Flashback on Unahack #1
I’ve been lucky to spend several days in Taiwan last month (Feb 2017) thanks to Unabiz, the Sigfox operator & partner in Taiwan.
Since I got plenty of so, how was it there ? How good was the event ? questions since I came back to Paris, it sounds like a good idea to stop being lazy and write it all down :) (Or be more lazy and redirect questions to this link ?)
Takeaways from the Unahack hackathon may also be useful for those looking into organising Sigfox/IoT hackathons
UnaHack #1
The main purpose of my visit was to give an helping hand on UnaHack #1, the first Sigfox hackathon organised in Asia.
Organised by Unabiz, the event spanned over 3 days and was supported by numerous partners :
20 teams registered for the event, mostly university students & teachers, with some of them already involved in a side startup.
Most of the top taiwanese universities were represented : NTU, NTUST, NCTU, … with one of the team coming all the way from Kaoshiung (the farthest city from Taipei) !
Being able to gather a quality pool of participants, with the support of key partners is really key to the quality of such an event. This and securing the right location and dates are the behind the scene work that nobody sees…. Unless it’s not properly done leading to a poor quality event. Hat’s off to the Unabiz team that dealt with all of this without going for the easy way with an “hackathon provider”
Day 1
Friday morning was busy with presentations :
- Event introduction & advices by @Philippe Chiu, Unabiz GM
- SKS executive explaining the upcoming challenges related to the aging population in Taiwan, and how he hope IoT will address security & elderly care topics
- Full introduction to the ST platform : SDK, Nucleo board, Sensors board, Spirit 2, librairies & code samples
- Sigfox & IoT introduction by myself
By early afternoon, teams were all formed, hardware set up … and ideas starting to bloom.
On top of the initial presentations, the ST team stayed to mentor all attendees during these crucial first steps.
Keep in mind that most of the attendees had zero previous experience either with the ST solutions or with Sigfox.
This is where mentoring is key : helping teams start in a sane direction, with a clear understanding of what is doable or not, and what would be useful or not.
A few minutes chat at this step makes a great difference, as it’s still time to easily steer a project out of a bad direction.
After a long 8–22 day, I was lucky enough to get back to my hotel for a few hours of sleep, while attendees were staying overnight at the event venue.
Day 2
Day 1 was just the warm-up session, and teams were going full speed by the start of Day 2.
Most of them worked trough the night, with several using nightshifts to always have part of the team working.
With most teams now on track with pretty clear projects ideas, need for technical mentoring was greater, with more advanced questions.
Saturday afternoon, most of the teams had (almost) working hardware proof of concepts, and were looking into the cloud application.
Alex (Unabiz Taiwan) provided an in-depth presentation of the Sigfox cloud inner workings, and explained in full length how to integrate with Microsoft Azure services.
As Microsoft was a partner of the event offering a dedicated prize, attendees were trying hard to use their services ;)
After 24 hours of hacking and still 24 hours to go, tiredness starting to win over some of the teams.
This mid-hackathon period is the more quiet for mentors : teams are fully focused on getting their projects out, and you only have to sit there and answer a few very precise question every now and then.
This is the moment I was able to write my Wifi-based geolocation demo using Sigfox
Christophe Fourtet, Sigfox founder, made a suprise appearance late afternoon straight after landing in Taiwan. Special occasion for teams to show to its inventor what they’ve been working on with the Sigfox technology…. And selfies. (Yes, messy desks by then)
By Saturday night, projects were starting to take form with good looking demos
Day 3
Sunday morning was the final rush moment : fixing hardware, polishing end applications, preparing an efficient pitch for the early afternoon jury sessions.
3 distincts jury were set up, with a mix of technical experts (ST, Sigfox, Academic teachers…) & people coming from the business/usecase world (SKS, Cities, ..)
After a draw, each team was appointed to one of the jurys.
Every team had 10 minutes to demo its end-to-end project, with focus on
- Real demo & technical realisation. Slideware was not accepted
- Usefulness of the service
- Business relevancy
- Presentation itself
Tech first, business second, and wrapping paper last.
I’ve seen a couple event were nice slides were valued more than the actual demo, and it helps a lot having the rules clearly set up in advance.
Each of these 3 juries elected the best team from its pool, which was to enter the final.
Finalists were revealed in the main room, each jury calling its respective winner on stage.
Final
After the announcement of these 3 finalists, teams had a few minutes to finalise their final pitch.
This final pitch was to be made on the main stage, with the first rows crowded with VIPs : community leaders, executives, city mayor, …. Pressure !
This two-step jury process is somehow unusual, but was a great idea
- 1st round jury could stay really focused on each of the presented projects. Not the case when you have to judge a dozen teams in a row.
- Added more drama to the process
- Made the access to the main stage a reward in itself
- Made sure people showing up to hear pitches got only the top of the top, and not the so-so projects
The three teams made their full demo :
A security system for scooters : accelerometer/gyroscope was used to detect crashes or falls. Event is sent over the Sigfox network, and notifications are sent on Line (communication application) depending on the user settings. A GPS was also used to locate a stolen scooter.
A fall detection sensor for elderly people, using their own chatbot platform to relay the alert to relatives & emergency services. The platform was already able to send the notifications across Facebook Messenger & Line.
A system analysing elderly activity through an acceloremeter/gyroscope embedded in a walking cane. Activity patterns were used to know if the user was asleep, walking, angry (stomping) or fallen. Then depending on the event, a chain of actions was triggered with notifications.
Results
Final jury was pretty easy as we were quick to get a consensus :
- Best project was the scooter one : great demo + relevant services + real-word & business fit. I’ve seen teams working (and/or invoicing…) for weeks without getting to such a result. Really impressive work in 48 hours
- 2nd as the waling cane project : technical realisation was great, but the need for computing power & energy doesn’t fit the acceptable cost model for a walking cane with today’s solutions
- 3rd one was the fall detection system. Useful solution, with a good demo especially on the notification chain side. But device integration wasn’t as advanced as others, and probably too complex.
Main takeaways
- Finalists all had a fully functional demo, working end-to-end from the device to the application/notification service
- All teams showed a great level of technical skills. I was really impressed by the overall level. Both on the hardware/electronics part and on the application side (chatbbot integration, advanced notification systems..)
- … But most were short on the product/business projection. Some of the projecs were what I’d call “pure engineers projects” : great solution, but with a strong imbalance between solution cost/complexity & added value.
- The taiwanese ecosystem was eager to see what can be done with Sigfox+ST in 48 hours, and was very supportive
- Mentors involvement and good documentation are key in such events. All teams managed to get started with the ST solution without any previus knowledge, thanks to great support from the ST team.
Meeting the local ecosystem
I stayed a few days more in Taipei, and benefited from Unabiz & Business France help to get a agenda packed in great meetings.
I’ll tell more once tangible projects & results will come up, but I was lucky to meet
- Top hardware startups accelerators
- IoT projects helpers & matchmaking platforms
- Manufacturing experts
- Government-based project leaders
- Sigfox partners M2COMM & Innocom
I’ve been impressed by the discussions I had there, and the excitement I felt for the new opportunities laying ahead with Sigfox & Iot in general. Taiwan has both great electronics manufacturing capabilities, and very good engineers.
I’m pretty sure it will be one of the key countries in Sigfox development in Asia this year. Stay tuned :)
Thanks
Thank you to all those who helped me getting the max out of this trip
- The whole Unabiz team : Philippe Chiu, Philippe Chen, Carter Ho, Upton Lai, Jasmine Lin, Nicolas Baele, Philippe Tzou, Alex Chen, Vincent Chuang
- ST : Federico Pepe, Franck Martins & the whole team
- And Michael Lee, my fellow taipei-based sigfoxer who drove me all the way to Hsinschu to meet our partners there
P.S.
This article stayed forever in the draft to complete state, where almost all my publications go to die :(
I finally decided to publish it even if I’m not happy with it.
If you made it to the end : Congrats ! and Thank You :)
Let’s keep in touch :
