Today, organizations both in the private and public sectors, are beginning to leverage the Internet of Things. A far greater number of companies are graduating from proof of concept projects to wide scale production releases of IoT enabled systems.
NetObjex is a Decentralized Digital Asset Management Platform that uses IoT and Blockchain Technologies.
NetObjex focuses on four vertical markets including Smart City, Transportation/Automotive, Supply Chain & Logistics, and Manufacturing/Industry 4.0. The platform enables tracking and tracing of assets, improving asset performance, optimizing asset utilization, and reducing asset shrinkage/waste/inefficiencies.
The platform works with all major communication protocols; includes features such as rules engine, alerts and messaging, enterprise integration, blockchain integration, and more. Solutions that have been developed using the NetObjex PaaS range from smart electricity meters, dynamic wireless electric vehicle charging, smart parking, smart media, fleet management of kiosks, powering smart medical devices, and more.
Architect behind NetObjex
Raghu Bala is the CEO of NetObjex Inc. Prior to NetObjex Raghu has worked with Yahoo, Infospace, PwC, and three successful startups. He has completed his MBA in Finance from Wharton and MS in Computer Science from RPI. Raghu has also worked as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Columbia University, and currently conducting online courses on MIT’s Artificial Intelligence: Implications for business strategy program. Mr Bala is a published author, and has spoken at major conferences, including IoT India Congress, Google IO, and more. Present research interests include decentralized computing, Blockchain, IoT, AI, nand cryptocurrencies.
“It was born out of a business need. I was working for a media company that used to spend several million dollars on managing retail racks at major outlets nationwide. At that time, I proposed the use of IoT powered racks even before IoT was a commonly used term like it is today- this was in the 2010/11 time period. Once, I realized all of the things the technology was capable of, I realized this was a space I wanted to spend more time on and that led to the genesis of NetObjex,” says Raghu about the motivation behind the inception of NetObjex.
Distinctive Services from NetObjex
At present, most enterprises are using IoT within the confines of their own organization. However, as devices evolve, the need to communicate with other devices across organizational boundaries becomes a necessity.
IoT, when compared with a more mature ecosystem such as the World Wide Web, is still in its infacy hampered by a number of shortcomings such as the lack of a universal device ID construct, inability of devices to authenticate, communicate, and transact with one another.
By combining IoT and Blockchain technologies, NetObjex has a force multiplier in leveraging these leading edge capabilities in the field of digital asset management. It overcomes current limitations of traditional IoT systems by providing
- A Universal Blockchain ID
- A decentralized ledger for device authentication and device discovery
- Support for short range protocols to facilitate interdevice communications;
- Optional digital wallets in devices (e.g. your car has a wallet) for transactions
Benefits for Clients
The NetObjex platform consists of 4 distinct layers – Instrumentation, Compute, Integration, and Monetization. NetObjex considers every object a digital asset – in the form of a hard asset, such as a refrigerator, or a soft asset such as an MP4 recording of a song.
Data acquisition often happens through the instrumentation of assets, which is then processed by the cloud platform resulting in multiple outcomes – actuation, alerts and notifications, enterprise integration, ecosystem sharing through blockchain, data visualization, machine learning, and more. The sheer range of functionality enables NetObjex to better serve its clients to help them improve asset performance, utilization, efficiency, tracking, and traceability.
This has a significant positive business impact to NetObjex clients’ top and bottom line.
Successfully Adapting and Utilizing Advanced Technologies
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology that requires a lot of data and IoT dovetails well with it because the latter is an excellent data acquisition mechanism for the former. Improvements in telecommunications such as DSRC and 5G are exciting to team NetObjex, because they open new pathways for communications. The challenge in AI is the sheer volume of data that needs processing, and the NetObjex team embraces new more efficient means of storing, retrieving and analyzing data. NetObjex also develops technologies for smart edge devices that enable localized intelligence and processing power at the periphery of IoT networks.
Future Goals
Customer Success is at the core of the NetObjex mission as a company. NetObjex wishes to focus on guiding and assisting clients achieve their objectives of improving their asset utilization, performance, and efficiency. These have a material impact on a company’s top and bottom lines, while creating opportunities for achieving competitive advantage.
On the technology front, NetObjex will continue to invest in R&D to strengthen its platform by judiciously selecting technologies that provide a competitive advantage to NetObjex and its installed base. NetObjex believes it can impact certain key business metrics.
“We believe we can improve the top-line and bottom-lines of companies, in our market segments, anywhere from 10-20% through better asset utilization and efficiency. This is our primary objective,” says team NetObjex.