IoT has hit the Malaysian scene in a big way 3 or 4 years ago (since 2014). All of a sudden there’s a huge surge of seminars, conferences, and exhibitions related to Smart Cities and IoT topics. Bear in mind that the word “Internet of Things (IoT)” has been coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999! The public and the industry are trying to grasp the concept, benefits and the impact of IoT. However, the early days’ topics are very general and people are getting restless and want to know more how it will impact their individual business or industry vertical.

Last 2 years, we received a lot of inquiries regarding how to start their IoT journey, how to start developing their business case, developing IoT solutions and selling IoT products. That’s when we realized that we have not been nurturing the “IoT talents“. Many of the local Universities are planning to revise their syllabus contents and some even wish to introduce “IoT” courses or programmes (Diploma, Degree or Masters).

Personally, I am fortunate enough to be either Industrial Advisory Panel, Board of Studies and also Adjunct Professor at several Universities in Malaysia. Many Universities have started to revise and refresh their syllabus content to accommodate the upcoming “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and “IoT“.

My recommendation for any University who wishes to join the band-wagon and nurture the next generation talents for Jobs of the Future should take a look at the following framework:

1. Introduce the Concept of IoT or 4th Industrial Revolution in the first year first semester. Give the students the big picture and the necessary technology components in the whole IoT value chain and infrastructure. Show the students all the subjects related to their Course throughout the following years and why these subjects are important in their studies. Many take for granted and did not realize the importance of their subjects until they reach the final year when trying to develop their Final Year Projects.
2. Introduce the Concept of 7-Layers of OSI. This will make the students understand the importance of PHY layer (fixed or wireless), MAC layer (Protocols such as Zigbee, WiFi, etc), Network Layer (IP), Transport (TCP), Session layer, Presentation Layer and finally the Application Layer. Depending on whether Faculty of Electrical/Electronic Engineering or Computer Science, the weightage on the depth will be different between them. Mainly Engineering students will have more focus on Layer 1-4 whereas Computer Science will focus on Layer 5-7. But when learning topics on IoT, all of the students must be aware of all the layers.
3. IoT Value Chain. In reality, no single company has the strength and talent to deliver end-to-end IoT solution on its own. Thus, the need for them to partner with various parties who specifically focused on different areas such as Chipset, Device, Networking, Middleware, Cloud, Applications, Big Data Analytics, System Integration and Solution Selling. Thus, Universities need to cover all aspects of contents to cover this value-chain.
4. Hands-on IoT. However, many are still missing the key component i.e. Hands-On experience with Practical experiments using an IOT middleware. Just by learning how to use Raspberry-Pi and Arduino (stand-alone) is still insufficient. Sensor data need to be sent to an IoT middleware that sits in the Cloud. Application developers can use the necessary API to connect the sensors and extract the data that has been stored for deriving further insights or create specific IoT solution on their Smartphones or Desktops. Thus, lab sessions using an IoT middleware must be introduced in their curriculum to make it more complete.

But how do the Universities start to introduce this hands-on training? Do they need to buy expensive IoT middleware?

Don’t worry, we have a more cost-effective solution for any Universities to embark on this journey by creating their IoT Classroom equipped with IoT Middleware (platform-as-a-Service).

Here’s your opportunity to create new IoT talents. Provide them with the best tools. Now, you can create your own IoT Ecosystem!

Contact us: info@favoriot.com for more details.

We are happy to announce that we are offering a Special 50% Discount for a Beginner Account (previously RM 100 per year) to celebrate FAVORIOT‘s 1st Anniversary.  The offer is valid from June 1 to August 31, 2018. The Beginner Plan is very suitable for University students who have been assigned or chose IoT project as their Final Year Project. A single device such as Raspberry Pi or Arduino that collects data from several connected sensors can stream to an IoT platform. This will simplify the development and reduce the headache of building own web server or platform to connect the IoT device. A simple dashboard is provided to visualize the measurements. This plan is also suitable for an individual developer or hobbyist that would like to familiarize with IoT platform, conduct self-learning or participate in IoT Hackathons. At RM 4.17 (USD 2.50) per month, you can become the next Generation-IoT and be on your way to be one of the rare talents in the job market today!

Check out more details regarding the FAVORIOT IoT Developer Platform.

Check out the COMPLETE Tutorial How to connect an Arduino to FAVORIOT Platform. You can also download a STEP-by-STEP Tutorial –  TUTORIAL – Cytron Uno with FAVORIOT Platform (105 downloads)

Check out interesting videos developed by FAVORIOT Developers can be seen HERE.

What FAVORIOT Platform (IoT Middleware) Offers?

1. Developer Platform– IOT Application Enablement Platform (AEP)  meant to enable a developer to deploy an IOT application.
2. Dashboard– Chart analysis. Responsive web design for all screens. Simple graphs format.
3. Connectivity Protocols– Supports MQTT, REST API, and others
4. Advanced Data Processing – Real-time aggregated data streams to applications but also access to historical data for data aggregation and advanced queries
5. Event Processing – “Trigger-Condition-Action” model. Physical sensors and virtual sensors supported. Rules Engine to enable real-time action triggering
6. 3rd Part Plugins – Social Media integration
7. Device Management – Managing devices based on users, projects, applications, and groups.
8. Future Proof – proof IOT solution. Continuation of IoT projects. Scalable vertically or horizontally.

Benefits of Using FAVORIOT Platform

1. Cloud-based platform (SaaS)
2. Reduces time to market from months to weeks
3. Reduces the cost and risk of application development
4. Can be easily tailored to multiple business applications and different market segments
5. Capable of handling millions of devices, data streams and scale elastically
6. Simple business rule creation process
7. Easily handling data ownership for sharing and monetizing
8. As the platform evolves, you get new features easily