The IoT Bootcamp is a 6-day program, entirely developed by IoT companies and experts. The objective of this program is to provide entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs the neccessary knowledge, skills and tools to bring their IoT-project to the next level.
The Participants
- MyPitch puts a 180° camera next to local football fields to process video images into meaningful statistics for players. Those players can view the statistics from their team and personal statistics for football games.
- Iristick develops the most comfrotable smart glasses for industrial purposes.
- Toyfoo enables game-makers to deliver immersive experiences to players in urban and public contexts, including escape rooms.
- ID Diamonds turns diamonds into a fungible investment instrument.
- SOKA exists to (help and) coach 50+ people to live a healthier, happier and longer life by stimulating and rewarding them in a serious-fun way to cultivate good habits and fulfill little challenges that cultivate good habits.
The Classes
Day One - 12 October - A problem worth solving
The participants started by presenting themselves and pitching their project. They immediately received a lot of feedback from their peers and the IoT Bootcamp staff. Then the class received a glimpse of the objective of this bootcamp: raising funding for your IoT project. Dimitri Leemans, founding partner at Pytheas Ventures, shared his vast experience and taught the participants the essence of an awesome pitch.
After lunch, An-Katrien Huijghebaert and Bavo Coeman took the participants for a journey to the sweet spot of innovation. Inspired by the 8 guiding principles for successful product design, the class started an ideation process to define a problem worth solving. In this interactive session, the five startups took an outsiders' view of their project, and complemented the customer job to be done canvas.
Day Two - 28 October - A solution worth making
Day Two kicked off already with a challenge to the participants: how do you make a solution worth making. Bavo Coeman started the day off by taking the participants through the whole process of " how to make a solution worth-making" after that the participants were given their own value proposition canvas. By using a value proposition canvas, participants gathered around a board that welcomed their thoughts and ideas as they were guided through the first three sessions of the day: how to achieve problem-solution fit; how to explore propositions; and how to validate propositions.
After the interactive sessions that got everyone's brains working at full speed, participants got to learn first-hand from Jan Coppens, CEO and Founder of Aloxy about the actual experience of setting up and growing an IOT scale-up, building it for success.
The day ended with another inspirational session on data awareness delivered by Maikel Peeters from Dataminded, participants were exposed to a technical in-depth presentation about data platforms. They got In depth information on the importance of data management and which tools and products to use to obtain and store data perfectly.
Day Three - 9 november - Building a robust solution
For the third day of the IOT bootcamp, the focus was mainly on how to build a robust iot solution. This session went more into practice by showing iot hardware devices and demonstrating concrete successful iot projects. The list of speakers was therefore also delicious.
The first speaker was IOT specialist from Orange, Erik van Lierde, who explained the different IOT platforms and communications to the participants with a lot of passion and knowledge. The day was off to a good start.
After a short coffee break, Jan Alexander from Verhaert took the floor. He gave the participants interesting insights and tips about AI design guidelines, a very important topic when talking about robust IOT solutions.
After a very knowledge filled morning, it was time for a well-deserved lunch.
The participants were ready for a exciting afternoon.
The first speaker to kick off the afternoon's activities was Dragan Subotic from IMEC IDlab. He took the participants for a deep-dive into sensors and electronics with the necessary hardware components he brought along, it was a perfect cocktail for an interesting discussion.
After the more practical workshop, we switched back to theory. Peter Leemans of AllThingsTalk took the participants on a deep-dive of "building an end-to-end IOT solution
We ended the day with a very important topic - Security. None other than Cédric Bassem from Nviso - he closed the day with the workshop "iot secuirty - where to start" He gave the participants loads of tips and talked about his experiences and best pratices in the security industry.
On to day 4, where the Participants will be thrown into a day full off prototyping !
Day Four - 18 November - Prototyping day!
For the fourth day, we were invited to the KDG campus in Hoboken for interesting sessions on prototyping.
In the morning Lieven van Diest from ALLTHINGSTALK gave an interesting lecture to the participants on how to go from a good idea to a solution that works. The participants had plenty of time to ask all their technical questions and Lieven gave them solid feedback on wich kind of beacon they should use or the preferred IOT communications system.
After a morning full of technical and interesting discussions, it was time to fill the tank with food and prepare for the afternoon.
In the afternoon, we went to the famous IOT fablab on campus. It is the playground for every IOT and hardware enthusiast. The whole lab was full of laser cutters, 3d printers, wood cutters, VR rooms and so on. The participants were once again met by Orange's IOT specialist, Erik Van Lierde. He gave one-on-one coaching sessions to the participants and discussed with them in depth the design of their idea and all other possibilities they could do.
On to day 5 where the participants well have a deep dive into the art of coomercialization.
Day Five - 25 November - Preparing for commercialization
Day 5 was all about - how do I commercialise a product or how do I market my product?
This day the practical was exchanged for the more theoretical content. In the morning, speakers from Verhaert came to share their knowledge about funding, European legislation and patents.
In the afternoon, it was time for two presentations by two IOT companies that have managed to commercialise their product perfectly.
The first speaker was from Allthingstalk - a fixed value in the IOT world. He talked about how allthingstalk started as a small company and how it managed to grow to a big player in the IOT market through specific strategies. He also gave do's and dont's for the participants.
The second speaker was Evert Bulcke, the chief operations officer of the well-known Antwerp-based IOT company Rombit.
Evert came to unveil the story of Rombit and explain the various go-to market strategies. He also emphasised that failure is necessary and that you can only learn from it.
Now comes the pitch day where all participants have to bundle their accumulated knowledge from the bootcamp and present their company and product in front of a panel of judges.
