Collaboration fuels future IoT start-ups

Article By : IBM

IBM, Indiegogo and Arrow Electronics have teamed up to give entrepreneurs free access to IBM's Watson IoT platform and discounts on cloud services.

IBM has partnered with Indiegogo and Arrow Electronics to help bring IoT ideas to life. This collaboration brings IBM’s Watson IoT platform and cloud services together with ideation to production services from Arrow Electronics and Indiegogo–a crowdsourced funding platform with more than $1.1 billion raised.

IoT start-up gurus

The Watson IoT Platform helps entrepreneurs evolve prototypes into products through an integrated suite of IoT capabilities.

Schematic collaboration

Qualified Indiegogo entrepreneurs will have no-charge access to IBM Watson IoT Platform via Bluemix for an unlimited amount of time, giving them access to more than 160 cloud services to incorporate ready-to-use capabilities, such as AI, blockchain, advanced data analytics and cyber security into their latest IoT inventions. In addition, qualified start-ups will have access to IBM’s global network of technical and industry expertise, education, mentoring and enterprise customers and business partners.

Experts predict that by 2022, the IoT landscape will be worth $14.2 trillion. A critical driver to this growth will be the entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses which, while armed with ideas, lack the resources and skills to develop these next-generation IoT innovations and bring them to market.

Through this partnership, IBM, Indiegogo and Arrow aim to remove key barriers and providing the expertise, resources and funding that entrepreneurs need to develop connected products and quickly and cost-effectively bring them to market. Combining IBM’s cognitive capabilities with Indiegogo’s entrepreneur platform and Arrow’s end-to-end technology design and production expertise will increase the volume and quality of IoT devices in market and help fuel a new generation of entrepreneurs, according to the companies.

“Entrepreneurs and start-ups play a vital role in creating the next generation of businesses-their drive, innovation and passion for bringing new ideas to life is particularly important in building the IoT,” said Harriet Green, general manager of Watson IoT.

For IoT’s benefit

In addition to IBM’s benefits, Arrow provides qualified Indiegogo campaigns with up to $500,000 in benefits, such as component parts, online product design and prototyping tools, comprehensive technical reviews with Arrow engineers, manufacturing and supply chain services and sustainable recycling.