

Industrial IoT Spotlight
Peter Rohde-Chen, Erik Walenza
The Industrial IoT Spotlight Podcast shines a light on digital solutions that are impacting businesses today. Our mission is to feature the companies that are building the next generation of enterprise technologies, from architecture design to data management to business model innovation.
Our hosts, Peter Rohde-Chen and Erik Walenza, are friends and entrepreneurs based in Shanghai, China. The Industrial IoT Spotlight is produced by Asia Growth Partners, a group of technology experts and business leaders, who help technology companies and corporates navigate technology development, implementation, and adoption in Asia.
Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn @asia-growth-partners-agp or visit our website at https://asiagrowthpartners.com. You can contact Erik directly at erik.walenza@asiagrowthpartners.com
Our hosts, Peter Rohde-Chen and Erik Walenza, are friends and entrepreneurs based in Shanghai, China. The Industrial IoT Spotlight is produced by Asia Growth Partners, a group of technology experts and business leaders, who help technology companies and corporates navigate technology development, implementation, and adoption in Asia.
Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn @asia-growth-partners-agp or visit our website at https://asiagrowthpartners.com. You can contact Erik directly at erik.walenza@asiagrowthpartners.com
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 13, 2023 • 36min
EP 183 - Making 5G NB-IoT Connectivity Affordable by Satellite
In this episode, Erik talked with Jaume Sanpera, CEO and co-founder of Sateliot. Sateliot is the first satellite communication service provider that will offer satellite IoT connectivity. In this talk, Erik discussed why 85% of the earth remains unserved by terrestrial networks and how modern satellites can bring affordable connectivity to remote NB-IoT devices. He also explored the factors influencing satellite connectivity cost structure, including satellite manufacturing, launch, radio technology, and service contract structure. Key Questions: What is the cost trend for connecting an IoT device via satellite? How does performance differ with satellite versus terrestrial communication? What are the big use cases in satellite IoT connectivity?

Jul 5, 2023 • 45min
EP 182 - Bringing Open Standards to Semiconductor Design
This week, we interviewed Jack Kang, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Customer Experience at SiFive. SiFive brings RISC V software and Silicon experts together to innovate with the modern software-driven approach to semiconductors. In this episode, we talked about the importance of the RISC V open standard for semiconductors to provide design freedom, vendor choice, and long-term tech stack flexibility. We also explored how companies, from automotive OEMs to wearable device manufacturers, are different in their products with custom designs on open standards. Key Questions: What is the international standard behind RISC-V technology? Who are the big contributors to RISC-V instruction set standards? How do you see the future of RISC-V in the coming years?

Jun 27, 2023 • 43min
EP 181 - Manufacturing Tech Venture Building
In this episode, we talked with Renan Devillieres, founder and CEO of OSS Ventures. OSS Ventures is a start-up studio that invests in the future of factory operations. They ideate, test, build and invest in great ideas to change the future of manufacturing. In this talk, we discussed the role of start-ups in shaping the future of manufacturing and specific areas of breakthrough in this industry. We also covered the best practices for building a new venture like opportunity identification, product-market fit validation, and recruiting a leadership team. Key Questions: ● What is the current status of digital technology adoption in manufacturing? ● What are the challenges in finding the right technology providers, companies, and founders in manufacturing? ● What are the challenges for corporate ventures trying to explore areas outside their domain expertise?

Jun 15, 2023 • 42min
EP 180 - How to simplify the path from industrial AI pilot to scale
Founder and CEO of Embassy of Things, Matt Oberdorfer, discusses modernizing industrial data architecture, overcoming development bottlenecks, and simplifying the path from pilot to scale. The conversation explores generative AI in industrial settings, addressing human and organizational challenges, architectural elements, and the difference between generic and generative AI.

Jun 5, 2023 • 36min
EP 179 - Bridging the gap between consumers and factories
In this episode, we talked with Leonard Marano, President of the Americas at Lectra. Lectra provides Industry 4.0 solutions to bridge the gap between the consumer and the factory bringing precision and flexibility to the design to production process. In this talk, we discussed market trends driving Industry 4.0 adoption including mass customization, sustainability, nearshoring, and workforce shortages. We also explored how manufacturing in the fashion industry is evolving its supply chains to differentiate quality, cost, and speed to market. Key Questions: ● How does mass customization affect the current market trends? ● What factors affect people to invest more in technologies that promote sustainability? ● How do nearshoring and workforce shortages drive automation?

6 snips
May 29, 2023 • 42min
EP 178 - Replicate human decision making in industrial environments with Autonomous AI
This week, we interviewed Bryan DeBois, director of Industrial AI at RoviSys. RoviSys is a global system integrator that applies the most effective methods for building, analyzing, improving, and maintaining complex autonomous systems. In this episode, we talk about the concept of autonomous AI that integrates deep reinforcement learning based on machine data with machine teaching based on the main expertise and improvement through simulation. We also explored the industrial landscape broadly, including the cost structure, ROI targets, use cases, cloud strategy, and emerging technologies like GPT4. Key Questions: ● What is autonomous AI? ● What is the status of industrial AI in the S-curve of artificial intelligence? ● What are the use cases that are fit for autonomous AI? ● What is the cost structure for autonomous AI?

May 16, 2023 • 46min
EP 177 - How to automate on premise data center workflows
In this episode, we talked with Rob Hirschfeld, CEO and founder of RackN. RackN connects the tools people use to manage infrastructure to workflow pipelines through seamless automation across IT systems, platforms, and applications. In this episode, we discussed the challenges of operating on-premise data centers and the need to automate processes as companies adopt edge computing. We also explored the development during the past 25 years of data center evolution, what has improved, and where we still need progress. Key Questions: ● What are the challenges nowadays for cloud infrastructure? ● How have IoT and data centers evolved over the past 25 years? ● How do companies adapt to edge computing?

May 9, 2023 • 42min
EP 176 - Transforming healthcare productivity with RTLS
In this week's episode, we interviewed Scott Hondros, Vice President of Professional Services at CenTrak. CenTrak helps healthcare facilities create a safe, and efficient healthcare environment through the deployment of industry-leading real-time location systems. In this episode, we discussed how healthcare providers use IoT systems data to increase productivity, reduce operating costs and transform patient care. We also talked about machine-learning adoption to generate insights into asset utilization and the potential for the adoption of generative AI to create speech-based user interfaces. Key Questions: ● Do you see people experimenting with a new business model around RTLS? ● What is the stakeholder relationship for large healthcare facilities? ● What is the future of voice-based interfaces for the healthcare industry?

21 snips
May 5, 2023 • 39min
EP 175 - How AI co-pilots are transforming the factory floor
For today's episode, we talked with Artem Kroupenev, Head of Strategy for Augury. Augury uses AI to detect machine failures before they occur by empowering the largest process manufacturers to integrate AI into their daily operations. In this talk, we discussed how AI co-pilots transform the factory floor by guiding maintenance, quality, and production decisions with highly accurate diagnostics. We also explored the impact of GPT-4 and other large language models on how manufacturers use unstructured information and build more convenient user interfaces. Key Questions: ● How would you apply AI and machine learning to the manufacturing environment? ● What does the journey look like for AI integration in industrial and manufacturing in the coming years? How do you work with unstructured information to build more convenient user interfaces?

Apr 25, 2023 • 53min
EP 174- The future of low-code DevOp
In this episode, we talked to Cory O'Daniel, CEO and co-founder at Massdriver. Massdriver helps engineers deploy best-practice cloud architectures with integrated observability and security without being a DevOps expert. In this talk, we discussed the evolution of DevOps and cloud computing and why traditional DevOps practices don't work well for many start-ups today. We also explored the promise of generative AI to alien DevOps programming. Key Questions: What industries are mostly involved in DevOps programming? What are the improvements needed for DevOps nowadays? How do you see the democratization of access to AI evolve right now?