Network Communications News (NCN) May 2017 | Page 16

ON THE CASE
Inmarsat and Actility deploy
city-wide IoT network in
Rwandan capital
Inmarsat has
announced that
it will deploy
LoRaWAN (a form
of LPWAN or
Low Power Wide
Area Network)
infrastructure
around the city of
Kigali to support
the Rwandan
capital’s flagship smart city project.
The network, which is active for an initial period until
1st May, 2018, is the connectivity platform for a variety
of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and will provide a
blueprint for smart city projects throughout Africa.
The LoRaWAN network has been developed in
partnership with Actility, a business that Inmarsat has
recently invested in.
The solution will provide city-wide coverage that
enables a variety of organisations to develop and deploy
IoT applications on a large scale, as well as allowing
entrepreneurs to easily connect their front-end IoT
devices through a middleware layer.
Paul Gudonis, Inmarsat Enterprise’s president, said:
‘Kigali is taking the lead with its smart city project,
creating an IoT ecosystem where both private and
government organisations can experiment with this
technology in a vibrant and lively city.
‘The project will therefore begin to take the potential
of this exciting technology beyond futurist visions and
into a real-world scenario and we look forward to seeing
the creativity of Kigali’s many entrepreneurs, students,
and businesses unleashed on the IoT network.’
vCreate introduces video tech to aid
parents with their baby’s progress
The Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow has become the first
neonatal unit in the UK to use video technology to help parents
stay connected with their baby’s progress; the cloud based video
platform, allows nurses to send parents of premature babies video
updates from hospital.
Now vCreate, the technology provider that supplies the
personalised video platform to Glasgow, is launching a public
appeal to help find sponsors to support a mass roll-out of
personalised video technology across all 200 NHS Neonatal Units
by 2018.
Ben Moore, founder of vCreate said, ‘The feedback from
parents using the platform has been overwhelmingly positive, so
we’d like to extend the offering to all parents of premature babies
born in the UK. This is only going to be possible with support from
the great British public. Maybe you’ve been personally affected by
the birth of a premature baby, or know someone close to you who
has; could you help us spread the word on social media?
‘All it would take is for a few generous corporate sponsors to
allocate a modest percentage of their yearly marketing budget.
The sponsor’s contribution would go towards ensuring their local
neonatal unit has access to the vCreate platform plus training for
all the staff.’
For further
information visit:
www.vcreate.tv
For further information visit: www.inmarsat.com
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