Altice Empresas, a brand of Altice Portugal, launched another challenge to the business market and the response came in the form of 27 applications for the 6th edition of the IoT Challenge. This year's theme was the connectivity of the future - 5G, NB-IoT and LTE-M applied to Internet of Things solutions. SurgeonMate, which develops solutions for healthcare professionals; Beyond Vision, which uses technology applied to drones to monitor agricultural fields or ensure last-mile logistics and Voxelmaps, which works with artificial intelligence models applied to data collected in real time on 4D maps, were the three big winners of this year's edition. The three winners, who were chosen in a hybrid event, took part in the challenge using 5G technology in the projects submitted to the competition.
Beyond Vision's beXStream project consists of a platform that allows total remote control of drones, from anywhere in the world, in an integrated application that designs flight routes with high levels of precision and detail. Agriculture is one of the areas where it is being tested for autonomous field inspections, and the solution can be applied to various sectors such as logistics.
Voxelmaps' Realtime Mapping solution enables the construction of 4D maps of the entire planet in a volumetric model that combines visual, spatial and temporal data and uses artificial intelligence for real-time processing.
In addition to a 2,500 euro voucher for Altice Empresas services, the winning teams will also see their IoT solution integrated into the Altice Empresas Products and Services portfolio.
Creating new business models with innovative solutions and contributing to the process of digital transformation of the Portuguese market are the two main objectives behind this competition promoted by Altice Portugal's business segment. The final phase of the 6th IoT Challenge saw nine companies present solutions in areas as diverse as beekeeping, eGaming, parcel deliveries, space management and connected car solutions.
This year's jury was made up of André Marquet, CEO of Productized; Joaquim de Matos, IS Director of the Salvador Caetano Group; Rogério Nunes, General Manager of OSI of the Amorim Group, João Teixeira, Chief Technology Officer of Altice Portugal and Nuno Nunes, Chief Sales Officer/ B2B of Altice Portugal. The evaluation criteria took into account the following factors: applicability to the B2B segment, innovation, maturity of the solution and attractiveness of the business model.
For Alexandre Fonseca, CEO of Altice Portugal, who closed the event of this 6th edition, "The IoT Challenge is a real opportunity to bring together and identify the best professionals in the Internet of Things area, the most disruptive ideas and also an incentive for the country's economic recovery and digital transformation".
Between July and September, the participants were able to work with the Golabs Altice Engineering team to test their solutions. Golabs IoT and Golabs.5G - Altice Portugal's technology labs for the development of IoT and 5G solutions - and Enter - Altice Portugal's open innovation and entrepreneurship program based on collaboration with technology and digital startups - are the partners in this initiative.
Since its first edition in 2016, the IoT Challenge has attracted applications from 195 participants from 69 companies, rewarding 21 teams, potential partners of the Altice Empresas network.
Today, more than 35 million devices are connected around the world, a number that, according to Forbes, is expected to grow to 75 million by 2025. Altice Empresas is the leader in the Portuguese IoT market and manages 129 million events and 22 terabytes of data from IoT devices every month.