Kochi: The recently-held Kochi Design Week (KDW) turned out to be the country’s first event to use IoT-enabled smart technology that improves visitor experience by carrying out real-time event analysis for managing proceedings, organizers said today.
The Kerala government achieved this feat at last month’s KDW by partnering with Japanese startup Pinmicro — a location-based solution provider founded by a Malayali. The Tokyo-based firm, headed by Tiby Kuruvila, provides solid platforms for O2O, retail business, contactless payment and inventory management.
Of these, Pinmicro’s EventPlus platform was used at the 2019 December 12-14 KDW that attracted around 5,500 visitors. “The number was not only a significant increase compared to KDW 2018; this time we could also enhance the visitor experience by using the platform for the first time in India,” said Arun Balachandran, Chief Minister’s Fellow (IT), Government of Kerala.
EventPlus smoothened the proceedings comprising sessions for KDW delegates to learn and interact through workshops, panel discussions, keynote speeches and exhibitions at the venue in Bolgatty that sought to explore ways towards building sustainable infrastructure for Kerala.
As a platform for paperless ticketing, user registration, visitor management and real-time traffic analysis, EventPlus enabled KDW organisers to manage all aspects of digital engagement with visitors during the three-days, pointed out Mr Balachandran. The KDW mobile application (a part of the EventPlus mobile channel) provided custom schedule planners, event navigation, food voucher management, user alerts/notifications along with real-time booth rankings and activity heatmaps.
Ravindranath Ange Veetil, CEO of Pinmicro, India, said EventPlus employs Bluetooth low-energy IoT hardware placed at the strategic locations at any event’s venue, capturing real-time location information. “It is then processed on the eventplus cloud to generate real-time insights and operational event dashboards,” he added about the platform that has been used at more than 350 events globally.
The use of EventPlus, real-time event analysis, tool by four-year-old Pinmicro smoothened the proceedings that stitched together sessions for individuals to learn and interact through workshops, panel discussions, keynote speeches, exhibitions and interactions with the industry experts at KDW held in Bolgatty to explore ways towards building sustainable infrastructure for Kerala. Founded in August 2015, Pinmicro has its India office based out of Kochi.
KDW plans to host an even larger design event this year, according to Mr Balachandran. “We have set ambitions to become the world’s largest design event in the coming years,” he revealed. “Adoption of smart technologies such as EventPlus will help us achieve that milestone.” According to Pinmicro, technology will continue to digitally disrupt the management of events and the ways of engaging visitors.
The KDW’s second edition charted a long-term development mission for Kerala through futuristic technology and architecture that goes beyond mere replacement of lost infrastructure or creation of new facilities. Organised chiefly by the state government’s Department of Information Technology in association with Asset Foundation, it provided creative minds a platform to brainstorm on the newest facets of design and architecture.
