Below is our recent interview with Benjamin Wald, Co-Founder and Head of Client Strategy at Very:
Q: For those who haven’t heard of it, what is the best way to describe Very?
A: Very is a technology partner that provides expert product development, software engineering, and design services. We find creative approaches to challenging problems in our physical world and build scalable, smart IoT solutions. By focusing on one project at a time, we help clients reach their product goals.
Q: You’ve recently won the 2020 IoT breakthrough award for IoT development; could you tell us something more?
A: We were thrilled to win IoT Partner Enablement Company of the year and join a list of other innovative companies recognized by the IoT Breakthrough Awards this year, including Dell Technologies, Samsung, and RF Controls in the Partner and Ecosystem category.
According to James Johnson, managing director at IoT Breakthrough, Very won the award for our unique ability to jump in and get a product launched in a matter of weeks — which is a rarity in the market, but a common practice for us. We strive to help our partners solve common IoT development hurdles with a “security-first” IoT design and development process, executed by a team of highly skilled IoT-focused engineers.
Q: What types of services do you provide to your clients?
A: Very is equipped to take IoT projects from mere idea all the way to a commercially viable product, with services including:
- Full-stack web development
- Mobile app development
- Hardware prototyping
- Digital twin technology
- Firmware development
- Cloud architecture
Q: What are you most excited about in the industry at the moment and what future trends are you expecting to see?
A: We’re most excited about seeing the ways that IoT is going to continue to transform people’s lives in positive ways. One of our favorite projects we’ve worked on, for example, was an IoT-powered accountability app that helps people make better choices about alcohol consumption and battle substance abuse. IoT is also going to save companies time and money, like by enabling predictive and preventative maintenance in manufacturing settings. IoT and machine learning give us the power to learn more about ourselves and the world around us, to make smart decisions with that information, and to maximize the resources we have available in our homes and businesses.
With great power comes great responsibility. IoT products are powerful because of the data they collect, and data today is increasingly valued by consumers, businesses, and regulators. The past couple of years have seen some huge developments when it comes to data privacy and security, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implemented in 2018 and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) going into effect as of January 1, 2020. Google. British Airways, and Marriott are a few of the major companies who’ve faced fines for non-compliance, and these definitely won’t be the last of these kinds of regulations.
As the dust settles, we’re going to see a new world in data privacy rights. Companies developing IoT solutions will need to engage with security and privacy-focused development firms to navigate these regulations and protect precious data from nefarious forces.
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Q: What are some of the main objectives for Very going into 2020 and how do you plan to achieve them?
A: With the recent hire of Justin Schneck, co-founder of the Nerves Project, we’re looking forward to pushing the Elixir-based Nerves Project forward and using it to solve real-world problems for our clients. Nerves provides a platform, framework, and tools for developers to craft and deploy bulletproof embedded software in Elixir, which helps our team to launch high-quality IoT products and manage them after release.
Additionally, we’re excited to continue working in the manufacturing industry to help companies retrofit equipment out in the field and within the factory, aggregate their data through an ETL pipeline, analyze it and store it in a cloud environment, and then do the analysis for predictive + preventative maintenance. This is something we’ve seen as a pressing need in the industry, and we’re eager to help fill it.
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