LoRaWAN World Congress Highlights

Last week we attended the LoRaWAN World Expo 2022 in Paris. It was an incredible event that brought together the entire LoRa ecosystem. 
After many years of working closely with the LoRa Alliance, it truly felt very much like meeting family, an open ecosystem doing business together and finding areas of collaboration to make IoT possible for organizations around the world.
It was an immense pleasure to meet partners and clients with whom we collaborate every day; the Azure team at Microsoft that we work with to provide the best architecture to our clients, our hardware partners, the Everynet team that is building one of the most robust open networks in the US, Semtech, and our clients that are bringing to life outstanding solutions in multiple industries. 
After having spent many years in the IoT industry, we are thrilled to see that democratization is finally happening. Today, organizations don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to create IoT solutions. With the right combination of a robust LoRa infrastructure, agile software solutions and hardware, they access connectivity and collect data in areas where they never thought they could, all of it in a very agile and profitable way.  
This unleashes tremendous opportunities to go beyond just connectivity to use the power of AI to build solutions with a sustainable approach.

As proof of that, during the Conference we shared an example of how we are using LoRa to optimize water irrigation systems connecting farms in remote locations. We also joined an important discussion with Multitech and Oxit to discuss IIoT and the roadblocks organizations often find while building solutions to understand what are the things getting in the way of successful manufacturing IoT deployments.
As the agenda move forward, another critical topic came up in a panel in which we share our perspectives on Inclusive Product Design, lead by Microsoft VP of Adversiting Sandra Lopez, LoRa Alliance CEO Donna Moore, Cecilia Flores, COO at Webee, HCL Technologies VP Rohit Sharma, and MClimate CCO & Co-Founder Violeta Mitsova.
Find an overview of the topics discussed on each panel below:

Watch a short excerpt of the expo as LoRa Alliance CEO Donna Moore discusses LoRaWAN's role in water conservation.

Transforming Agriculture by Delivering Technology to Preserve Water Resources

Over-irrigation is a major issue for farms globally and understanding plant behavior and environmental conditions in real-time is critical to improving the use of natural resources and increasing efficiency for growers. Our CEO Lucas Funes showcased how we developed a solution that addresses these issues with an eye toward the future of Farm AI. We combined a Robust LoRaWAN infrastructure with Webee’s platform for easier and wider adoption across clients’ operations.

It started by connecting a weather station, water and soil moisture sensors, enabling new real-time visibility about the environment, effects of light, temperature, humidity, electrical conductivity, pH, water quantity, and CO2 levels, to manage an irrigation controller and water valves intelligently.

This long-range, wireless system allows stakeholders to avoid being physically on-site and easily schedule irrigation. Webee technology aggregates in real-time all the data from the soil, water, weather stations, tanks, irrigation controllers, workers, digital-based forms, drain and crop response to irrigation. This way, users know precisely how much water and fertilizer should be used and when crops should be watered. What’s more: irrigation controllers automatically take immediate action based on real-time soil health, weather conditions, crop genetics, and more, without the need for human intervention. With the right combination of technology and technical expertise, Smart Farming will lead to the least amount of water possible being drained and wasted while improving crop yields.

How LoRaWAN is helping Industrial Digital Transformation + Automation

CEO & Founder Lucas Funes participated in this panel, led by the LoRa Alliance Industry Working Group Chair, Daniel Quant from Multitech, together with expert guests to discuss various use cases ranging from remote locations without access to energy or connectivity and hazardous operations to the factory floor of companies of all sizes, integration challenges both technical (software interconnectivity, data normalization, cybersecurity concerns) and organizational in nature (change management, digital transformation reluctancy, resistance to adopting disruptive technologies), and sustainability goals both in terms of consumer demands as well as government and entities regulations and compliance with corporate goals, as LoRaWAN helps digital transformation and automation in the industry.

Inclusive Product Design: At the Center of a Better World

Inclusive product design principles can be applied in analytics, customer research and more. It is a strategy for discovering the unmet needs of customers and the unseized opportunity for brands. COO Cecilia Flores joined a panel about the power of inclusion in product design led by Microsoft's Sandra Lopez, LoRa Alliance CEO Donna Moore, HCL Technologies VP Rohit Sharma, and MClimate CCO & Co-Founder Violeta Mitsova.
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They discussed topics that make a difference in designing products with an inclusive approach, the importance of working with teams and senior leaders across a variety of areas of a company such as product, engineering, and marketing to ensure underrepresented users feel seen and heard throughout the development process, leading to more democratic and more thorough design roadmaps, helping companies reshape their own R&D to build better products for all. The discussion also centered around how diverse backgrounds bring important perspectives into designing products with an inclusive approach.

Are you interested in learning more about any of these topics, or building IoT solutions? 
Share with us your ideas and questions. 
We are excited about what the future holds for IoT!