Innovator / Creator: Bringing the Newfound Understanding into a Different Stage

Video recording of our idea and prototype at the API World Hackathon 2017. The girl’s voice in this video is one of my team member. The hardware (smart IoT lock) in the video was built by me! 🙂

Now that I have understood the principles behind innovation, in keeping up with the spirit of entrepreneurship, I took part in a second hackathon at the API World Hackathon 2017 (using this since this is one of them that I have an artefact to show!) that seen more than 65 submissions. Over a period of 24 hours, we brainstormed, and built Remotely, a product that enables homeowners to remotely authorise caregivers to enter their home even when they are not at home by combining hardware— Internet-of-Things (IoT) smart lock—with software. Of course, as a Mechanical Engineer, and someone who is keen in IoT, I built the hardware that is connected to the app. More importantly, for our team, this idea came about when some of our important parcels got returned to the post office as they were being delivered while we were still at work (internship in the US). Hence, the idea was to use this app so that we could remotely allow the deliveryman to drop off the parcel at the doorstep. We then further extended the use case to allow for plumbing, electrician, and even caregivers! This idea was quite well received, and we managed to emerge as the overall winner. On hindsight, I think the success of this solution has very much to do with the audience ability to identify with the problem that we were trying to solve, hence, making the solution that we had found to be useful more relatable to the audience.

Innovator / Creator: What’s next for me as an inventor?

My university experience has been incredible in providing me many opportunities to put what I have learnt into use, and in grooming my technical and analytical competency so that I could combine technical skills with the existing framework to developing new products. More importantly, I have also learnt to adapt the different framework to new circumstances, and to apply the relevant skills as required.

In retrospect, I realise that often, I often start by looking at the skillset that I have gained, and then think about if there is any way I do the project better. In the engineering sense, perhaps, it’s almost equivalent to bringing a tool such as a spanner around looking for a loose bolt to tighten. A more useful approach might be to look at what is it that I want to learn, or what is the issues that I want to solve, and then from there understand where I am lacking so that I know where to improve on. In engineering term, it would be assessing the issues, and then looking at what tools is needed.

My interest is in the IoT space, using sensors to monitor, track, and understand energy usage of assets, and then performing demand control or energy optimisation in such a system. At the same time, I am also interested in using IoT sensors to power facility management through automated predictive maintenance on high-cost assets such as the heating, ventilation, and air-condition (HVAC), elevator, and escalator.

While this semester has been really hectic, I am excited that over the break and the next semester, I would be able to continue exploring my interests in the IoT space amd continue to learn. In maintaining that spirit of entrepreneurship, I am confident that eventually, I would be able to make some progress.