KARACHI: Another budding startup – ‘Internet of Things and Automation’ (IoTA) – incubated by the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) has kicked off in Pakistan by offering cost-effective and plug-and-play vehicle trackers. These trackers provide internal information of vehicles and tracks the behaviour of drivers, making it feasible for organisations with a large fleet.
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Startup founders Rabia Javed and Mohammad Musa Mazhar initiated the startup in July 2017 and unlike conventional trackers, its product is installed with lots of circuitry and requires technical knowledge.
IoTA’s trackers provide live tracking, including odometer preview, average fuel consumption, mileage and maintenance information, driving behaviour alerts, battery information, coolant temperature, engine diagnostic, fuel/mileage data analysis, internal car alarms, trip records and simulated video of trips etc.
“Market was full of various trackers; we wanted to introduce a tracker which would be equipped with preventive and detective checks, available at low cost,” said CEO Mazhar, who was previously associated with Telenor as a network energy manager, when he decided to enter the uncharted waters of technology in Pakistan.
The startup claims to offer its first product in almost half the price than the ones available at the commercial level while the annual subscription is said to be available at a price about seven times lower than the currently present trackers in the market.
The company at its nascent level has witnessed 20% growth on a month-on-month basis since January 2018, said the co-founder.
The multipurpose tracker is compatible with 2007 or latest model vehicles, which have the electronic fuel Injection (EFI) system and allows the device to connect with all types of sensors to gather information about the vehicle.
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IoTA Pakistan plans to collaborate with automotive companies to produce autonomous vehicles by putting these as built-in features in every vehicle.
Presently, 80% of the company’s customer base comprises general consumers, which were attracted via social media marketing campaigns. However, as part of their future plans, they aim to reach out to bigger fleet companies, car rentals, distributors, logistics, transport and car original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)-based companies.“Currently, our business-to-business (B2B) subscribers range from 10-15 clients, which are growing continuously,” said the 30-year-old Mazhar.
The founders said their system is based on artificial intelligence (AI), which will help evolve their product and it will also help them make new data-related applications.
In the second phase, IoTA Pakistan has plans to modify the tracker through artificial intelligence, for example if there is a pothole ahead, the vehicle will automatically apply brakes.
Or if there is congestion on the route of the car, then through the help of Google maps, it will alarm the driver so that he could take another route and avoid traffic jams.
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The tracker can help improve the traffic system of Pakistan through the data it will generate while observing drivers’ behaviour. In case, a vehicle meets an accident the system will be able to send alarm to a nearby police station, hospital and rescue workers.
Such systems in vehicles are already present in the market but they are complicated and expensive, Mazhar said. “We are offering indigenous software solutions, which offer much cheaper solutions for autonomous vehicles.”
Published in The Express Tribune, October 17th, 2018.
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