SensorUp — The leader in geospatial IoT

The Tesera Chapter (2004–2018)

I began my career fresh out of school with Tesera Systems Inc. way back in 2004 — perhaps a lifetime ago in this fast paced modern era. What started as a GIS Technician role to support the Bow River Basin Council in developing cartographic and analysis products for their state of the watershed report eventually morphed into a Chief Technology Officer role leading the amazing developers and data experts that make up Tesera’s professional services team.

At Tesera, we provided cloud built open source software for amazing clients such as The Gordon Foundation, The Canadian Red Cross, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, Avalanche Canada, the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Cenovus, EnCana, Golden Environmental Matt Services, the Insurance Bureau of Canada, and many others.

I am immensely grateful for the clients the and team members I worked with at Tesera and leaving was the hard decision. Thankfully, then came the easy decision and the opportunity to join Calgary’s most exciting startup, SensorUp.

Joining SensorUp (2018)

I’d met Dr. Steve Liang on a project or two during my time in consulting space. We worked together on the Environmental Hub (WEHUB) and developing the SmartMat technology for GEMS. We were both motivated to advance the way sensor, observation, and sample data was collected, stored, and utilized. I recognized Steve’s thought leadership in the data space. He is truly a global geospatial influencer and I’ve never met anyone who better understands how sensors, devices, things, and data interact. When I reached out to find out what was next for SensorUp he was excited to share that they had just closed a seed capital round with VanEdge Capital and the team was ramping up to get after it in a big way. Good timing. He recognized the success I had at Tesera growing the business and expanding market reach in the cloud and geospatial applications sector. If I pictured a dream team of IoT innovators it would look very much like SensorUp and I’m so excited to get working with these great folks.

Why I’m so excited about SensorUp

I’m excited for this opportunity for many reasons. From a personal perspective I am looking forward to building around a product, working with an extremely brilliant team, and applying the vast learnings of growing a consulting company. I’m even more excited about the company and potential to help the world run better. The following highlights identify just a few of the best things about the new company.

1. Standards Based. SensorUp’s software is future-proof, extensible, scalable, and guaranteed interoperable. SensorUp was a core contributor to the OCG SensorThings API as well as the Sensor Web Enablement kit standards. They believe in standards and interoperability. From my perspective avoiding proprietary standards is so important for companies making large investments in smart controls, devices, and sensors.
2. Award Winning. SensorUp has received numerous awards including the NATO Defence Innovation Challenge award for secure federation of IoT devices and the TecTerra Startup of the Year Award. Truly a team of IoT innovators determined to disrupt the silos of IoT by interconnecting one-off IoT systems into a coherent system of systems.
3. Global customer base. SensorUp has a global customer base in smart cities and industrial IoT, including top-tier organizations like Lockheed Martin, Department of Homeland Security, Natural Resources Canada, and more than 10 world-leading smart cities around the world.
4. Strong sector leadership. Paul Lee, managing partner of Vanedge Capital, believes that SensorUp will become the IoT analytics platform of choice for customers who rely on geospatial in their IoT implementations. “Vanedge has deep knowledge and a broad network within the geospatial sector that we developed supporting other portfolio companies in the space,” said Lee. “We believe SensorUp has a clear leadership position in IoT for geospatial and that their software will enable customers to seamlessly integrate disparate IoT data, provide real-time situational awareness, and gain meaningful insights for smart cities, first responders and field service management.”
5. IoT is the future. Connected devices are becoming ubiquitous while everything is becoming a connected device. The opportunity presented to modern enterprises, governments, and organizations is simply unparalleled as an everything connected world will change everything. There are so many opportunities to improve, optimize, and create efficiency by leveraging a standards-based IoT platform that the only limit is our ability to be imaginative and dream of a smarter, healthier and more efficient world. IoT based on open interoperability standards will be a key pillar of the coming automated world.