Sigfox has launched the second French edition of its Hacking House in Paris, which, for six months, will see participants from seven countries bringing IoT-based projects to life addressing issues as diverse as car theft prevention and bird protection.
 
The participants will be divided into four teams to develop their project at Sigfox in Paris from this month until August. This 180-day format, instead of 90 days for the first Hacking House, will provide the time to create a functional prototype that will be tested in real conditions in the field.
 
Throughout this period, participants will not only be supported by Sigfox experts, but will also benefit, thanks to external specialists, from an apprenticeship in entrepreneurial skills, so they have the basis to launch their product or start-up.
 
“For this sixth edition, we wanted to add value to our programme by giving participants the time and tools to deliver a proven IoT solution that will meet the specifications given at the start up,” said Maxime Schacht, Hacking House manager. “We also have a new partnership with Telecom ParisTech Entrepreneurs, the first digital business incubator in France, which will provide mentoring for start-ups and entrepreneurs from the Hacking House.”
 
At the end of the six months working on the various projects, which will include several phases of exchanges with partners, conceptual thinking, prototyping and testing, the teams will present their work to a panel made up of investors, clients and experts. They will evaluate the projects taking into account production issues and the existence of similar products on the market.
 
The four projects selected this year are very diverse and respond to various but specific problems identified by Sigfox users:

• Audience and impact measurement of digital billboards thanks to embedded artificial intelligence.
• Prevention of car theft.
• Connected nesting box to promote the repopulation of birds in partnership with the Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux (League for the Protection of Birds).
• Management and optimisation of berths and mooring rings for pleasure boats.

Microsoft and Amosense are the sponsors of the latest Hacking House, which will also be supported by technology partners such as Lite-On, Wisebatt and ST Microelectronics.

“We believe that the Sigfox’s Hacking House is addressing an important need in the IoT market by sponsoring innovative and impactful industrial IoT projects, an area of focus for Microsoft Azure IoT services” said Soren Lau, general manager for IoT in Emea at Microsoft.

Danny Jung, executive vice president of Amosense, added: “We are delighted to sponsor the new Hacking House to help produce such promising projects in the IoT field. Like Hacking House, we believe that projects are born out of a real issue and well-defined customer expectations.”

The Sigfox network is available in 70 countries, with one billion people covered