Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Ayyeka CEO Ariel Stern (Part 1)

IoT companies have often been system integrators. Ariel discusses an end-to-end solution strategy that includes both hardware and software.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself and Ayyeka.

Ariel Stern: I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Ayyeka, an IoT company. We enhance critical infrastructure. We have a huge network of assets. It can be in the energy space, water space, or transportation. We enable our partners and customers to create operational data from those remote assets and utilize it for day-to-day operations. To summarize, this is called Infrastructure 4.0. 

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down one level. Help me get into the ecosystem map. If you could lay out that framework for me, then I can understand the positioning of Ayyeka in that ecosystem.

Ariel Stern: Before going into the positioning, first imagine how a critical infrastructure is operated. You have a huge networks of pipes. This is huge infrastructure threaded on a continent level and managed by entities such as utilities and governments.

In the operation of such entities, they can greatly enhance the way they operate using data. Data is all over the place. In the infrastructure space, data from remote asset is still scarce because of both technology reasons and methodologies.

Ayyeka bridges the gap between the physical asset and data-driven decision making. We have the hardware that creates the data and we have the software platform that works hand in hand with the devices to consolidate and utilize the data. The hardware and software are tied together for a full solution which is under the digitization theme. 

Sramana Mitra: Your customers are governments at whatever level and utilities. Is that correct?

Ariel Stern: The ecosystem is very diverse. The customer can also be industrial automation providers. End users are mostly the government entities. We do direct approach to the government. In some cases, we also do B2B2G. We also work with other players in the market and provide the technology for them. In most cases, the end user is the government.

Sramana Mitra: Explain the ecosystem and the players.

Ariel Stern: The end user is the government. Let’s call it the utility company. The utility is the organization inside the city or the state that is running the infrastructure. Around this utility, there are many types of service providers. It can be all the way from contractors doing physical work. We are part of a different group that is data service providers. These are the type of companies that provide digital tools to help utilities run their business. We are bridging the IT and the operational technology (OT).

The ecosystem has industrial automation players like Siemens and ABD. Then you have the integrators that integrate different solutions into bigger architecture. You have pure software players that only provide software tools on top of existing data.

Then you have companies like Ayyeka that take the task to create the data and also manage and utilize the data for the customer. You have the digital solution providers in our area. We are the type of company that gives the customer the needed equipment end-to-end. We also provide the software architecture. 

This segment is part 1 in the series : Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Ayyeka CEO Ariel Stern
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