December 26, 2018 (Kuala Lumpur)– FAVORIOT recently collaborated with Equonix Techlab from Delhi to further spur the Internet of Things ecosystem in India.

Dr. Mazlan Abbas, CEO of FAVORIOT, said “IoT is borderless, the country which emphasizes on building the right talents in the Fourth Industrial Revolution such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Robotics, Internet of Things among others will be in a great position to be a global player. Such talents are rare and we need to build them quickly. Our FAVORIOT IoT Middleware allows the creation of IoT Ecosystem. We are happy to work with Equonix that is keen to expand this to the global market via their #BillionLearners Program.”

Tanmoy Deb, CEO, and Founder of Equonix Techlab said:

“Academia: Great Initiative. While the IoT as Industry is growing worldwide but the academic front is still very primitive. The industry needs skilled Full Stack Engineers who are enabled in Rapid Product Development. For solving this we have been working actively skill development in the Indian market. We always look for an innovative solution which can enable people better way. FAVORIOT can serve as a single platform which anyone can learn and use it for commercial grade IoT Applications development.

Developers: FAVORIOT is like Rapid Development Framework for IoT devices. It poses itself as feature-rich middleware. Now IoT product developers can focus on Rapid Prototyping very easily. They don’t have to setup Cloud Framework, MQTT clients every time they start. In this approach, the product development lifecycle also gets reduced in a significant percentage. IoT engineers can focus more on the business logic implementation, while they have to put more time on infrastructure earlier.

Entrepreneurs: The IoT entrepreneurs can get immense benefit from this available Cloud Infrastructure. They can now focus on faster ready to market strategy, even can scale their MVP to the Beta version in the same platform. They don’t have to worry about cloud migration compatibility issues every time they bring the new device, bring new business logic. This can be a great support for them.”

FAVORIOT is a Malaysian IoT Startup that offers various IoT solutions including RAQIB that monitors the most important of an individual – health, and safety. It has been used to monitor Pilgrims performing their Hajj and Umrah. It also provides a Peace of Mind for the family members when their loved ones are performing pilgrimage in the Holy Land.

Equonix Tech Lab offers design, development and integration services in advanced embedded technology to solve complex challenges for clients around the world, providing them the advantage of top of the line technologies, superior performance and faster time­-to-­market options. Favoriot offers their IoT middleware for training and project development.

The year 2014 is when Malaysians started to Google the term “IoT” and ever since, the hype has been ups and downs. Many were very fascinated with the idea of having some form of IoT inside their organization or using in their daily lives. However, it was short lived when the deployment of IoT is not at the fast pace as what many predicted. It has own challenges and the journey is not as easy as one would expect.

But on the positive side, we are seeing many companies, universities and individuals are now giving training and consultancies. Check out what’s happening to Malaysia in 2018.

What are we going to expect in the year 2019? Here’re my predictions:

1. IoT Talents will be mushrooming. This is expected and a good sign for the industry. We will see the young generation that enters the job market will have some experience with IoT, especially during their final year projects. This brings a higher value to their potential employers.
2. Enterprise IoT vs Consumer IoT. Most of the consumer IoT devices and solutions will be from overseas but ere will be a lot more requests about building enterprise ioT solutions for companies.
3. IoT data to the Cloud. Many will realize that there’s no use to build their own IoT platform and will be more ready to push their data the Cloud. This is a better and more cost-effective way to deploy IoT when it is on a small scale.
4. Choices of IoT Middlewares. This is the main IoT component missing in the Universities when they learn IoT because most of their final year projects are stand-alone Raspberry Pi and Arduino with some sensors. When they are the industry, they will have a hard time to choose which middleware to choose.
5. LPWAN Rollout. We have seen the 1st IoT network based on SigFox this year and probably see NB-IoT in 2019. It will no longer about technology but also how attractive are the price, large coverage and the matured device ecosystem.
6. Top IoT applications remained unpredictable. It’s difficult to see which IoT solution will be the most popular. Although smart cities are seen to be a key enabler, we have not seen any big deployment of IoT in such initiatives yet.
7. Government’s IoT deployment still lacking. Due to the budget constraint, many projects will be KIV unless it’s industry-driven or PPP-based.
8. Industry 4wrd policy to drive the manufacturing sector. Thus, we need to revisit and revive the National IoT Strategic Framework developed in 2014 to move forward. We can’t limit the growth of IoT in manufacturing only.

Malaysia can become a powerhouse again if we are able to execute all the plans that we have laid out for many years. We need to have Champions that can drive the Digital Transformation.

It’s Now or Never.

We end the year 2018 with a big launch of Industry 4WRD (Malaysia National Policy) which is Malaysia’s response to Industry 4.0 to strengthen the Manufacturing sector. It is seen as the key economic enabler for Malaysia in future years. Although, we should not forget that Industry 4.0 is only a subset of a bigger picture i.e. Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) which goes beyond manufacturing. It covers the way we live, works and entertains ourselves in all sectors.

Earlier this year, I have made some IoT predictions for 2018. Now, let’s review what we have learned in 2018.

1. Industry 4.0 has become the latest jargon and hottest topic of the year. But many have different interpretations and misconceptions when we juggled between both words – 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution) or IR4.0 or I4.0 (Industry 4.0). And it’s true that some important technology like IoT has somehow become “sideline” even though that’s key in any 4IR initiatives. Many have included the “4.0” in many of their initiatives, brands, proposals, events and even in the job titles.
2. Training, Workshops, and Conferences are somehow all related to “4.0”. This gives a great opportunity for training and consultancy. It will continue for the next year in 2019.
3. A lot to play catch-up by the Universities. Before 2019, many Universities have started to introduce Internet of Things (IoT) as part of their subject but now they have to include Blockchain too. Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), and Augmented Reality (AR) are already taught in many Computer Sciences courses. The lecturers now have a tough time to learn new things. The good thing is that many Malaysian Universities have somehow and somewhat incorporated the elements of IoT in their courses in 2018.
4. IoT Startups still lack of exposure. We heard a lot of funding goes to Startups that are based on Fintech, Blockchain, AI, eMarketplace that are mainly focused on software/applications but not many IoT startups get the right attention or funding. Maybe it’s because many of them have B2C business model and thus their brand is more prominent compared to IoT startups that are mainly B2B. However, the recent ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards (Rice Bowl), organized by New Entrepreneurs Foundation have started to include IoT as one of the categories and this is a good indication of recognition. Cyberview Living Lab Accelerator (CLLA), MDEC’s #mydigitalmaker hero, MCMC’s KLESF and CREST The Great Lab Challenges are some other notable initiatives on IoT.
5. Unfortunately, there’s no announcement of any National IoT Projects except maybe smaller projects by State such as Smart Selangor and the announcement of Industry 4wrd.

In my next article, I will write about “IoT in Malaysia – 2019 Predictions”.