Melita has been establishing a client base in the IoT sector, particularly in Malta, Italy and Germany, over the past few months. The firm provides services to businesses operating Europe-wide in sectors such as car-pooling and fleet management, waste management and digital health care.

In Malta, the availability of Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) coverage brings added advantages which extend the possibilities of IoT technology. These include being able to connect sensors deep underground in spaces like cellars or car parks or facilitating the use of sensors with very low energy consumption, resulting in a battery life of up to ten years.

“The great benefit of IoT is the efficiency gains it generates. For example, if the machines in a factory are connected, they will tell you when they need maintenance. This means that maintenance work will only happen when necessary, without the need for regular checks, enabling time and cost savings. Through such services, Melita is implementing its strategy to enable our customers to fully embrace the digital economy, now and in the future,” said Harald Rösch, CEO of Melita.

“Our plans and management portal are designed to be simple and transparent. We have carefully selected the essential features required to enable clients to manage their IoT business without adding the complexity of larger proprietary systems. Choosing the right plan and options is straight forward, and once a client is logged in to the portal the process is intuitive and therefore very easy to use,” added Malcolm Briffa, Director of Business Services at Melita.

Other uses of IoT, which could soon become commonplace, include intelligent traffic lights which adapt to live traffic conditions in order to improve the flow of vehicles, and irrigation systems which turn on and off when really required, reducing water waste and improving agricultural yields, according to Melita.

The post Melita launches M2M, IoT brand melita.io first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.

Last year’s summit brought W. Scott Stornetta, John McAfee, the Winklevoss Twins and Sophia the Robot to Malta’s shores along with 8,500 delegates. Although last year’s summit predominantly focused on distributed-ledger technology solutions and blockchain, as of this year the organisers are expanding their scope of view.

“We are moving beyond the hype by discussing not only blockchain but also AI [artificial intelligence], quantum tech, big data, and IoT [internet of things] this year,” says Eman Pulis, Founder of the Malta AI & Blockchain Summit. “Before the big show in Malta in November, we are also hosting a number of networking dinners across the world,” Mr Pulis says, referring to the end-year AIBC.

Throughout the year, the AIBC is organising a roadshow of exclusive C-level dinners entitled the Knights of Blockchain. The Knights of Blockchain dinners are “lavish invite-only events with no expense spared in the company of 200 C-level Executives from the industry”, the organisers say about the series. “I strongly believe that business is not made between companies, it is made between people,” Mr Pulis adds.

“We are moving beyond the hype by discussing not only blockchain but also AI, quantum tech, big data, and IoT this year.”

To support startups within the sector, the AIBC has also invited 100 startups to claim a booth on the expo free of charge, giving them access to 700 attending investors. “We had overwhelming feedback from all the disruptive startups that we welcomed to claim their free booth last year,” says Mr Pulis.

“However, as we had so many interesting and promising projects that we could not accommodate in the fierce competition of the available space that we had, we are happy to increase to 100 free booths this year to boost innovation and facilitate connections between startups and investors so that this sector can flourish,” he adds.

The speaker line-up for May’s summit includes world-renowned names in the AI and blockchain space, including Tim Draper; Roger Ver; Ben Parr, Co-Founder of Octane AI and world-famous author of Captivology; Patrick Chang, Director at Samsung NEXT; Tone Vays, renowned bitcoin/blockchain researcher with more than 80,000 YouTube subscribers; Brock Pierce, Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation; Alexander Borodich, Founder of Universa; Eric Van Der Kleij, CEO at Centre for Digital Revolution, and many more.

Last minute passes are still available for visitors, while exhibitors and sponsors can reach out to the organisers to explore possibilities.

The post Malta AI & Blockchain Summit’s spring edition opens doors 23 May first appeared on The Malta Business Weekly.