Transcript 0:00 Talk to me. Information, news and entertainment on demand. WUS radio.com. 0:10 [on-hold music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, the voice of IoT in our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. 0:23 My last guest today helped build StartX, one of the top startup accelerators in the world. Prior to launching his own company. 0:31 He holds a PhD in semiconductor electronics from Stanford and is passionate about the IoT and its promise to build a more connected and sustainable Earth. 0:42 Please welp-welcome Andrew Sawyeraman, CEO and co-founder of Arch Systems. Andrew, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Peggy. It's a pleasure to be here. 0:55 Well, Andrew, congratulations on being named a pioneer. You have certainly earned it. And what an impressive career you have so far. It's, it's, it's been pretty good so far. I'm hoping there's, uh, much more to come. 1:07 Well, I would think so. It just being under thirty there, I think you've done a lot. But tell us a little bit about how you... 1:14 Yeah, what I like is you're doing a lot in the IoT and the StartX that you've done, the Stanford Accelerator, and you've done a lot of things there. But let's really talk about yourself and, and what you're doing. 1:26 I'd love our listeners to know. I know we have an article that-- on the website right now that talks about your pioneer and how we named you, but really talk about what inspired you to get into the IoT segment itself. 1:38 Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I've been passionate about sustainability and, um, bringing technology into the physical world for a long time. 1:47 Uh, when I came to Stanford, I got infected by the software bug and the Internet, like a lot of people. Um, that was two thousand and eleven, I first came here. You know, before that I, I was a little skeptical. 1:58 I thought, there's all these apps everywhere, appification of everything. 2:02 But I, I, I started understanding why software was so powerful and, you know, eating the world as, as so many have said, you know, Mark Andreessen, of course, most famously. 2:11 And, uh, you know, IoT has emerged as kind of the intersection of those two things. But I didn't get into it on purpose. I, I was... 2:17 As you mentioned, I was part of the early team that built, um, an accelerator out of Stanford called StartX, and I s- I specifically founded a program within that to help companies doing hardware, data, sensors, anything related to this. 2:30 And that kind of was bubbling into this so-called IoT. 2:33 There were entrepreneurs trying to figure out, how can I tell you interesting things about the physical world, not just inside the, you know, the shiny rectangle that you hold in your hand all day long? 2:42 [chuckles] Not to say that the mobile phone is, of course, an IoT device as well, and I think the coolest mobile phone applications are the ones that, you know, really make you interact with the world. 2:51 You think even about, like, Pokemon Go, how just, like, that exploded because it had this interaction with the world. It fascinates us. 2:58 So that was my key into this, was helping entrepreneurs, whether they were building an energy application or something to help you sleep better. 3:05 But there was this interesting tie in between the Internet, the digital, and the physical that fascinated me. And over three, four years, I got this unique view into what was working and what wasn't working and why. 3:17 And twenty fifteen, when we started Arch, that kind of understanding and passion about just entrepreneurship and the combination of digital and physical, combined with my semiconductor electronics work and my co-founder, Tim, who'd been working in the developing world, specifically Africa, on IoT for water. 3:34 And he had some incredible technology that he'd been working on, the modular stuff of Arch, we might talk a little bit more about later. 3:40 And we saw this huge opportunity to then, you know, what then became, was, you know, broadly known as, as Internet of Things, to, uh, to build these systems that, you know, measure and understand the physical world and allow you to bring just incredible efficiency as a result. 3:56 What I love about the company you started is the idea of helping people's drinking water with sensors. 4:02 And I want you to talk about that because the company you started, I think to, to really do something and have a bigger need for a global desire, you know, I think is impressive. 4:14 Talk about Arch Systems a little bit because, you know, and I love your, your co-founder. I-if I'm right, you know, in Africa and then the World Bank grant that you have. I think there's so much to that story. 4:26 That's what was so impressive to me. It's not just you bringing a product, but it's what you wanna do with that product that I think is so special. Let's talk about that. Yeah. Thank you very much. 4:37 Yeah, the, the, the mission of Arch is to build connected and sustainable world, and we're doing that by a MuleSoft for machines, if you will, for those that know enterprise technology. 4:47 We've built this completely modular way to extract data from any machine or sensor and turn it into insights. 4:53 And, and the vision that we've had for a while, for those that know the industrial world, you have these SCADA systems, these supervisory control and data acquisition systems that are used in factories and on power plants. 5:05 And the big idea is that you can have a cloud SCADA. 5:08 You can, with very low cost sensors and controls and algorithms that are done, could be on the edge or in the cloud, but, you know, mediated by wireless technology and the Internet, you can a hundred times cheaper build an industry. 5:22 And that's a truly, like, profound thought. [chuckles] And we got started doing exactly that with drinking water in Africa, as you said. 5:29 Uh, my co-founder, Tim, uh, he and I were at Stanford together doing our PhDs, and we, we had a, um, a house. He was cracking away in the basement all the time while I was working on StartX. 5:39 Um, he's, he's just got a huge heart, um, as we all do on our team. 5:42 But he's, he's, you know, kind of the, the moral leader of our team, I would say, in, in ensuring that we use this technology for all the best things we can. 5:50 The, the, the challenge there was in Sub-Saharan Africa, you have all these water wells. And, you know, it's not so different from the water wells here in the developed world or anywhere else. 5:59 In fact, my grandparentsWho are farmers, um, in the Midwest, they were on their own ground well for, uh, until five years ago [laughs]. So it's not so different. 6:09 And you had these folks in, in Sub-Saharan Africa whose wells eighty percent of the time were down. You talk about downtime, you know, we're trying to reduce downtime in industry. 6:18 How about eighty percent of the time not having an access to, uh, clean drinking water? 6:23 So the idea was that we could put these cellular sensors on these wells, and in, in real-time, remotely, you could see whether the wells were working or not, and, you know, eventually start measuring more sensor values to say if they were healthy, if they were contaminated in different ways. 6:38 And what you're really doing is you're starting to build that cloud SCADA or like a utility system. 6:43 So we partnered with a local organization, and we were starting to provide them the tools to become a utility dramatically cheaper than it's ever been done before. And looking at that right now, are, are, are... 6:57 Is this unique? Is it a breakthrough, I mean, with your technology that people are looking at that? I mean, because it's really powerful what you're actually doing to help other parts of the world. Yeah. 7:10 So IoT is, of course, a giant trend, as, as, as you know so well and, and, you know, and help all of us kind of understand better. Um, you know, the cloud SCADA idea, I think is one that's shared by many. 7:21 What we've done that is truly unique is we have completely modularized low-power devices. Um, you think about your, like a Dell computer. 7:30 When you go buy a Dell computer, you say, "Give me this much memory, give me this graphics card because I'm a gamer or I'm not," or, "Give..." 7:37 You know, you get to pick all these choices, and you get this computer shipped to you for a couple hundred bucks. 7:42 It's actually incredible when you think about it, the design challenge that they did to modularize that so everybody's needs could be met. 7:50 We have done something similar on the sensor side that allows us to completely interplay Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, whether it's a quality sensor or presence sensor, um, vibration, talking to different machines. 8:02 We can truly plug and play all these things, and what that's allowed us to do is put the development work into one piece at a time, get it right, and never do it again. And we're building this open source library. 8:13 Our project is called ioTile, and over time, it's making it cheaper and cheaper and faster and faster to build those different sensors, which are, you know, one of the core building blocks of an IoT system. 8:24 So that's what we've really brought to the table and are really excited to collaborate with other companies around to build, I think, the broader vision that a lot of us share. 8:32 That open source is something we lack so much here in, in the IoT world to be able to do things. Well, I'll tell you, this is so exciting, Andrew. 8:40 We're out of time, but quickly, where can our listeners go to learn more about what you guys are doing? What's your URL? They can go to... 8:47 Our website is Archsys, A-R-C-H-S-Y-S, dot io, or you can find us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Uh, reach out. Would love to connect, and thanks so much for having me, Peggy. 8:57 Thank you, and have happy holidays, and congratulations for being a pioneer again. We wish you guys continued success. And as you guys continue to grow, please come back and talk to us more about what you guys are doing. 9:08 We will. Thank you. Happy holidays. All right. Thank you. All right. 9:11 Well, listeners, we are out of time, but you could certainly go up to the website and read the ar-article on Andrew and everything that Arch Systems is doing because there's so much in all the pioneers that we had this year. 9:22 And you could certainly check out our new website and all the new designs that we're gonna have with the coming of the new year. 9:27 Remember, we are broadcast live every Tuesday, twelve PM Central, and you could check us out at CES at the beginning of the year. We will be there broadcasting every day from CES. 9:36 You can certainly tweet at me at peggy_smedley or connectedwmag. Remember, this is The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and relevant technology. Remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. 9:51 Have a wonderful new year. [upbeat music] With great technology comes great responsibility. 10:05 Follow Internet of Things tech expert and futurist Peggy Smedley, repeatedly ranked as a top IoT and M2M influencer. 10:12 Go to peggy_smedley on Twitter for her take on the latest tech news and lively interviews with other industry insiders on her weekly radio show. Visit twitter.com and search for peggy_smedley to follow her today. 10:27 [upbeat music] Video consumption is on the rise, so to reach this audience, Constructek Magazine created Constructek TV. 10:39 Constructek TV helps construction professionals leverage emerging solutions to better their business. Tune in to constructek.tv to catch the latest show on the first and third Tuesday of each month. 10:50 Like, view, and subscribe to constructek.tv, bringing dynamic video to construction. [upbeat music] Signal to noise, an electronic term with new relevance on the internet. 11:05 Connected World Media cuts through the noise of data overload and finds you the signal of important information, information that will keep you current and aware of context in the Internet of Things. 11:16 Peggy Smedley shares her insights on The Peggy Smedley Show and in Connected World magazine, all online at connectedworld.com. Stay current and competitive at connectedworld.com [upbeat music] 11:30 Are you a small business or nonprofit? Securing Our eCity Foundation offers free cybersecurity seminars so businesses of every size can become more cyber safe. 11:39 According to Forbes, just one cybercrime incident can cost a company over fifteen million dollars. 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