IoT for Bangladesh
What IoT offers in Bangladesh?
A few years back, a team of young engineers from BUET were asked to provide a solution for attendance management of a renowned university of Bangladesh. The requirements included devices to be installed on different floors and the user interface to be based on the cloud. The obstacle that the team faced was that LAN cables or Wi-Fi could not be set up for the devices to be connected. Also, no suitable hardware could be found in the market. So, the team decided to build a device and a system that will serve their need of the cloud based wireless attendance management system.
For some obvious lacking, the project could not be completed. But the amazing thing is that this incident paved the way for the birth of the name “Inovace Technologies”. After about a year of relentless research, testing and development, finally the first product “Tipsoi-21”, a cloud-based fingerprint attendance monitoring system came in the market. Turning a concept into a product is a mammoth task. It is even more complex if the product is a hardware product. Component selection, system architecture, design, firmware, PCB design, power management and many more things come in the way of developing a hardware device. Also, competing with Chinese mass hardware production is a big challenge. But the fact to be remembered is that Chinese products are unable to provide a top-of-the-line and cost-effective solution to our local problems. In fact, there are cases where we have to tailor our problems according to the solutions available by Chinese products. Therefore, a vacuum is the solution is always there.
For example, there are plenty of attendance devices that China offers for very cheap prices. But, very few of them were connected to cloud and those, which were connected to the cloud, required a client-side PC for that. Almost every connected device uses LAN or WiFi for internet connection. So, in case of a warehouse or depot or regional office or some other remote establishment of a company, wireless cloud-based solution setup can be nearly impossible with market available devices.
In ‘Tipsoi-21’, GPRS is used for connectivity. As we have almost full country coverage of GPRS network, till now it is the best medium for IoT device connectivity nationwide. IoT devices do not require high bandwidth. Generally, most transmissions contain hundreds of bytes at maximum. Moreover, telecom operators of the country are offering SIM cards and data plans specifically designed for M2M IoT devices.
“Inovace Technologies” holds a valuable partnership with Grameenphone and uses M2M SIM cards provided by them. So, “Inovace Technologies” don’t let customers take the burden of SIM management. One particular advantage of using GPRS is that the installation process is very easy as the device is plug and play and requires no additional cabling hassle other than the power cable. Also ‘Tipsoi-21’ offers 5 hours of battery backup.
One of the key traits of “Inovace Technologies” is a customer-centric business vision. For that, the company offers round the clock customer service. As the sole developer of the product, “Inovace Technologies” can solve any issue that may occur as they know the system inside out. This reduces the need to change devices frequently. We also offer customized solutions according to the customers’ needs.
Every IoT product has two sides; So far, we have been talking about the hardware side. There must be well-designed cloud software that each IoT device talks to. Handling thousands of devices is not an easy task. Also, IoT devices will lose their worth if the acquired data are not displayed in a useful way. “Inovace Technologies” offers an effective customizable cloud-based client panel to each client in which they can monitor attendance logs and perform access permissions of their connected IoT devices.
Many companies, with a nationwide footprint, and Government organizations are using ‘Tipsoi-21’ for monitoring attendance of their operations under one cloud-based software which can be accessed from anywhere in the world by the authorized personnel. Gazi group, Radiant Pharmaceuticals, Sena Kalyan Sangstha (SKS), Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE), BUET, PWD, Energypac are few of the respected clients of ‘Inovace Technologies’. Hundreds of schools throughout the country are also using ‘Tipsoi-21’ to monitor the attendance of their students.
IoT revolution has just started in Bangladesh. There is a very long way to go as the possibilities are infinite. Young engineers and entrepreneurs should come forward and focus on this sector. An industry cannot flourish without a sufficient number of skilled participants. “Inovace Technologies” will always support the advancement of IoT in Bangladesh.