BARCELONA, Spain – March 08, 2017 — The LoRa Alliance™, the global association of over 400 companies backing the LoRaWAN™ standard for Low Power Wide Area IoT (Internet of Things) Networks, today announced the winner of its second global IoT challenge focused on creating a safer and smarter sustainable world featuring four solution submission categories: food, water, health and safety.

IoT Challenge Winner

OMEDS: Bill Powers of PIX CONTROLLER

The OMEDS solution (Optical Methane Emissions Detection System) detects methane gas build up before serious health and safety issues occurs. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency highlights methane as responsible for 25 percent of global warming, trapping 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide. According to the U.S. National Institute for Health, methane in its gas form is an asphyxiant and exposure even at relatively low levels can cause health problems. Current detection methods are manual and costly to implement with an average annual cost of $24-36,000 USD per detection site. A lack of accurate data has also been an issue. Now the OMEDS revolutionary solution has the real potential to provide significant ROI and achieve considerable climate benefits.

“The technological properties of LoRaWAN are uniquely well-suited to environmental monitoring applications like OMEDS,” said Powers. “The combination of range, reliability and battery life with affordable pricing models open the door to prevent environmental disasters in ways that were previously untenable.”

Finalists

Io3’s (pronounced Io-“Trees”): Tal Yechye & Zvika Grinberg of AGRINT SENSING SOLUTIONS LTD.

IoTree leverages LoRaWAN to provide a cutting edge solution for early detection of pests attacking palm trees. According to Mother Nature Network, more than 2,500 species of palm trees around the world provide critical staples including palm oil and coconut as well as dates, betel nuts and acai fruit. Two percent of palm trees are infected every year by the Red Palm Weevil, a flying insect which lays its eggs inside the trees. The IoTree sensor detects larvae at an early stage and provides the owner with a tangible ROI in terms of reducing costs and use of pesticides and losses associated with dead trees.

MediFridge: Gowri Sankar Ramachandran & Trisha Phippard, Piers Lawrence of KU LEUVEN

Cold chain is of critical importance to the medical community for the transport of temperature sensitive medications, blood and other biomedical supplies. Up until now this has not been readily available within the health sector of developing countries. Using a LoRaWAN network, MediFridge's solution ensures temperatures are maintained during the transit of medicine to preserve and ensure that the medicine is safe to administer to those in need. This ready-to-market product will transform the care of people in remote communities.

“We are delighted to have LoRaWAN open the door to these and other world-changing solutions,” said Geoff Mulligan, chairman of the LoRa Alliance. “LoRaWAN is ideal for regions that have little or no infrastructure in the developing world and we look forward to extending connectivity to address important social and environmental issues as innovators like these continue to apply their problemsolving skills to developing new applications.”

The second annual LoRa Alliance IoT Challenge was sponsored by The Kenya Red Cross and focused on improving the lives of those living in marginalized communities. All three finalists presented products that are ready to deploy in the field.

The winning entry will now travel to Kenya for testing in collaboration with The Red Cross.

"These winning applications demonstrate the role technology can play in improving the lives of the most marginalized communities in the developing world," said Safia Verjee, program manager in Disaster Risk Management at The Kenya Red Cross. "We are very excited to begin the process of validation with the OMEDS solution with the hopes of deploying a new environmental solution that can help protect the environment and the quality of life of people everywhere."