In March of 2020, Ioterra’s co-founder, Danny deLaveaga, was able to conduct an interview with CEO of EMBIQ, Alexey Shabalovskiy, regarding the company’s IoT initiatives, their history, and their product: OCKO
[Danny]: Ioterra is interviewing EMBIQ, one of our software partners on our marketplace. Can you tell me how you got started, introduce yourself and the company. We’re here in your headquarters in Lublin, Poland. We’re excited about your new operation in the states coming soon!
An office in EMBIQ’s Headquarters in Lublin, Poland
[Alex]: Nice to see you here! We started 10 years ago from a little company which was intended to be able to have software integration for our customers mainly on that side. The software development market was quite young, at that time 10 years ago – there was not much competition in the market. We started from mobile apps and mobile application development and that was actually a time when this kind of industry didn’t exist. Mobile devices were recognized as something to make calls, it was not so obvious that you can also use it with an internet connection or for some applications. But we did that! We developed applications for those phones. We started with building mobile apps, and they were mainly developed in Java Mobile Edition. Did you know it?
[Danny]: Java Mobile Edition?
[Alex]: Yeah!
[Danny]:That was 10 years ago?!
[Alex]: Yeah, it was the dinosaur age of Java!
[Danny]: What do you now do for mobile apps now? What is your core competency?
[Alex]: During the years, we had joined the iOS mobile scene and the Windows mobile scene. We went through all those stages of mobile development, but it was about 7 or 8 years ago that our customers asked not just for mobile or embedded apps, but also about backend integration and logic to plug into Facebook, Google, and adding third-party components. So we started to build our backend and frontend development teams. For the backend, it’s for building blocks with logical servers. For the front end development, they are the panel for web design. Right now EMIBQ is a company that has huge experience in all that range of software development. Starting from concept through the feasibility studies, PoC, demonstrators ending with building custom software for different purposes, building actual production software and, of course, deployment procedures on that. So the range covers all the stages of the software development process, this is what we do right now and our main goal is to provide a complex range of services in the field of software development.
[Danny]: Now in 2020, what is the breakup of your team? How big is it?
Alex: We are getting bigger and bigger. Currently, EMBIQ has over 50 employees. We are experts in software architecture, Design, UIX/GFX, server and web development, mobile and PC apps and tools, hardware development, devops, QA and so on. All the time we are starting new projects. Another big market gain that came to us was firmware and hardware development.
[Danny]: I noticed the hardware space in the backroom! It is a great lab setup.
[Alex]: Exactly! We can’t imagine projects without the hardware competency and [the lab]. Right now, almost all of our projects are hardware related. We build a hardware MVP and do feasibility studies for our customers. We connect different sensors with each other and look for the best set of computing units for communication devices, and connecting them to the cloud.
[Danny]: Talking about communication devices, you showed me a LoRa project. Can you talk to some of the projects and communication protocols you have engaged in?
[Alex]: During recent years, LoRa is very much trending.
[Danny]: And that’s here in Central Europe?
[Alex]: In general [throughout] Europe. They have a wide perception of how to use LoRa properly, but it’s still convenient for us. We can build a playground with hundreds of sensors gathering readings in real-time.
[Alex]: As far as I know from the devices we have used, they raise the segments of the frequencies that are allowed in the United States without additional licensing and approval. It’s pretty convenient technology for a low amount of data to be sent, long-range and low power.
[Danny]: Was this project part of the reason that you scaled up your hardware team?
[Alex]: Not only this one. Right now we’re in the progress of building 5 or 6 hardware related projects. The hardware is very much important.
[Danny]: It’s a good segway into one of the other projects you were talking about in terms of WiFi monitoring of traffic.
[Alex]: Yeah, it’s our own product called “Ocko [Ohh-Koh].”
[Danny]: You are selling these right now in the market?
[Alex]: Yes, absolutely. OCKO is an analytic system that can tell you about the behavior of customers. For example, people visiting the shopping mall. Thanks to our project you can gain information about their behavior within a particular time and space. You can predict the most crowded place, how many customers are coming back or where are they from. According to that, you can build a strong marketing strategy and continuously improve it. And it is only an example.
[Danny]: Are you looking for [sales] opportunities in the US as well?
[Alex]: Yes, absolutely. This project looks at real-time analytics of human flow in different places. It works perfectly for public transportation and great for shopping malls. It measures how people arrive, how much time people spend outside, and how they merge from different locations.
[Danny]: From my understanding, this is a GDPR-compliant device that can identify a device via its WiFi signature?
[Alex]: Exactly. We do not require any interaction from the user, so you don’t have to join any particular WiFi network or have to have any mobile application on the phone. Even more, recently mobile device manufacturers build a system that [allows you] to disable WiFi, but it’s never turned off. It’s always broadcasted. When you disable your Wifi, you can still find that signal and measure how the signal goes through the shopping mall or other places.
[Danny]: What is the vision of the company?
[Alex]: To provide complex software development services. We want to do it with the best quality, we are sure we can achieve it because we do it every day. Another thing is to extend our knowledge to the newest technologies. In our company, almost every project has something new, some new piece of technology is being used. It extremely extents our knowledge, experience and overall view on the market. So we know a lot of different aspects of software development using different trends. We know how to use different solutions and we can advise our customers which one will be the best for them or how to build a project up to complete the product.
[Danny]: What does EMIBQ want to achieve with this partnership?
[Alex]: Partnership with Ioterra is a very nice experience. We value Ioterra’s work because of IoT recognizability on the American market. Ioterra is a perfect hub to connect us, the company which is building software or IoT products, with customers who are willing to build that kind of product or being in progress with product development. Also, we can help customers who are having just an idea, and if someone is only looking for advice – we can provide the advice and we can show what is the possibility. We can build demonstrators, we can build the actual product and bring products to the market.
[Danny]: What does EMBIQ deliver as a service partner in the marketplace?
[Alex]: The best seller of EMBIQ is our knowledge actually. Knowledge and experience which we gained through the years. We are providing the knowledge, sharing it and adjusting to our customers’ needs. This is our main and best service product.
Check out EMBIQ’s profile on Ioterra.
