets of product data using algorithms developed in standard coding languages to drive diverse supply chain and direct-to-consumer applications.

The Innovative Leader A computer scientist by training, Niall Murphy is a technologist, serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He is also the Co-founder and CEO of EVRYTHNG. With 25 years of experience in innovation and future thinking, Niall has built pioneering businesses in internet infrastructure, the mobile internet and web services in Europe, US, and Africa.

Before founding EVRYTHNG, Niall co-founded a pan-European WiFi network called The Cloud, which was acquired by News Corporation’s BSkyB in 2011. In the mid-90s he founded one of the first internet service providers in Africa, which was acquired by UUnet. He also cofounded The Digital Thinking Network, a scenario thinking consultancy based in Amsterdam.

Niall is a co-author of the WiFi roaming framework adopted by the IETF, and has co-authored a number of patents. He serves on the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom’s advisory board.

Helping Consumer Brands The world is becoming increasingly interconnected and every possible thing that can be connected, will be.

This offers tremendous opportunity for value creation and new business models.

Manufacturers can identify and track every physical thing they make and sell, and brands are realizing they must embrace this digital transformation to remain competitive. EVRYTHNG’s digital identity and data management platform helps consumer product

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We don’t want to live in a digital world; we want digital connectivity to give us a better real world.

Niall Murphy Co-founder & CEO brands compete in various ways: Ÿ Cutting Costs: By digitizing their physical products, clients minimize inventory losses, improve forecast accuracy, reduce the cost of recalls and combat the gray market. Ÿ

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Winning Customers: Physical products become a new channel to directly engage customers, collect first-party data to deepen consumer relationships, and deliver direct-toconsumer e-commerce and digital services.

Owning Data: Data is of critical value in building and maintaining competitiveness. Data access and ownership opens new business models and enables collaboration between business units, partners, retailers and consumers. The EVRYTHNG platform enables an open ecosystem in which brands own the data from their products across multiple applications and ‘actors’ within the lifecycle.

Ease of Deployment: For product manufacturers, digitizing products on a large scale is a complex operation. EVRYTHNG’s partnerships with the world’s largest packaging companies allows for the addition of digital triggers at source to all types of products and materials. This enables brands to focus on the applications they want

April 2018

the supply chain will have a large impact on the 2.5% of global trade estimated to be lost to counterfeiting, the 7% of estimated revenues lost to under- and overstocking in retail and 1.25% lost entirely during transportation.

to run to remain competitive, rather than the operational mechanics of digitally enabling physical products at huge scale.

A Bright Future EVRYTHNG plans to manage one trillion digital consumer product identities by the end of 2020. This growth will be achieved by: Ÿ Automatic provisioning of digital identities as products made through EVRYTHNG’s partnerships deep in the supply chain with the world’s largest packaging and supply chain service providers. Ÿ

The roll-out of digital identity integrated with the standard GS1 coding used by more than two million product manufacturers globally to identify their products for point of sale.

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Optimizing the ease of use of the EVRYTHNG platform and APIs to enable product manufacturers, application developers and other service providers to easily work with product data through intelligent digital identities on the web.

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Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer engagement via the physical product will help brands address the challenges of declining loyalty, evident in 2017 when 41% of consumers switched companies over a lack of trust and poor personalization, costing businesses $756 billion. With product data directly accessible to consumers through digital interfaces on the product, information about its origin, quality and authentication will become readily available to them. Brands can build stronger direct relationships with their customers, offering more personalized experiences and innovation in service delivery.

The digitization of products will have profound implications for the consumer products industry: Ÿ Analytical intelligence brought to

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FlyingBinary: Changing the World with Data and Technology rom the first website in 1993, the World Wide Web has grown to become the largest human information system in history, integrated into the everyday lives of billions of people across the planet. It shapes how we do business, conduct our social lives and even how we organize politically.

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Precisely Tailored Public and Private Cloud Services FlyingBinary’s web scale services are available as a cloud service, either via a public cloud or as a private cloud service. These precise solutions are designed to meet specific client needs, irrespective of their industry and geographical location.

A powerful combination of technical innovation and social participation, the Web is transforming the world in ways that were never imagined at the start, and continues to evolve in inventive and unexpected ways that will shape the future of the world.

FlyingBinary co-founded a story publishing, data journalism network.

The network is a perfect example of its preciseness in providing public cloud services and has over 34 million consumers. The company also has 24 interoperable cloud services which enable an organization, sector or nation to leverage the IoT with a proven ROI multiplier of between 2 and 60.

The field of Web Science has an ambitious agenda: to focus the analytical power of researchers from disciplines as diverse as mathematics, sociology, economics, psychology, law and computer science to understand and explain the Web. The CEO of FlyingBinary, Jacqui Taylor, is committed to the vision that Tim Berners-Lee, Founder of the Web shared in 2009 with the newly created community of web scientists.

She has created a web science company with the comprehensive ability to revolutionize workflows across various industries through significant data and technology adoptions.

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Every organization can leverage these IoT opportunities. However, some sectors need strategic roadmaps to bring a focus to their route to leverage IoT and to maximize their ROI. The FlyingBinary data journalism work has built an evidence base which is developed to understand the value of IoT. The company has worked across many sectors, organizations and nations. It deploys secure and accredited technology which is needed to deliver this IoT value.

FlyingBinary has empowered various sectors, organizations and nations with its cloud services. IoT, on average, can be utilized by 8% of an organization. However, FlyingBinary’s approach allows them to magnify that to an average of 80%.

In order to support the transition to IoT services, it has been essential to build and upgrade FlyingBinary’s cloud services every six months to reflect the emerging requirements across sectors and the world.

Industry Leading G-Cloud Platform In May 2017, FlyingBinary became one of the first companies in Europe to launch an IoT RegTech cloud service. They architected these services to meet the specific needs of two key sectors - Smart Cities and Health Services.

FlyingBinary is the first web science company to deliver this technology for IoT. All services are designed to meet the needs of Europe’s Digital Single Market. They have leveraged legislation via the NIS Directive, and by regulation via the General Data Protection Regulation, to enable a new Security and Privacy model for European IoT services.

Creating and delivering IoT services to meet the needs of a government

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As international web scientists, we have built our technology to leverage IoT to enable societal change, with humans at the center of this transformation. We call this Society 5.0.

Jacqui Taylor framework is a high bar for any company. FlyingBinary has been accredited and certified on H.M. Government’s cloud industry’s leading G-Cloud framework.

FlyingBinary is one of the most successful SME suppliers on this framework and has been awarded all nine G-Cloud frameworks.

In 2017, it was recognized as a GovTech 100 one of 100 companies credited with transforming the UK. The sheer dedication of the Founders of FlyingBinary has bestowed the company with an unmatched pace.

Their seven years of hard work has resulted in FlyingBinary winning several global awards.

An Influential Woman Technologist Jacqui Taylor, CEO of FlyingBinary is one of the most influential women technologists in the UK. She has also been featured in the list of the 100 most powerful UK entrepreneurs.

Taylor has an aerospace engineering

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CEO background, and this played a vital role in the inception of the company.

Taylor has also written the British Standard which defines the changes required for the governance of Smart Cities in an IoT-enabled world. She is currently working with the international standards community to fast track this to an international Smart City standard. She was recognized in the UK in 2018 as a Smart City leader as a direct result of her contribution to developing the Smart City domain to embrace the IoT.

enhancement of the security features in IoT services. It is particularly planning to deploy some of these services for the European territory and enable the next steps of the IoT, including a GDPR-compliant AI engine. FlyingBinary has developed security features which can bring enormous positive change to the IoT arena and the company now envisions delivering the knowledge of how to leverage IoT to more than one million entrepreneurs across the world.

Aiming to deliver IoT knowledge to 1 Million Entrepreneurs FlyingBinary cloud services were originally built to improve the UK banking industry by leveraging new RegTech services. Today, they have transformed businesses across various industries throughout the world. The company is now focusing on the

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Go Green

How can the 44

Climate Change?

April 2018

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he relation between technology and the environment of our planet is very old. The time has come to turn everything in the surrounding eco-friendly. IoT (Internet of Things) products can be tailored to combat with the climate change and its consequences. Whether it is a disaster like ood or an issue like deforestation, this technology is capable to protect us and our environment in several ways. Have you ever wondered how technology could save our natural resources?

Yes, IoT has the potential to resolve such problems as it involves animals and plants in our connected world.

IoT business owners are getting encouragement from the governments and corporates to build smart and intelligent devices that help us Go Green. In order to keep our environment safe, the IoT makers must come up with the good ideas that satisfy the current demands of the ecosystem. Innovative products would be incorporated for domestic as well as industrial use.

Energy Saving IoT products are aimed to save energy using automated systems. For instance, smart lighting can sense sunlight and is able to maintain constant lighting level. The smart home appliances implement energy management. Smart buildings use solar energy and other renewable energy sources to minimize environmental impact.

Animal Tracking With IoT, it is becoming easier to track rare species. Animal tracking helps scientists and conservationists to know their location and their tendency towards migration. The micro-sensors paired with IoT enable multiple devices to connect together for the purpose to collect, transmit, and store data. Animal tracking is also important to maintain the way our ecosystem works.

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Reduce Pollution It is very interesting to see how IoT fight with the pollution. The real-time data is used for forecasting pollution parameters and measuring the elements of air and water quality. The technology focuses on keeping pollution to a minimum. Air pollution can be detected and evaluated across all the industries to ensure that they stick to the air quality policies.

Water Management IoT devices can transform the way we manage the most precious resource—water. With the advanced water sensors, these products make decisions and produce data analytics about the amount of water we use. It allows us to save money and to minimize water usage for its conservation.

Smart Farming Smart farming is shaping the future of agriculture, which impacts on the environment positively. These small devices automate the process of farming using harvesting and irrigation. The technology can be used to choose fertilizers in accordance with the conditions of the soil. Drones can play the crucial role in monitoring the whole cultivation.

Prevent Deforestation Deforestation is one of the major causes of climate change. According to a study, there is a need to implant a billion trees a year to recover, which can only be possible if an automated system is used. IoT and drones are assembled and deployed to perform this task efficiently. It reduces manpower requirements and cost and uses agriculture techniques for planting and maintenance.

Waste Management When the IoT technology was introduced, it was predicted that it would increase e-waste. But this problem was mere a part of the solution. IoT provides a great way to manage waste and recycle. The sensors installed in chips would be able to notify consumers when it is ready to repair or recycle. They also inform the users which component can be reused so that they do not go trash early. For the management of other wastage, IoT products can be designed to automate disposal system timely.

Natural Disaster Detection Notably, natural disaster is a dreadful outcome of climate change. IoT products can be used to detect natural disaster at the early stage and to minimize the damages. Earthquake and flood sensors send out the signals to the cloud-based servers connected with the internet. In the case of detection, residents of that area get warning signals. Internet of underwater things is used for monitoring activities of oceans and rivers.

There are hundreds of ideas to think upon and hundreds of solutions to work on. For example, traffic control reduces carbon production by saving gasoline and food security assists in balancing the ecosystem. Undoubtedly, climate change is the biggest challenge of our time and it is our concern to give healthier environment to the next generation. Other technologies such as artificial intelligence can be associated with the IoT to get better insights and success in combatting with this problem.

The connectivity among things (instead of devices only) can make our everyday life more sustainable. But, the efforts made till yet to decelerate climate change are insufficient. The future demands a planet where all the living things get safety against it. There is no exaggeration in saying that IoT enabled systems can make climate change turn back. IoT products make us more organized, more sustaining, safer, and greener.

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April 2018

KMC Controls: 50 Years of Intuitive Innovation

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or nearly 50 years, KMC Controls has helped facilities achieve higher levels of energy efficiency and indoor environment quality by automating building control systems. Located in New Paris, Indiana, the company is an independent American manufacturer of building automation solutions which works with system integrators, system distributors, and OEM partners.

KMC delivers embedded intelligence and optimized control for everything from secure hardware devices to smart and connected software. KMC has teamed up with leading technology providers to deliver innovative and intuitive solutions that help its customers increase operating efficiency, optimize energy usage, maximize comfort, and improve safety.

Uniting Building Systems across Networks, Protocols and Locations KMC Commander is an IoT solution which began as a vision to unite building systems across networks, protocols, and locations on a single, web-based mobile platform.

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Committed to making the solution truly open, affordably scalable and as secure as possible, KMC set out with tech leaders Intel and Dell to promote IoT and prove that collaboration is the only way to be successful when approaching this new connected concept.

After KMC worked with Dell on what to include in an IoT gateway, the 3000 and 5000 series Edge Gateways, with Intel inside, were born. KMC itself developed the cloud platform that would drive the solution and finally make IoT a real possibility.

Leading from the Front Richard Newberry is the CEO of KMC Controls. Richard was formerly the President of the company and has led its corporate development, new product innovation, and competitive strategy since 2014.

With more than 30 years of executive and general management experience in the energy, oil and gas, technology, manufacturing, and building automation segments, he embraces a ‘total solution’ view to guiding

innovation and forging strategic partnerships with industry-leading technology firms.

Richard currently leads KMC’s collaboration with Silicon Valley tech giants aimed at developing a revolutionary solution for connecting building automation systems to IoT. Innovative and Intuitive Solutions from Responsible People The KMC advantage can be found in the company’s mission statement: Innovative and intuitive solutions from responsible and supportive people.

The organization develops products that are completely customer-focused using state-of-the-art technology. KMC interacts closely with its clients at the development stage and this helps it understand their needs, and then design solutions that are easy to purchase, install and use. However, their customer commitment doesn’t end here; KMC products are backed by a knowledgeable support team that ensures their successful implementation and use.

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We provide innovative, easy-to-use building automation and technology solutions backed by dedicated and passionate employees.

When KMC Controls was first established, it specialized in pneumatic HVAC controls for the OEM market.

Over time, the company became an industry visionary, looking for voids in product and service delivery, and developing and building on new technologies to fill these needs.

This led to the expansion of the KMC line, with the addition of products like digital controls in the 1980s and configuration software in the 1990s.

There are always struggles along the way, but one of the biggest is swimming against the tide of complacency. In an industry that is historically slow to adopt new technology, demonstrating and convincing others of the coming digital transformation was initially a challenge.

While there is still work to be done, the conversation has undeniably changed from persuasion to demonstration, and KMC’s leadership finds the potential incredibly exciting.

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Richard Newberry CEO Meeting the Needs of the Hour, and of the Future Building systems have grown more unwieldy and disparate, while also growing smarter and more technically advanced. KMC Commander brings them all together.

CIOs and IT directors are increasingly being made responsible for these systems, and their expectations of IT capabilities are often higher than what is possible. KMC Commander makes IT integrations possible, a move which allows IT departments to be more comfortable with taking OT systems under their wing. Whether it’s the built-in security at the physical and cloud layers or the cellular capable gateway, IT and OT professionals alike see huge potential for their clients here.

primarily focused on HVAC solutions.

However, it expects to see enormous growth in a number of other channels in the near future, and plans to leverage them, too.

The organization also expects the market for IT managed service providers and CIO/IT Directors for midsized enterprises to grow dramatically, easily doubling current customer and revenue projections.

KMC Controls is thrilled with what the future holds, and is excited to experience this growth with customers and partners alike.

KMC Controls’ focus has historically been the OT channel of Systems Integrators and OEM customers,

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Mnubo:

Creating Business Value from Data Using Unprecedented IoT Insights

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ith more devices than ever connected to the internet, and to each other, the world of networking today has progressed far beyond traditional human-to-machine communications.

Everyday consumer objects are being turned into communication end points in this well-connected world to create what is commonly referred to as the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT).

Organizations are buying into the IoT, but then struggle to evaluate the value and priority of the range of products and services available. Most traditional manufacturers do not have the connectivity and data expertise required to quickly and successfully implement a ready-for-market IoTconnected product.

Throughout his career, Fred has been recognized for his vision, leadership and passion for building extraordinary products and teams. He has played a key role in several Quebec startups.

Prior to Mnubo, he was the VP of Products at Blueslice Networks.

Fred is well-regarded within his team, and in the industry, as a humble leader with a keen sense for innovation and value creation. He thrives on developing high-quality solutions and delivering top-notch customer satisfaction.

Under Fred’s leadership, Mnubo is on track to becoming the strategic catalyst and truly harvesting the IoT to maximize its advantages in this era of connected objects.

Mnubo, established in 2012, offers a SaaS solution to product manufacturers so that they can collate, organize and analyze data. Mnubo’s SaaS products benefits customers in the consumer, enterprise and industrial verticals.

Mnubo’s Foundation Story Fred demonstrates resilience and perseverance in the face of challenges, and is always looking out for the ‘greater good’. The founding of Mnubo is the perfect example to illustrate this:

The Steadfast Leader Frederic Bastien, CEO of Mnubo, is a business leader with extensive entrepreneurial experience who is passionate about new technologies and innovation. His successful track-record spans the entire mobile internet space, both with startups as well as large corporations.

A few years after he sold his previous start-up, the U.S. parent company that had acquired it decided to close operations in Montreal to reduce costs.

Despite being offered a lucrative position at the American headquarters, Fred quit the parent company and immediately started work on building Mnubo from the ground-up.

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Within 8 months, he built a successful business plan, re-hired the entire staff from his previous company, and struck a multi-million dollar professional services contract with the parent company. Today, Mnubo is one of the most successful startups in Canada despite being founded only in 2012.

Fred’s Distinctive Strategies for Success Today, many of the most popular devices like connected fridges, smart irrigation management controllers, and smart home hubs use technology built on Fred’s vision and foresight.

While other businessmen might shy away from uncertainty, Fred has the acumen to differentiate opportunity from hype and is able create value in a rarely-understood space by envisioning the potential in its future.

He is also unique in that he is a visionary and yet works hard to build team consensus, a rare but valuable trait for tech startups. Fred takes calculated risks. He sensed the immense opportunity in the space of Big Data and IoT when the market was still in its infancy, and created a business on the confluence of both of these, now, big technology trends.

Under Fred’s leadership, Mnubo has overcome many challenges to become one of the leading IoT Analytics

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We are spearheading the transformation of the IoT landscape by enabling a datadriven versus a connectivity-driven business model. Companies must focus on business outcomes through IoT insights in order to stand-out in a crowded and confusing market.

Frederic Bastien CEO solutions available on the market today. Fred has created a culture where enthusiasts can use data to challenge the status quo and disrupt industries across the globe.

Mnubo’s Range of Services Mnubo’s SmartObjects SaaS solution was designed with the manufacturer in mind. It equips product manufacturers and service providers with insights on product usage and performance, customer engagement, operational efficiencies, and much more.

By collecting and presenting sensor data in real-time, it allows manufacturers and service providers to uncover existing problems and circumvent future ones, and also enables condition-based monitoring, predictive maintenance and proactive servicing.

Mnubo’s technology and services have value-adding implications for manufacturers – it can accelerate their time-to-market while lowering CAPEX and OPEX spending by over 40%, and boost their upsell revenues through trends, insights and intelligence from their IoT data.

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Available as a turnkey, end-to-end analytics solution, Mnubo allows manufacturers to focus on what they do best - build better products!

Unique Approach to Attract Clients Mnubo’s services allow its clients to make swift, strategic decisions using real-time and predictive data analytics from their IoT network. They improve asset productivity and reduce operational inefficiencies by utilizing meaningful and relevant analytics statistics across connected objects.

In addition, Mnubo’s business logic flexibility facilitates highly customized analytics. Its cloud-based, highlyscalable and distributed architecture supports the increasing volume, velocity and variety of IoT sensor data from connected devices.

Future Roadmap The IoT is a highly fragmented industry; there is no ‘one-man shop’ providing a complete IoT solution from connectivity to data insights. Mnubo’s unique data expertise put it in a position to capitalize on the vast amount of sensor data being generated from the rapidly-increasing number of connected assets.

By leveraging their strategic partner network, investors and existing customers, Mnubo will penetrate new markets and grow their customer base.

Its history of strong customer-use cases provides Mnubo with the credibility it needs to expand into new markets, but it also gives them with the foresight to build more customer-centric features.

With Mnubo’s turnkey IoT analytics services, product manufacturers accelerate their time-to-insight. This allows manufacturers and other players to make faster and better decisions on how they should build a product and improve overall service efficiency, thereby completing the feedback loop.

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Mentor’s Viewpoint

What Drives Customer Experience

Lindsey LeBlanc VP of Strategy Cloud Automation Solutions

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April 2018

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ecently, I sat in a client road map meeting to discuss a major platform migration effort. Their VP of Technology, QA engineer, orchestration architect, and software development director walked through the delivery plan of how content would be moved from one automation platform to the new platform. While the major topic was not software integration, the questions continued to arise around integration, APIs, and the interaction of these within the systems. In tech, we all know that integration is at the center of almost any project because so many groups are on disparate technologies and solutions. Teams are sold into multi-year license agreements, managers find their preferential tools, or companies fall into the age-old “it’s the way we’ve always done it” and end up on different solutions or even different versions of software.

Both the VP of Technology and the QA engineer brought up the point that multiple groups were using different ticketing, support, development, and project management tools to complete their work across the entire company. None of the technologies talked to each other and most of the teams were based in different regions, effectively siloed from collaboration. A major issue with these disparate solutions is the lack of reporting, which ultimately means a lack of visibility into the system. The VP, Director, and QA engineer are all looking for report-outs of various items — development status, API calls, use percentages, release timelines, or others. How do you know what is functioning well versus what is hanging up in a system? This translates to: how can you determine a successful ROI versus what is ineffective? We know that at the heart of every customer’s end-game is revenue return. By mentioning the variety of software that teams were using, the client was really saying that there was a void in their software solutions.

Development is working on deliverables in Jira, QA is testing in Swagger, and management is missing reports of the entire release process. The void is the lack of visibility.

Traditionally, integrated software solutions are thought to be technologies like Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, AppleWorks, etc. that bring a variety of software tools into a one license, one suite download. As the market changes and companies look at increasing revenue and reducing operations burden, there becomes a need for integration across multiple software solutions that is not as simple as “click and save.” With APIs and the increasing amount of connections that various tools include, integration across these solutions becomes an expectation

April 2018

for any customer. When I assess a tool, I automatically look for integrations. Can I connect my CRM to my marketing automation platform? Can I connect my project management tool to my company’s instant messaging? Can I integrate my QA tools with my development solution to speed-up releases?

As a standard, customers now look for unified systems to accelerate growth and improve business productivity. As competition increases, it becomes paramount to provide a first-class customer experience and satisfy customer expectations from the start. If you are unable to provide integrated software solutions from implementation and quickly resolve issues with hang-ups in systems speaking to each other, customer satisfaction levels drop and the risk of losing the client rises exponentially. It is vital to launch new products, projects, or experiences with the end-user in mind; proper planning of the pain points before launch enables faster revenue for both you and the customer.

While it can be time consuming to develop the target mission and pain points prior to a sales pitch, the comprehensive big-picture ultimately enables you to spend more time on customer acquisition and retention efforts instead of developing or resolving software solutions after the fact. Investments of both time and resources at the start can feel like a burden as it cuts into short—term revenue goals; however, long-term growth evolves from the ability to nurture customer relationships through the understanding of their frustrations and bottom lines. Through understanding the customer’s need for integration first, we enable bigger, faster, and more frequent growth opportunities.

If customers demand integrated software solutions outside of the traditional one suite downloads, how can today’s software providers and customized service providers meet this demand and improve the customer experience?

Ensuring that your services integrate with a variety of technologies and software solutions have integration points to connect to a multitude of solutions is a great starting point. At our company, we ensure that we stay up-to-speed on changing technologies and market demands to remain agile in the vendor space. Our independence and expertise to many solutions allows us to work across any vertical with any technology to meet any demand. Ultimately, it is not a single IT strategy that drives customer experience, but really the broader business strategy that fosters their experience, long-term loyalty, and complete satisfaction.

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Nikola Labs:

Bringing Wireless Power to Commercial Reality

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he 21st century is witnessing rapid advancements in the IoT space with the advent of wireless power technology. In a world where thousands of sensors surround us every day, a new method to power devices is critical for the Internet of Things to fulfill its potential. Nikola Labs is a renowned player in the wireless power technology space who develops and demonstrates radio frequency (RF) harvesting technology, which can be embedded directly into devices to achieve the new method of delivering power, wireless power transfer.

suitable for commercial deployment.

Working in partnership with technology leaders Texas Instruments and Skyworks Solutions, the circuitry to convert RF to DC was miniaturized down to a single chip.

The resulting INDRA chip , the first device of its kind on the market, is available for customer sampling and testing. Additionally, the Nikola team is developing associated components, including a suite of compatible antennas and a transmitter/ transponder that incorporates charging and communications in one system.

In 2014, Nikola Labs spun-out from The Ohio State University’s worldrenown Electroscience Laboratory (ESL) to commercialize wireless power technology invented by Dr. Chi-Chih Chen, who now serves as the company’s CTO. Dr. Chen, who is a fellow with both IEEE and AMTA, developed a state-of-the-art system that conveys energy using radio frequencies waves which are captured on effective antennas and efficiently converted into direct current (DC) power with advanced circuitry. OSU’s foundational patents are licensed exclusively to Nikola Labs.

Outstanding Technology

Over the past three and a half years, significant progress has been made to improve the technology and make it

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Nikola Labs is out to solve the remote power problem of the Internet of things (IoT). Today, IoT, especially in the industrial sector, is not living up to its potential because device life and functionality are constrained by battery capacity. Nikola’s technology provides consistent power, enabling edge devices to operate perpetually.

Today, power is provided by either batteries or wired connections.

Running wires can be impractical and expensive, creating a hurdle for IoT implementations. Batteries are the more common choice, but also have limitations where functionality and reporting frequency are curtailed to improve device life. The need to

replace batteries also creates a new maintenance task, an unwelcome consequence of IoT installations that often aim to minimize maintenance.

A solution to this is wireless power, more specifically radio frequency to direct current (RF-to-DC). Nikola offers both standard and custom solutions to power long-lived, high functioning IoT devices.

Making a Difference Nikola Labs has a small number of direct competitors that are also commercializing RF-to-DC wireless power technologies, including Energous, Ossia, and Powercast among others. Nikola Labs is differentiated by its highly efficient circuit technology, which is exclusively licensed from The Ohio State University, and market focus on industrial IoT. Most competitors are pursuing the consumer electronics segment, such as mobile phones, which is very challenging for a number of reasons, including a mismatch between power demand and the amount that can be practically delivered wirelessly.

Overcoming the Challenges The Nikola Labs team testifies that their journey has been a bit rocky but very satisfying. The company was April 2018

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Nikola Labs is ushering in electricity’s next great act to become the leading global provider of wireless power.

originally founded to commercialize an energy harvesting mobile phone case that could prolong battery life by up to 30%. However, the degree of energy harvesting was tied to the amount of waste radio frequency transmissions from the phone and operating system updates reduced this to a point where there was less than 5% battery life extension. However, this setback forced the company to pivot and put them on a better path.

The same technology is now at the core of the company’s wireless power solutions for IoT devices.

A Passionate Trailblazer Will Zell, CEO and Founding Partner of Nikola Labs, has founded three technology companies in addition to building successful real estate and retail ventures over the past nine years. He is deeply passionate about seeing startups succeed, serving for a time as the Managing Director of a startup accelerator. Although, a firm believer in the power of technology, Will understands that business is

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Will Zell CEO & Founding Partner conducted between people and is devoted to operate Nikola Labs with the highest level of integrity. Will draws from a broad range of experience in communications, organizational development, leadership, brand development, and innovation. He brings drive and passion to the Nikola Labs team.

The Best is yet to come In a world that currently has 40+ billion connected devices, Nikola Labs is providing wireless power solutions to significantly improve the experience for IoT users, installers, and maintainers. Nikola’s technology offers far-field wireless power at distances up to 30 feet, the power needed to “run” IoT devices. This is important because it keeps these devices perpetually powered so they have an uninterrupted operation and continuous data flow from no/low maintenance networks.

Nikola Labs believes that there are significant improvements to be made that can increase the power supplied at distance and reduce the energy consumption of connected devices.

Together, these strategies allow for higher functioning devices to be powered at greater distances, opening up new market opportunities for the company’s wireless power technology. The Nikola Labs team promises to bring forth highly efficient wireless powered products to the market in the near future, which will eventually take RF harvesting technology to a whole new level.

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ParqEx: The Smart Way to Find Parking

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arqEx is a technology company that connects owners of private parking spaces to people looking for parking.

In urban areas where parking demand is high but options are scarce or expensive, ParqEx helps the driving public by listing exclusive parking spots owned by local residents and businesses. Using ParqEx, the owners of these spaces are able to earn supplemental income from an underutilized asset while renters get exclusive access to convenient parking locations.

The ParqEx support team ensures that the entire process of listing, reserving, parking, and paying is smooth and transparent for all parties.

One of ParqEx’s unique features is that it offers the ability to communicate directly with parking space owners through its platform.

The organization’s innovative IoT solution called Access+ allows renters and approved users to open any garage door or gate with their smart phones.

Implementing Access+ increases rental opportunities, improves transparency into garage usage, and provides great convenience for both owners and renters.

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As ParqEx is based on IoT, garage fobs and key cards are no longer needed, giving users one less thing to worry about, pay for, and carry. This is especially useful in cities where fees associated with garage fobs can be as high as $250.

The Undisputed Leader Vivek Mehra is the Founder and CEO of ParqEx. He has built the organization from the ground up, starting with the initial idea, moving to product development, then to raising capital and then successfully growing the company in Chicago and nationally.

As a founder, he has more than 20 years of experience in technical leadership and an outstanding track record of creating technology vision, setting strategic IT direction, and steering innovative technology roadmaps to align with corporate strategy and business objectives.

He has worked for Fortune 500 and start-up companies as a Software Developer, Technology Architect, Chief Technology Officer, Board of Director, and Founder.

Vivek’s strength lies in building technology companies and he has previously successfully built two companies from the ground up;

through idea, development, raising capital, Mergers & Acquisitions, and, the sale of the company.

Standing Out with Innovative Offerings ParqEx is different from the other platforms primarily because it is focused on private parking. Its network includes multi-family housing, office buildings, real-estate developers, property managers, REITs and individuals with driveways and parking spots.

ParqEx’s technology was built to unlock this underutilized private parking supply while other companies in the field are focused on aggregating commercial parking lots and garages.

ParqEx has three main offerings: Marketplace: Here, anyone who owns or manages a parking spot can make it available for rent. ParqEx’s supply comes from a wide variety of property types - homes, non-profits, retail, open lots, etc. Owners decide how they want to set the availability and price, and the platform handles the rest.

GuestParq: This is ParqEx’s platform designed specifically to improve the guest parking experience for building tenants, managers, and guests alike.

It allows for improved transparency

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Learn fast, innovate faster, and learn from mistakes the fastest. Technology lifecycle today is less than 4 years and companies that don’t evolve get extinct. We strive to build proprietary technology solutions to solve today’s real estate and transportation problems, keeping an eye on the future.

Vivek Mehra and efficiency in terms of booking, paying, and renting parking for approved guests.

Access+: This is ParqEx’s proprietary “Internet of Things” (IoT) solution for controlling doors and gates through its app. It works with most garage door openers and gate motors, making access to secure parking spots much more efficient.

This technology can be used on its own simply as an access technology, or it can be combined with Marketplace to increase rental opportunities, or with GuestParq to streamline the parking experience for guests.

Weathering Turbulence The journey for ParqEx has been a humbling learning experience. In its first 2 years, Vivek bootstrapped the company and balancing growth with limited resources was a challenge.

However, in 2016, revenue grew

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Founder & CEO 32% month-over-month, and the team felt confident that with enough resources, it could accelerate even further.

Vivek decided to raise external funding and ParqEx’s first seed round was 800% oversubscribed. With access to adequate resources, he started expanding its operations into new markets, then growing pains took. Today, ParqEx has a go-tomarket playbook that makes it much easier to launch new markets.

The organization believes ridesharing companies, connected and driverless cars, and smart city initiatives are changing the way people live and commute, which in turn has a major impact on real estate development and utilization, especially parking.

ParqEx’s technology roadmap is aligned with this future and the company plans to be an integral part of the integrated real estate and transportation ecosystem.

Current Strategy and Future Plans ParqEx’s proprietary technology unlocks the hidden value sitting idle in privately-owned parking spaces.

With ParqEx, property owners and managers can increase income, reduce operating costs, simplify management, and provide a valuable amenity to residents and guests.

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Editor’s Choice

The Universality of IoT Technology T

he gratifying tool for companies to lead ahead IoT Technology. The Internet of things (IoT) is a revolutionary change for many sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, retail, electronic, energy and healthcare which are progressing towards the IoT phenomenon to connect digitally. It has placed an opportunity to build unusual results which increases a company’s compatibility. Enterprises seeking development are focusing on the use of real-time data management and IoT analysis. Many of the companies are adopting this technology to heighten their power of consumption. Companies are mainly concentrating on IoT application from “sensing” instead of “doing” to grow its competitive advantages. This element empowers organizations by allowing them to take the IoT advantage and adopt a more ‘innovative connected approach’.

Infrastructure Management – Optimization of Technology New applications are now enhancing their level of consumption. Likewise, manufacturing sector is also

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April 2018

getting engrossed and achieving excellence through IoT Techniques. Applications are liable for monitoring and controlling operations for urban and rural manufactures like bridges, farms, and railway tracks. It is the key features of the applications were IoT infrastructure is also used for monitoring the construction safety and risk management system and operations. This major feature represents the mechanism of IoT application which works under infrastructure management. Benefits of IoT Technology are cost reducing, time reducing, better in quality, and increase productivity. It helps to make fast decisions and save money with real-time analysis. IoT devices help to give prominent results by monitoring and controlling operations used in all infrastructure related area.

Manufacturing Techniques are Growing with IoT Technology In the manufacturing sector, networking and controlling have been used with IoT devices. It provides information about data and operation stability. Network status and the information is collected in the system by tracking IoT device. Manufacturing control process deliver information about industry application and smart manufacturing details receiving form IoT device. IoT intelligent system enables sharing information about product demands, service management, supply chain networks, sensors and control systems together. Small industries can also be integrated with IoT technology that enables real-time optimization, measurements, production compatibility and safety management.

However, intelligent systems are determined as the significant technique that implies user experience and system security which ultimately saves costs.

which land is fertile or which one is dry and predict future fields.

IoT Technology Helps to Optimize Energy Consumption Integrated Sensing and Control system helps to optimize energy consumption. IoT devices are integrated with energy consumption systems in order to maintain balance between power generation and energy usage. IoT devices offer the opportunity to remotely gather information. It enables advance functions like remote controlling and changing light conditions. IoT Technology work for home-based energy system which provide power related information, energy consumption and energy usage at homes. IoT devices set goals to improve efficiency, reliability and sustainability of the energy system.

Monitoring Environment through IoT Technology Environment monitoring application has been involved with sensors to assist information about environment changes by identifying water quantity, atmosphere, air pressure etc. It also has focus on monitoring movements of wildlife and their habitats. Devices connected to the internet also provide statistics about earthquake or tsunami - early warning systems, and also used as an emergency system. IoT device application is used to collect geographic information and majorly instructive information. This device also uses standardized approach to bring wireless sensing technique and gather finest information.

IoT Technology Helps to Sustain Building and Home Automation

IoT Technology brings Innovative Farming Methods The Agriculture sector is one of the industry to implement IoT technology for stability and better performance. IoT technology has become a significant method of farming. It also offers durability and functionality to the whole process. The combination of wireless sensors with agricultural apps and cloud platforms benefits in gathering definite information relating to environmental conditions like, rainfall, temperature, humidity, wind speed etc. Farmers are getting competent results out of it, and are able to find real-time information easily. Linked with farmland, it improves and automates farming techniques like weather information, taking decision on quality and quantity, and minimizes risk and waste. With IoT Tech farmers can find out detailed information of farm and similarly know April 2018

With certainty, IoT devices are used to monitor and control the mechanical, electrical and electronic systems.

IoT devices are used in various types of home automation and building automation systems. Control and sensory applications offer unified information. The integration of the internet with building creates an energy management system which will allow prominent energy efficiency.

There have been many ways for IoT technology to expand compatibility in the digital world, and it will be implemented in each sector to work as an important tool, to enhance its affinity. After all, the IoT network makes technology more unified and satisfying, with its tools and applications and IoT will be a step ahead towards numerous opportunities.

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Praemo: Unleashing the True Potential of Digital Solutions

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raemo was founded by a group of digital industry experts with extensive experience in their respective fields. The company does not only understand technology intimately but is able to put that knowledge into practice to provide predictive and prescriptive solutions that increase productivity while reducing costs.

By combining industry expertise with AI and IIoT to automatically deliver insights and recommendations, Praemo gives its clients the ability to predict disruptions and take preventative action.

RazorTM by Praemo connects securely to data sources to ensure fast, safe and error-free data transfer. Inside Razor™, Predictive Analytics and Prescriptive Intelligence generate Events and Recommendations which are delivered as intuitive notifications.

An Experienced Leader Michael Martinez, the CEO of Praemo had worked in the real time connectivity field for a number of years even before the terms IoT and IIoT entered the common vernacular. He moved on to executive roles within the Asset Management space and then accepted the position of Chief Operating Officer at SMEC before founding Praemo.

Michael’s experiences in the digital arena made him realize that we work excessively hard to give meaning to the data at our disposal. He decided that he could design a product that would simplify that aspect of data analytics while working around the clock, no matter the circumstances.

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Michael collaborated with Paul Hancock to found Praemo and they put together a team to develop Razor™. The aim was to bring to the market a technology built from industry experience that would solve industry problems.

Ground-Breaking Solutions Praemo provides predictive and prescriptive technology that allows its clients to turn their operations data into actionable insights.

That data is analyzed by RazorTM to determine events and anomalies that could lead to disruptions within the operations. This information is then used to devise a plan of action that is focused on decreasing downtimes, increasing equipment availability and/or improving quality.

The technology helps operators see trends and events that would normally be lost in the flood of information and points them in the appropriate directions so they are using their time most effectively.

An Exceptional Organization Praemo was created by people from the industry who best understand the need to solve problems peculiar to their sector. The Praemo team understands the problems that occur in the field, the traditional methods used in the past to try and solve them, as well as the reasons why those methods are only partially effective.

The company is utilizing technology to its advantage by leveraging AI, in combination with industry knowledge and experience to observe, interpret and process data in new ways. This has

led to revolutionary insights that help drive sustainability in clients’ operations.

Another major characteristic that separates Praemo from the field is that it did not build a completely new platform and instead chose to develop technology that can work with existing ones. The company’s mission is to not duplicate products that already exist but to build technology that can add value to other platforms.

Praemo has seen the success this approach brings and will continue with a platform-agnostic philosophy.

The journey so far has been amazing, and the company is continuing to hire the best and brightest minds while working closely with some of the most innovative companies in the arena. The spectacular reception to Praemo’s product validates the company’s belief that it is on the right track.

One of their initial challenges was finding the right development pace so that they were fast enough to meet market demand while being careful not to move faster than the technology.

They learned early on that with the right approach to technology development and with the right team, Praemo could progress fairly quickly while maintaining quality.

Transforming Organizations Praemo focuses on the power of predicting and prescribing through the data obtained from everyday operations. Their solution is not presented as a standalone platform but it has the ability to connect to existing platforms as a predictive engine

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We believe that implementation of digital technology does not need to be excessively complex, costly, and time consuming.

Michael Martinez determining actionable insights.

For instance, Razor™ will look for events and anomalies that may lead to disruptions in a client’s operations and present it to a designated operator through alerts or via an existing platform. Razor can also automatically create a work orders in a CMMS for maintenance technicians to execute against so that it can fall into the appropriate planning cycle.

Praemo has purposely chosen a lean approach to the technology – this allows it to work with existing platforms, dashboards and other systems already in the market or implemented at customers’ sites. If a client does not have an existing system, Praemo provides a cockpit that allows operators to manage the alerts and insights that Razor™ will create.

Building the Future Roadmap In the future, Praemo will be working closely with OEMs and larger platforms to supplement their existing technologies in which Razor™ may be the engine for the predictive technology as well as continue

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CEO & Co-founder working directly to customer building out the organization’s cross industry use cases.

Praemo’s goal is and always will be quick implementation that generates value early for its clients. They want to make IIoT easy, fun and valuable for their customers, transforming it from just another IT solution to a factor that enhances overall operational capabilities.

An Example of ‘Precise’ Partnership Precision Record Pressing is a state-ofthe-art pressing plant. Precision breathes new life into vinyl manufacturing process by combining rich industry experience with a brand new state-of-the-art pressing technology.We are the worlds first manufacturing plant to use the all new record presses in over 30 years!

a high quality record should be made and delivered. The company is also an adopter of technology that will enhance their operation, which is why they partnered with Praemo to implement Razor™.

“Praemo’s Razor™ has allowed us the visibility to foresee hidden risk potentials within our operational environment before they escalate,” mentions Ernie Addezi, the Vice President of Operations of Precision Record Pressing.

Made up of engineering and manufacturing experts, musicians, distributors, and record label owners, Precision is uniquely in tune with how

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Industry Insider

Rising Mobile Workforce and its

Challenges in the

Mobile-Cloud Era: Data & Endpoint Management

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obility and cloud computing are rapidly becoming the norm for enterprises around the world. In turn, enterprise IT departments are facing new management and security challenges as the amount of business data soars and the number of endpoints explodes. The question that is doing the rounds is what IT teams need to consider to manage and secure their businesses in this new era.

Mathivanan V Vice President ManageEngine

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Industry analysts predict deep penetration of enterprise mobility by the year 2020.

IDC, for instance, forecasts April 2018

that mobile workers will account for almost 75 percent of the total workforce in the U.S. Meanwhile, Strategy Analytics projects that the global mobile workforce will reach 1.75 billion users and account for 42 percent of the global workforce overall.

The economic perspective is just as bright as a button. The global enterprise mobility market will be worth as much as $140 billion, predicts the National Association of Software and Services Companies.

And the investments are paying off.

To date, 84 percent of all companies who consider themselves on the cutting edge of mobility report an increase in overall productivity as a direct result of incorporating mobile apps into their business, according to a survey by AppsFreedom.

More troubling, the typical end user has little knowledge of those threats or their ramifications. The result is more users are more likely to leak enterprise data by using compromised websites and rogue online services. The CVE listed 14,712 cybersecurity vulnerabilities for 2017 and has already listed 2,848 for the first two months of 2018. In response, vendors large and small are releasing patches on a daily basis.

Enterprise IT teams clearly need to focus on endpoint security management to ensure business success in the mobile-cloud era.

Endpoint security challenges

Likewise, enterprises are expected to continue relentlessly adopting cloud technologies. By 2020, Gartner forecasts the public cloud services market will reach $383 billion. This includes spending on cloud business process services, cloud application infrastructure services, cloud application services, cloud management and security services, cloud system infrastructure services, and of course, cloud advertising.

Keeping endpoints up to date with the latest versions of their OSes and applications has become a full-time job, one that is getting harder to perform in the mobile enterprise. A growing challenge is the diversity of endpoint operating systems that must be managed, including Android, iOS, MacOS, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS. For each, the IT team must learn that OS along with its corresponding patching technique.

Likewise, applications acquired from the various app stores are managed with different techniques that must be learned and mastered so that the team can secure the endpoints.

The flip side of increasing enterprise mobility and cloud usage is the increasing risk to enterprise security.

Today, most users have at least two endpoints – a laptop and mobile device – and 80 percent of network devices are be endpoints that are constantly connected to the internet and exposed to its threats such as Meltdown, Spectre, Wannacry, and Petya.

Another challenge is managing the endpoints from day one, especially mobile devices. While it’s been relatively easy for IT admins to install agent software on desktops and laptops, smart phones and other mobile devices make life harder for the admins because the devices are rarely if ever connected to the corporate network. Consequently, devices must be provisioned with the

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necessary mobile device management software before they are given to end users. Devices that are not appropriately managed are security risks, so no business application should be installed or run on them.

Related to the day-one management challenge is updating endpoints that are on the go, anytime and anywhere.

IT teams must be able to install critical patches while employees are traveling, commuting, or otherwise offsite.

Data leakage presents yet another security challenge for IT teams to overcome. Data leakage can happen with or without the users’ knowledge.

For instance, users may knowingly copy business data to a USB device or upload it to a cloud storage service. They may also unknowingly expose that data to a public cloud service when using third-party apps such as document viewers and predictive keyboard apps. Such apps may compromise user IDs and passwords, account numbers, and other sensitive enterprise data by exposing it to public cloud services.

When a user’s device is lost or stolen, the IT team must be able to track and recover the device or wipe the data if the device isn’t recovered.

To maintain the user’s privacy, however, the IT team can not continuously track the location of the user’s device.

BYOD presents another privacy vs security challenge: When users use their own devices for business purposes, privacy needs to be maintained. Photos, contacts, and other personal data should not be

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managed by company’s mobile device management app.

On the other hand, security needs to be maintained, too.

To that end, the IT team should create a container on the user’s personal device – a secure, managed area that isolates business email, CRM, and other enterprise apps and data from the rest of user’s personal apps/data.

To establish strong endpoint security and prevent unwanted attacks, IT teams must apply strict security policies on their endpoints. Laptops, for instance, should always run a firewall, prevent the creation of unwanted network shares, and encrypt data via BitLocker or FileVault. Such security policies can protect enterprises from the security risks posed by mobility.

Predicting the development of data and endpoint management Going forward, machine learning and AI will help make data and endpoint management a proactive, rather than a reactive process. For instance, these technologies could prevent data theft by detecting anomalies such as unusual login activities or an unusually large number of documents being uploaded to the cloud. They could analyze the root cause of patch deployment failures and suggest fixes. They could also detect system idle times – during lunch hours, for instance – to deploy patches as

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soon as possible rather wait until after hours or weekends, which can leave systems unnecessarily vulnerable.

Meanwhile, the internet of things (IoT) will introduce many organizations to a new breed of endpoints and connected devices. Unlike their iOS- and Androidpowered predecessors, IoT devices will be running many different OSes and applications, all of which may be vulnerable yet must be managed and secured.

Finally, most business applications are moving to the cloud and accessed via browser, effectively making the browser an endpoint. That means to defend against attacks, IT teams need to manage browsers and perform all security operations for them just as if they were desktops, laptops, or any other device.

As organizations continue to adopt mobility and the cloud, they must also adopt the practices necessary to support this new reality. Data and endpoint security and management are priority one in IT departments. For the vast majority of companies around the world, their future success depends on recognizing and committing to that priority.

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relayr: Helping Manufacturers Embrace Digital Transformation

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Industry 4.0, transportation, utilities, and manufacturing; relayr will connect them to the IoT and guarantees to improve their business outcomes.

relayr’s end-to-end IIoT products and services, coupled with its partnership with Munich Re/HSB, allow the organization to offer insurance-backed solutions that mitigate the risks associated with industrial innovation through business outcome guarantees.

The relayr platform and its components are completely connectivity method (3G, Wi-Fi, IEEE 802.15.4 etc.) - and device make/model-agnostic. Its system can manage devices using generic protocols or vendor-specific proprietary management protocols. The platform’s modular architecture simplifies the addition of support for new protocols and new types of devices as and when required by the market or its partners.

stablished in 2013, relayr quickly made a name for itself as an Industrial IoT powerhouse through organic growth and acquisitions. The first of these was device management company, Proximetry, in December 2016 and this was followed by AI/analytics company, Neokami, in January 2017.

Today, relayr is rapidly-growing as an IIoT company that provides enterprise middleware and IoT solutions for digital transformation. As a thought leader in enterprise IoT, relayr enables interoperability through industrialgrade platforms. Its software facilitates comprehensive data analytics and management, empowering businesses to create new solutions and revenue streams with data collected from any device, through any connectivity, throughout any IT ecosystem. relayr’s Professional Services are delivered by a team of IIoT experts who help businesses benefit from the IoT in record time. This is true for midsize business and Fortune 500 companies, those who are part of

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Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ Ÿ

With the inbuilt ability to work onpremises, via the cloud or a hybrid of both, the relayr platform gives its clients the flexibility to integrate new and old Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) features and business models within their existing IT ecosystems.

Providing Groundbreaking Services Because every industrial environment is unique, cookie cutter, off-the-shelf products do not work. relayr offers a modular approach, delivering custom solutions based on the building blocks of: Ÿ Protocol-agnostic IoT middleware platform Ÿ Device management Ÿ Data analytics and machine learning

Data visualization Professional Services Insurance-backed outcome guarantees Financing

These products and services serve its customers by: Ÿ Eliminating the in-house Digital/IoT technical skills gap Ÿ Enabling new revenue models Ÿ Facilitating the shift from CapEx to OpEx business models Ÿ Reducing financial risks associated with innovation An Immensely Experienced Leader Joseph Brunner, is relayr’s CEO and also an angel investor. He has led the company through several seismic shifts both in the market and within the company itself.

Joseph has overseen the organization’s fundamental shift in go-to-market strategy to focus on delivering targeted solutions for the mid-sized manufacturing industry, major acquisitions and integration of companies, as well as funding rounds with investment partners that enable it to offer insurance-backed solutions and financing.

He has also been instrumental in launching multiple IT and Cyber Security companies, like JouleX and Bastille Networks. Recently, Joseph

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We are the only Industrial IoT company in the market capable of insuring business outcomes through the world’s largest re-insurance company.

completed a tenure at Cisco Systems which began after the 2013 Cisco acquisition of JouleX, where he was the Co-founder and Chief Architect.

Additionally, he has served as the Head of Security at Azlan, and the Director of Security Sales, CEE, Middle East and APAC at Enterasys.

Josef Brunner CEO company learned that technology is only one component of an IIoT solution, and that its customers needed more than a technology provider, but a full range of services and financial products to actually make their digital transformation initiatives successful.

A Unique Organization relayr’s partnership with Munich Re/HSB makes it the only IIoT company in the market with the ability to not only predict the business outcomes of its customers, but also financially guarantee them. The company’s dedication to “Smarter Connectivity. Better Business Outcomes. Guaranteed.” is more than just marketing hype – it is what the organization strives to deliver to every customer.

Recognizing Customer Needs and Painting the Picture of the Future relayr recognizes that its customers need more than an IIoT platform provider. They need a partner in their journey who can understand that technology is only one piece of the picture; there is a need for a service provider which can deliver complete solutions through industry expertise, insurance, financing, and outcome guarantees.

relayr started as a pure technology provider, focused on delivering the end-to-end technology stack for the IIoT. As it gained a deeper understanding of the market, the

To achieve those goals, relayr enables its customers to leverage the IIoT to move from CapEx to OpEx business models. This enables them to capitalize on the 80% of revenue generated by

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industrial machinery after the initial sale, identify new revenue streams, enhance their service offerings, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction.

As the first IoT solution provider to expand far beyond the IIoT platform and offer end-to-end solutions that include professional services, business outcome guarantees and financing, relayr expects to remain at the forefront of the manufacturing industry’s digital transformation.

Through its close working relationships with customers and investment partners, relayr will continue to evolve as the IoT market does.

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Riot Micro:

Simplifying Cellular Connectivity through Unique Chipset Architecture

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iot Micro addresses the strong need for ultra-low power and low-cost requirements to drive a broad adoption of Cellular IoT. A decade after its inception, Riot stands out as a prominent developer of industry-leading wireless chipsets for smart objects in the Internet of Things segment. The company’s wireless chipsets simplify cellular connectivity for current-generation applications such as smart metering and vehicle telematics, enabling users to build smart objects from wearables and smoke detectors to parking meters and traffic lights.

The Vancouver-based startup focuses solely on the quickly changing and growing market of LTE-based IoT. Riot is in the business of providing lowest power and lowest cost chipsets to connect things to the internet of LTE cellular network.

A Note on the Trending Product Riot Micro made a grandeur entry into the market with its product called the RM1000. It is a dual-mode MTC/NBIoT baseband modem that provides market-leading low-power performance, designed with unique architecture. The architecture enables other manufacturers to achieve low cost points that drive high volume deployments in Cellular IoT. The

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innovative design approach reduces power consumption by up to 50% and enables customers to deploy products with 10+ year of battery life. Some of the key IoT applications of RM1000 include asset tracking, smart cities, connected alarms, and environmental sensors. The product is supplied to OEMs and module manufacturers developing custom solutions, in an 8mm x 8mm 68 pad QFN package or WLCSP package.

Riot’s Differentiating Strategy Riot has designed the LTE CAT-M/NBIoT modem like a BLE or WiFi device, borrowing many of the proven low cost and low power techniques and adopting them for the world of LTE. For Cellular IoT to deploy en masse, cost and power, it needs to rival other technologies such as Lora, Zigbee, and even WiFi and Bluetooth.

Consequently, to enable this mass volume deployment of Cellular IoT, the company took a very different architectural approach to develop its solution, instead of using DSPs (Digital Signal Processors) such as traditional LTE modems.

LTE modems for smartphones are powerful, implementing higher Category LTE standards that enable gigabits of throughput, but for IoT, Riot takes very low (kilobits) data.

When the hood on Riot’s chip is opened, it looks like a BLE modem —the PHY is implemented in gates (vs. DSP), and its custom highly optimized protocol stack is tightly coupled to the hardware, running on a low-speed M0 controller and only supports CAT-M and NB-IoT. Hurdles Crossed So Far “It has been a great ride, we’ve had very supportive investors who are very excited about the opportunities in front of us who have allowed us to really innovate,” exclaims Peter Wong, the CEO of the company. He adds “We targeted a large market where the customers are really excited to talk about what we are doing and starting to implement solutions using our chipset.”

According to team Riot, customer-pull is the most exciting aspect of what they do. Any semiconductor company knows that hitting the right features with the right chip at the right time is not easy in this space. During the initial days of Riot Micro, the management went through the most challenging times to pull together the right team with the right skillsets – a combination of strong wireless background in cellular and complementing it with a bunch of guys who have a ton of experience in

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We have a very exciting roadmap with strong customer engagement.

designing BLE/WiFi. However, the team witnessed satisfying results for its hard work and countless sleepless nights, with the launch of its first product – RM1000.

The Leader with a Vision Riot Micro is steered by Peter Wong, who joined the company in 2014. Peter holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering from Simon Fraser University. He has been in the semiconductor industry for over two decades. Before joining Riot, Peter was at PMC-Sierra for 12 years, driving their server and storage business strategy and sales efforts, where they grew server/storage revenues from 0 to 70% of the company’s revenue.

Following that, Peter joined LSI, as a Vice President in the CTO organization. At LSI, he developed partnerships with large datacenter customers and strategic alliance partners to drive future architectures.

Peter left the company shortly after it

April 2018

Peter Wong CEO was acquired by Avago/Broadcom.

Peter’ has also worked with HP, Creation Technologies, and Teltech during the initial days of his career.

Peter is an energetic and passionate leader who has a steadfast vision of excellence. Under his leadership, Riot has witnessed unprecedented growth over the past three years and has made its market debut with the industry’s lowest power base and modem chip for the cellular Internet of Things (IoT) recently.

A Future of Expansion As a startup, Riot is using its flexibility, agility, aggressiveness and willingness to enable its customers achieve what they need in order to develop end-solutions that are well aligned with what the end customers want.

can really help our customers drive Cellular IoT to volume deployment,” exclaims Peter.

Riot Micro stands steadfast in its decision to march down the path to drive out cost and power from its customer’s system, taking advantage of CMOS technology advancements and leveraging IP from technology partners. Customers can expect the team announcing customer wins and carrier partnerships in the upcoming months. The company is also planning to leverage key ecosystem partners to offer great solutions in areas such as indoor/outdoor positioning. Hence proving that the company has a very exciting future roadmap and the team is all set to explore the potential market with its new product releases.

“I think what we are doing in terms of changing the game on cost and power

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Tinfoil Security: Inventing Innovative Solutions for Cyber Security

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ith the growing attachment to digital innovations and the never-ending connectivity between work and personal lives, our world has been filled with data and comprised of vulnerabilities. As a result, cybercrime is rising at an alarming rate and businesses have become extremely vulnerable to cybersecurity threats.

Headquartered in California, US, Tinfoil Security provides security tools for developers and DevOps teams. They integrate into your current development workflow, empowering developers to find and fix vulnerabilities as a part of their normal development process. Their goal is to increase bandwidth for your security teams while training developers to code more securely and treat vulnerabilities as normal bugs.

Whether you’re building web applications or APIs powering mobile backend servers, IoT devices, and web services, they have a dynamic vulnerability scanner that’s right for you and your team.

The company’s enterprise offerings include access to a multitude of tools that help integrate security into the DevOps process. They can scan any internal application, either via a secure tunnel or a fully-managed virtual appliance.

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Tinfoil Security’s DevOps integrations include an easy-to-use API that hooks their scanner into the secure development life cycle (SDLC) or your continuous integration (CI) systems, including first-party plugin for Jenkins.

With tailored results and seamless integrations with JIRA (and other issue trackers), developers are empowered to fix vulnerabilities before they hit the public. To make the vulnerability fixing process even simpler, Tinfoil Security also features single-click replay attacks and immediate rescans.

This allows developers to not only see the attack live, but also to verify remediations within minutes of being applied, instead of waiting hours for a full new scan.

The Visionary Duo of Founders Ainsley Braun, the CEO and Cofounder of Tinfoil Security, makes sure to instill a company culture that prides itself on community and giving back. After graduating from MIT, she joined Booz Allen Hamilton as a cybersecurity consultant, and quickly became known as a leader within the industry. Ainsley teamed up with fellow MIT alumnus Michael Borohovski (CTO) and started Tinfoil Security, Inc. Apart from being a member of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), she is also a Board Member on the Council for Women in Cybersecurity, as part of the

California Technology Council (CTC).

Ainsley regularly mentors startups from communities such as StartX, 500 Startups, and the Plug and Play Tech Center.

As CTO, Michael’s technical abilities have helped Tinfoil Security to create a superior range of products that lie on the cutting-edge of today’s cybersecurity needs. Before founding Tinfoil Security and upon graduating MIT, Michael worked doing offensive software security for ManTech, a company that provides innovative technologies and solutions for missioncritical national security programs for the Intelligence Community; the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Justice, and also the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the space community; and other U.S. government customers.

Strategies that improve the IoT journey Tinfoil Security currently offers two products, mentioned below: Web Scanner: Most CISOs at enterprise companies deplore their current security solutions, or are just too jaded to even deal with third-party integrations, especially for scanning web applications. With their web

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Our dynamic heuristic testing allows us to find more web application vulnerabilities than anyone else -- with fewer false positives!

Ainsley Braun scanner, Tinfoil Security checks for over 80 classifications of vulnerabilities, including all of the OWASP Top 10 Web Application Security Risks, and is always adding support for more as new zero-day vulnerabilities are discovered. This web scanner can scan each time a new version of a site is deployed, and can also log into any website, including SAML / Single Sign-On authenticated sites. The company also has its patentpending Login Recorder (available as a Google Chrome extension) that allows the user to teach the Tinfoil Security scanner how to authenticate into the site by recording their login sequence.

Constant, real-time updates make the user confident that their site is being protected against the latest threats.

API Scanner: The Tinfoil Security API Scanner boasts the ability to detect vulnerabilities in any API, including web-connected devices such as mobile backend servers, IoT devices, as well as any RESTful APIs. The few competing tools that are currently available lack coverage depth, or are focused on acting as a firewall or unintelligent fuzzer. Vulnerabilities focused on authorization and access control concerns, or even web-like vulnerabilities, like XSS, manifest in different ways and with different exploitation vectors than they do for April 2018

CEO & Co-founder web applications, and the Tinfoil Security API Scanner is aware of these differences, and explicitly targets them.

Security for DevOps Tinfoil Security provides security tools for developers and DevOps teams. We integrate into your current development workflow, empowering developers to find and fix vulnerabilities as a part of their normal development process. Our goal is to increase bandwidth for your security teams while training developers to code more securely and treat vulnerabilities as normal bugs.

Whether you’re building web applications or APIs powering mobile backend servers, IoT devices, and web services, we have a dynamic vulnerability scanner that’s right for you and your team. Tinfoil’s security tools empower developers to build with security in mind and fix issues in real-time, leaving the security team to focus on the bigger picture of your organization’s needs.

process. As the company grew and gained SMB market share, it discovered that enterprise organizations actually had very similar problems and lacked solutions to bridge the gap between their large development teams and their vastly smaller security teams. This made them realize in order to steer Tinfoil Security in the direction of becoming a globally competitive player in this space, the primary focus should be turned towards enterprise. This strategy has led the company well into profitability, while maintaining, supporting, and selling to tens of thousands of customers in the SMB market.

Moving forward Tinfoil Security just launched their API Scanner in March 2018 and they plan to continuously improve the state of the industry’s tools in combating attackers around the world.

Focus on Enterprise In the initial years, Tinfoil’s focus was exclusively focused on SMBs, as they made up an underserved market that sorely needed help with their application security tooling and

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Ubidots:

Helping Organizations Connect the Dots

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he importance of firsthand experience can never be underestimated. No one understands that better than Agustin Palaez, the Co-founder and CEO of Ubidots.

While working for Airbus Germany, he experienced the same series of challenges that hardware engineers everywhere face when attempting to create internet-enabled projects. The lessons he learned on that venture eventually led to the birth of Ubidots in 2012.

At first, the company specialized in connected hardware and software solutions to remotely monitor, control, and automate processes. Its clients were healthcare businesses at wellfunded startups and Fortune 1,000 companies in the American Southeast and across Latin America.

Between 2012 and 2014, the organization expanded its support to other industries and worked on projects in utilities, manufacturing, transportation, and retail. The digital transformation team at Ubidots learned the intricacies of IoT and Cloudenabled projects that only come after you have gotten your hands dirty in the field.

Simplifying the IoT Journey Ubidots creates cloud IoT software that

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helps its clients power their cloudbased IoT solutions. Thanks to the frontend and backend elements of the Ubidots platform, system integrators now have a simple software solution at their disposal to launch a cloud support system or a remote monitoring or control solution, which gives end users access to relevant data quickly.

Users can design, deploy, and scale their IoT solutions easily with a pointand-click development and production environment. Integrated tools allow them to create and organize end-users with user management features, parse 3rd party data for additional outside analytics like machine learning, and send alerts to those who need to know, when they need to know it.

These standard IoT application tools are built-in and provide a solid foundation for any standard IoT solution. This gives Ubidots users a place to develop and deploy their connected solutions, backed by a reliable support team and an affordable monthly commitment to keep projects online.

A Comprehensive IoT Application Cloud Platform Before bootstrapping his startup, Agustin Palaez used to work for Airbus Germany. In 2014, Agustin and his cofounders fathered the Ubidots platform to reduce waste and empower

economization of resources from the bottom-up.

As a trained electrical engineer, Augustin has led the vision and strategy of Ubidots since those early days, from the initial bootstrapping stage to the instrumentation of cloudconnected services to the creation of a market-leading support network.

The force behind Ubidots has always been Agustin and his co-founder, Gustavo. Together, they have led their company to become a leading creator of comprehensive IoT application cloud platforms for system integrators and businesses implementing or retrofitting monitoring and control solutions.

Making Data Valuable, Quickly and Economically Creating data is easy but having the means to categorize, store, compute, retrieve, and visualize data is not. To create an environment with these capabilities and data functions for a customer, an integrator must spend a lot of time, effort and resources. The Ubidots approach allows clients to hurdle those obstacles with a single, unified platform.

One of the company’s specialties is the setting-up of clients’ hardware with a cloud connection – they use a system which is simple, fast and allows easy

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Deliver intuitive IoT application development to build cloud solutions.

integration of existing data. It also allows them to provision any number of devices into a single end-user’s application and save thousands of hours in development and tens of thousands of dollars in costs.

With the built-in tools provided by Ubidots, System Integrators exchange raw sensor data for insights with statistical, algebraic, and geometric analytics. This adds incredible value and allows a business to extract data about relevant trends from any environment where it may have otherwise been unknown or gone unnoticed.

A Rough Road to a Bright Future Ubidots was born as a private engineering services firm in 2012 and, in its first iteration, specialized in connected hardware and software solutions to remotely monitor, control, and automate processes for the healthcare industry.

In 2014, Ubidots made a small pivot and launched the first generation of the April 2018

Agustin Palaez CEO & Co-founder Ubidots IoT cloud platform, which is known today as ‘Ubidots for Education’. The platform has gained a reputation from hardware, software, maker, and embedded engineering communities as an affordable, reliable, and usable IoT cloud platform.

This is despite being in a global ecosystem filled with strong competition from established players.

However, the journey has not always been so smooth. One of the most formidable challenges faced by Ubidots thus far has been the maximization of their global reach with minimum latency. With more than 35,000 users sending data all day, every day, the company faces a complex environment for data computation and display.

stronger and more reliable for their enterprise customers who utilize cloud computing for remote data collection, monitoring, and control.

The motto “We may not have been the first IoT platform, but we will be the best” echoes in halls of Ubidots’s offices. It is a mantra which drives the culture of excellence at the company.

When it comes to the future, Ubidots looks to further integrate with device manufactures to reduce the effort needed to deploy an IoT solution from device to cloud to dashboard.

Scaling this platform to support billions of messages each day was a challenge that has only made them

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Industry Concern

IoT Technologies

Contributing to the

Renewable Energy T

he Internet of Things (IoT) represents a modern reality. IoT has been encircled by the services that are associated with the things like hardware, embedded software, and communication services. IoT solution is integrated with one-to-one services or with multiple products.

wide range of vertical markets like industrial control and energy where devices functions in domains. Especially for energy companies, this can be the great flexible move to accommodate new energy source, better management of assets and operations, greater reliability, enhanced security, better customer satisfaction and innovations of new business models and services.

How Internet Of Thing Functions on Energy?

Internet Of Thing tenaciously insights to pursue from new Internet-connected devices which can be used to develop new services, enhance productivity and efficiency and develop to prove real-time decision making and decode the critical problems. In today’s technical world, as we all are adjoined by the devices, energy companies have escalated interoperability and security challenges. It also delivers an amalgamation of scalable hardware and software solutions specifically to meet the market needs. The real end-to-end security that IoT necessarily requires has been integrated by the expertise.

Since the tool enabled the smooth combination of two-way power flows from fragmented distributed resources like wind or solar, IoT technologies are relevantly contributing to the renewable energy. Behind-the-meter processes such as on-site energy storage or electric vehicle charging. IoT technologies have been successfully established as a fundamental platform that justifies an ensuing Energy Cloud, which leads to the more distributed, and increasing intelligent grid.

Internet of Thing is integrated with these energy themes : • Performance Optimization

Since decades, when innovation and control expertise were drawing intersections between information technology and devices, the companies jointly supervised to deliver interoperable end-to-end solutions. The energy companies are also evolving pretested and per-validated IoT products and solutions such as a gateway, to provide building blocks.

With an extreme temperature and safety requirements, these solutions will incorporate the capabilities that support a

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• Storage & Analytics • Renewable Energy • Remote Monitoring & Reliability • Energy Optimization • Safety and Security • Decrease Downtime • Predictive Maintenance

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Empowering Innovations Smartphones and apps are becoming main user interface on IoT. The IoT addresses the consumer electronic market as well as the B2B industry. Depending on analysts, the value of IoT is essential to be from $300 B to close $2000 B in 2020 depending upon on what is accounted in IoT market.

Connected LED lamps are expected to be the largest by far in IoT energy services. The incremental cost of hardware and embedded software is relatively small, whereas the service and analytics opportunity is much larger. To build awareness of their products, almost all companies tried different approaches and feature sets. So primarily, many of the suppliers focused on the IoT market on the goods of hardware and software.

According to the business models, however, the market will increasingly be driven by the services. There will be service opportunities, that are associated with coordinating and managing the multiple things that typical consumers will interact on an average day. The value chain for IoT for devices and services will come up with a multilayered, understanding the brief measure of analytics software which is designed to pull out the usage trends for further product and service marketing initiatives. IoT generates a heavy data that address the analytics to transform huge volumes of data into a small quantity of operational information.

Comfort Benefit The flair benefits of IoT in the energy efficiency market sector is huge for end-users and integrators. IoT will permit end users to measure, check as well as adapt the installation according to the requirement of the market within no time.

For energy efficiency system integrators, IoT will exceptionally improvise their capability to distinguish the customer requirements for integration and commission. By utilizing remote diagnostic, the integrator will make a correction to the maintainability??? their systems and also fix the capability of signified products.

However, this market is dominated by large players who have historically protected the highly beneficial market by maintaining an extremely high level of required investment to develop complex solutions while implementing specific standardization at the same time.

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The IoT promises to break the two entry barriers by offering low-cost flexible new communication solutions coming from the internet world. As a consequence, new players are being attracted to this market. SME’s and startups may offer low-cost solutions, at least for a full set of niche applications, while large players from the Internet world may also enter as enter as direct competitors of the traditional large players. The opportunity provided by a large, new potential market is counterbalanced by the risk of these new players entering their traditional market. However, this risk may be balanced by the opportunity to partner with these new players, creating a completely new open ecosystem.

Future Directions through IoT on Energy The future of the energy industry will be distorted with the Internet of Things. As energy management experiences other connected devices being developed, it will then gain a greater control, data and energy savings. It’s an exhilarating and challenging time for energy management, and time to harness the opportunities opened by the IoT. Iot-based technology solutions across the globe, associated services foresee to bring tremendous value to the energy sector in future. Hereafter, it will aid the companies to be more flexible in adopting IoT solutions to predict asset performance and swiftly integrate all sections of energy in the system.

Conclusion No matter we are at home or at the workplace, IoT will redeem the complexity of managing energy consumption from different places and provide an all-in-one stop. Devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets can have access to other smart devices like air conditioner, or washing machine for enhanced usability. IoT will now extend to more convenience of lower bills from the devices like remote-controlled households, and home security.

IoT-based technology and solutions are expected to raise the immense value to the energy sector. In the coming days, IoT is expected to climb the market hills to grow the energy market from $7.59 billion in 2015 to $22.34 billion by 2020.

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April 2018

Vigilent: Frontrunner in Dynamic Cooling Management Market

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igilent is a pioneer in the Industrial IoT market. The company uses machine learning, wireless sensors, and prescriptive analytics to dynamically manage cooling in mission-critical environments. Vigilent has been in the business for over 10 years and has over 500 deployments across five continents worldwide. The company’s mission is to increase the profitability of its customers, and also to create a more sustainable planet by dramatically reducing CO2 emissions.

Dr. Federspiel launched Vigilent in 2004, building on his research combining AI and wireless networking to address cooling energy consumption. He has been a frequent lecturer, speaker at industry conferences, and contributor of peerreviewed papers and conference proceedings that address these subjects. More recently as a pioneer of real-world IoT systems, Dr. Federspiel contributes his perspective and next step thinking through his blog and published articles.

At present, Vigilent counts among its customers some of the world’s largest telecommunications, data center colocation, enterprise, government, and Internet organizations, including Avnet, Digital Realty, Hutchison, NTT, State of California, Spark, TELUS, and Verizon. The company has achieved global reach via direct sales, strategic OEM, and distribution partnerships.

Transforming Business Needs Data centers are digital factories at the center of the information economy, and critical to revenue generation and operational performance in most organizations. These digital factories require certain environmental conditions to be in place for the IT equipment to operate. Problems that lead to IT outages can have a multimillion-dollar impact within minutes. Vigilent helps ensure that these digital factories avoid environmental problems that cause outages.

About the Trailblazer Dr. Clifford Federspiel, Founder and President/CTO of Vigilent had an early interest in controls and machine learning. Following his SMME and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he joined the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a researcher at the Center for Environmental Design Research and the Electronics Research Laboratory.

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“Our systems also significantly reduce the amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions, which translates to the bottom line. For example, NTT in Japan said Vigilent is saving them over $15M per year in energy costs. Vigilent

also eliminates millions in CapEx that our customers would otherwise spend on cooling equipment that is not needed. When the Vigilent system is deployed, customers often find out they have plenty of cooling capacity and don’t need to buy any more equipment,” asserts Dr. Federspiel.

Controlled and Optimized Cooling The Vigilent Dynamic Cooling Management System is a turnkey IoT system that automatically optimizes cooling and energy use in missioncritical facilities, a.k.a. ‘digital factories’ such as data centers and telecom exchanges. If an organization wants to use IoT to improve the performance and efficiency of their digital factories, Vigilent is there to help.

People running mission-critical facilities often face the challenge of constantly managing temperature and airflow. They typically avoid this challenge by running more cooling than they need to avoid overheating and potential outages. The problem is difficult because IT applications vary in intensity, and airflow is inherently complex since it is affected by floor layout and other factors. Facility managers try to manage this problem by over-cooling 24/7, but this can be risky and always results in wastage of money.

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Our technology is available to everyone in the data center and telecom industries.

Dr. Clifford Federspiel Founder & President/CTO The Vigilent System uses machine learning software to continuously match cooling with IT load at every spot across a data hall. Wireless temperature sensors are deployed throughout the facility, and wireless control modules are installed on each air conditioner. Through these sensors, Vigilent collects granular temperature data across the facility, understands the relationships between each air conditioner and how it influences cooling across the room and uses this knowledge to dynamically control the air conditioners and optimize cooling.

The system is deployable in any existing data center in about two weeks.

They don’t get locked into a control scheme that requires them to purchase cooling equipment from a particular vendor.

Cut Cooling Costs Many data center operators use the controls provided by air conditioning manufacturers to manage cooling.

These controls are rudimentary and not designed to really optimize cooling. If they truly optimized cooling, the manufacturers would sell fewer air conditioners, which is not something they want to do.

Vigilent has done the same thing for more than a decade with similar, if not better, results. The main difference is that the company didn’t build it just for in-house use. Vigilent technology is available to everyone in the data center and telecom industries.

Vigilent puts the customer in charge of their cooling vendors. They can pick whichever air conditioning vendor they want and compare how they perform.

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“It is also worth noting that there is one other company that uses machine learning to optimize cooling: Google,” states Dr. Federspiel.

He continues saying, “A few years ago, Google started to use Deep Mind to analyze and optimize cooling in its own data centers. It found that it could save around 40% of cooling costs by using machine learning to identify unexpected interactions, and taking steps to optimize its environment.”

consistent results. As the complexity of facilities has increased, the ability of humans to manage all elements of cooling equipment efficiently has decreased and stirred interest in automation. The spread of machine learning as an enabling technology for IoT has helped diminish concerns and pushed acceptance of technologies like the Vigilent System.

Future Outlook Vigilent expects to witness continued growth in the data center market.

However, the company also focuses on other industrial applications that can potentially benefit from the use of its machine learning algorithms to optimize environmental controls in their operations, such as the retail, pharma, and indoor agriculture industries. Most cooling controls in these facilities are basic and suboptimal, similar to those in data centers. The company plans to explore these other vertical markets with strategic partners.

Robotic System is Indispensable The team at Vigilent reveals that companies initially did not trust the technology and were unwilling to relinquish control of critical cooling equipment to a robotic system, despite pilot programs and undeniably

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InPerspective

Miguel Valdes Faura: Digital transformation through connecting people with technology

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ne of the biggest trends to emerge in recent years is digital business transformation: the integration and application of digital technologies to generate fundamental changes at all levels of business operations.

Business leadership is always challenged by transformation.

Today we face a multi-level challenge: leading employees through strategic and operational change brought with emerging technologies, while also keeping a laser focus on customers’ wants and needs.

Miguel Valdes Faura, open source evangelist I believe in people. And I believe in empowering people with the right technology to allow them to do remarkable things. Developers build applications that run billion-dollar businesses, and that’s amazing. So we’ve built something for them. – Miguel Valdes Faura As Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Bonitasoft, Miguel Valdes Faura leads the company mission defined from the start: to unleash the full potential of development teams to create business applications with seamless, engaging and personalized user experiences to power digital transformation worldwide.

Miguel has overseen development of the Bonita application platform since its creation in 2001 when he was a researcher at the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science. He subsequently transferred the Bonita project to the Bull Group where he led R&D, pre-sales and support for the BPM (business process management) division of Bull Information Systems, a major European systems provider. In 2009 he left Bull with Charles Souillard and Rodrigue Le Gall to found Bonitasoft to commercialize the open Bonita platform, and subsequently raise a total amount to date of $33M in venture funding. As the world’s fastest-growing BPM-based application platform provider, today Bonitasoft has thousands of

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customers and an open source community of more than 130,000 members.

Integrating people, automation, and technology streams through digital transformation Digital technology platforms have been around for as long as digital technologies have been applied to real-world situations. However, what’s new is the comprehensive nature of digital business platforms, also known as digital transformation platforms.

Applications that improve customer experience and engagement are driving the demand for today’s digital platforms. But that’s only one side of the story – the customer-facing side. On the flip side is employee experience, enabling employees to work smarter with reduced workloads. There too is the developer experience, allowing developers to be able to build, test, deploy, and change enterprise applications quickly.

Further, integrated platforms can ease the convergence of multiple major business technology streams, including big data, data analytics, AI, machine learning, cloud, mobility, security, social media, cognitive computing, and digital disruption and transformation. Digital business platforms can serve as the cornerstone of digital business transformation efforts, while providing openness and extensibility to development teams. They should be architected in a way that they are configurable, so only the capabilities needed are deployed and used.

When digital platform technologies take a no-code approach, they offer no possibility for creative developers to write code or extend them in new ways to build highly personalized applications for users, or to change applications quickly to meet changing business needs.

Miguel emphasizes that digital transformation can’t be truly April 2018

successful without empowering the developers who build the applications that run the world.

Engaging customer experience, a key differentiator Successful digital business transformation will increasingly rely on organizations’ ability to deliver great user experiences. For too long, the concept of “user experience” has been conflated with “user interface”—which represents only a fraction of the complete user experience. The user experience as a whole includes a well-designed, easy-to-use user interface backed by agile, simple, and efficient processing of all the underlying business processes.

In any business application, each user action kicks off a business process. The process, or business logic, behind the application affects how the user interacts with the application, but so do processes undertaken by employees and automated systems (e.g., databases, email, CRMs, and so on). A truly great user experience, whether for customers or employees, extends from the user interface all the way through the last step of the process.

By converging the technologies crucial for digital business transformation into a single, cohesive entity, digital business platforms make it easier for organizations to create great user experiences that stand out as differentiators in the market.

For success in the digital transformation era Technology managers involved in digital business transformation will need to adopt the following priorities: Ÿ Focus on excellence in digital user experiences for both customers and employees. Ÿ

Offer exceptional management for existing services and offerings through the application of next-generation BPM technologies (such as predictive artificial intelligence).

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Miguel Valdes Faura CEO & Co-founder Bonitasoft

Ÿ

Allocate more financial and development resources toward security, including consideration of how blockchain technologies might play a role.

“I have always made it a goal to bridge the gap between business needs and IT solutions. And we have kept the human element a top priority. For our customers, their developers, their business and customer users, we remain true to these core values with growth and change,” says Miguel.

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