Question 1:

What is the first step when starting up a company, identifying a problem or technology? (5 points)Day1

Identifying a Problem

The first step when starting up a company is

1.to identify a problem or a need that you can solve with your product or service. This is
important because it will help you to focus your efforts and create a business that
people are actually interested in.

There are a few different ways to identify a problem or need.

• One way is to talk to potential customers and see what problems they are facing.

• Another way is to look for trends in the market and see if there is a need for a
new product or service.

• You can also conduct market research to get a better understanding of the
landscape.

Question 2:

Explain the benefits of the IoT ecosystem. (15 points)DAY2PARTII

Allows easy access to specialist know-how and expertise at
reasonable costs – an essential factor in the success of IoT projects
• Accelerates the time to market (time from design to deployment is too short)
• Improves return on investment (ROI) for each stakeholder
• Enhances the customer experience
• Assures customers that their investment will have continued support
and innovation across the entire value chain

Question 3:

Business case development and Pilot & full scale rollout are the first and the last steps in an IoT journey
(development and deployment of an IoT solution in a company). What are the other steps? Describe in a
few words each phase. (15 points)

Question 4:

You have to build a smart agriculture IoT solution with the following features:

- Monitor CO2, air temperature and humidity, light intensity as well as audio and video kin each
of the 6 buildings on a poultry(ubworozi bw’inkoko) farm.
- Analyze sensor data using ML/AI to provide information about behavior of the chicken.
- Provide a dashboard for the users (accessible via web and mobile).
a) Draw the system architecture and explain the role of the main technological
components/functional blocks you must include in addition to sensors. (20 points)
To build the smart agriculture IoT solution for the poultry farm with the mentioned features,
we can design the system architecture as follows:
1. Sensors: The primary sensors installed in each of the 6 buildings include CO2 sensors,
temperature and humidity sensors, light intensity sensors, as well as audio and video
sensors. These sensors continuously collect data on environmental conditions and
chicken behavior.
2. Microcontrollers: Each building will be equipped with microcontrollers (e.g., Arduino,
Raspberry Pi) responsible for interfacing with the sensors, collecting data, and
transmitting it to the central system.
3. Wireless Communication: The microcontrollers will use wireless communication
protocols (e.g., Wi-Fi, LoRa, Zigbee) to transmit the collected sensor data to the central
system, which can be located on the farm or in the cloud.
4. Central System / Cloud: The central system, located on the farm or in the cloud, will
receive and store the sensor data from all the buildings. It will also host the ML/AI
models for data analysis and insights generation.
5. Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence (ML/AI) Models: ML/AI algorithms will be
applied to analyze the sensor data and provide insights into chicken behavior. These
models will be trained to recognize patterns and anomalies in the data, enabling the
system to detect various behaviors like feeding patterns, movement, and signs of distress.
6. Data Storage: The central system will store the sensor data in a database for historical
analysis and to train/update the ML/AI models.
7. Dashboard: The system will have a web-based and mobile-accessible dashboard for
users (farmers) to monitor real-time and historical data. The dashboard will display
environmental conditions, chicken behavior insights, alerts for unusual events, and
relevant information for farm management.
8. User Interface (UI): The user interface on the dashboard will enable users to interact
with the system, view reports, adjust settings, and receive alerts.
9. Alerting System: The system will have an alerting mechanism that notifies the users in
real-time if any sensor readings exceed predefined thresholds or if any abnormal behavior
is detected among the chickens.
 10. Data Visualization: The dashboard will include data visualization components like
charts, graphs, and heatmaps to present the sensor data and behavioral insights in an easy-
to-understand manner.
11. Security: The system should implement appropriate security measures to protect data,
prevent unauthorized access and ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the
information collected and analyzed.
12. Power Management: As the solution involves multiple sensors and microcontrollers,
efficient power management techniques need to be employed to optimize energy
consumption and prolong the lifespan of battery-operated devices.

b) Which communication network is most suitable to connect the sensors? Explain why. (10 points)
When considering the communication network to connect the sensors in a smart
agriculture IoT solution for a poultry farm, several factors need to be taken into account,
such as range, power consumption, data rate, scalability, and cost..
LoRaWAN:- Consume less power -used in long range(distance)
• LoRaWAN transfers small bits of data a few times hourly or daily, over multiple
kilometers
• LoRaWAN offers long-range connectivity, making it well-suited for large-scale
deployments.
• LoRaWAN Low-power wireless protocols, enable long battery life for the sensors,
reducing maintenance efforts
• LoRaWAN: LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) is a low-power, wide-
area network technology that allows for long-range communication with low energy
consumption.
• It can be well-suited for connecting sensors spread across a large poultry farm.
• LoRaWAN can provide coverage over several kilometers, making it ideal for rural or
remote areas where cellular coverage may be limited. It operates in unlicensed
frequency bands, offering cost-effective connectivity. However, it may have lower
data transfer rates compared to Wi-Fi.
However, based on the given scenario, LoRaWAN appears to be the most suitable option. Here's
why:
1. Coverage: LoRaWAN is a long-range wireless communication technology that can
provide coverage over several kilometers, making it ideal for large poultry farms.
2. Power Consumption: LoRaWAN operates on low power consumption, which is
beneficial for battery-operated devices like sensors. This allows for prolonged battery life
and reduces the need for frequent battery replacements or recharging. In a poultry farm
setting, where sensors may be deployed in various locations, low power consumption is
advantageous.
3. Cost-effectiveness: LoRaWAN operates in unlicensed frequency bands, which means
there are no additional costs associated with acquiring licenses for communication. This
 makes it a cost-effective choice compared to cellular networks, where data plans and
associated expenses may be a consideration.
4. Reliability: LoRaWAN offers reliable communication even in rural or remote areas
where cellular coverage may be limited. Its long-range capabilities and ability to
penetrate obstacles make it suitable for environments with potential interference from
buildings or other obstacles commonly found in farms.
5. Scalability: LoRaWAN supports a large number of devices connected to the network,
allowing for scalability as the poultry farm expands or additional sensors are deployed. It
enables the farm to add more sensors or buildings to the network without significant
infrastructure modifications.
Question 5:

Assume that your company is providing solution like the one describe in the previous question. Explain
your cost structure and revenue streams (as in Lean canvas), together with a potential business model.
(20 points)

Cost Structure

• List all operational costs for taking business to market. How much will it cost to build
a solution? Cost of cloud? Cost of sensors? Burn rate — your total monthly running
costs? How much will it cost to interview your customer segment? How much do
market research papers cost?(include money for buying chicken food,health(veterinary),tax,
marketing,hardware cost to build all these solutions,transport

Revenue Streams

• Describe what your customers will be paying for.

• In initial phases, validation of concept is important – if given away for free, might not
bring valuable validation feedback (include eggs,chicken meats,organic manure)
Question 6:

A company provide fleet management solutions created a lean canvas. In one of the fields, they state
the following: “We enable our client to reduce the cost of maintenance by 30%”(solution). Which field
of the Lean canvas is used for this statement? Which information should the field “Customer segments”
contain?(target customer:fabrication industry,hosiptals, small and large cooparation (15 points)

The statement "We enable our client to reduce the cost of maintenance by 30%" falls under the "Unique
Value Proposition" field of the Lean canvas. The Unique Value Proposition represents the core benefit or
advantage that a company's product or service offers to its customers.

The field "Customer segments" in the Lean canvas should contain information about the specific groups
or types of customers that the company is targeting with its fleet management solutions. It should
include details about the characteristics, needs, and behaviors of these customer segments. For
example, the customer segments could include transportation companies, logistics providers, delivery
services, or any other businesses that operate a fleet of vehicles and require maintenance solutions. The
information in this field helps the company identify and understand its target customers and tailor its
value proposition and marketing strategies accordingly.

Question 1 (10 Marks)

a) In any organization, who, i.e. which part of organization business or technology, is driving
introduction of IoT solutions? (1 Marks) Chief Digital officer
b) Explain why some of the ecosystem roles are considered as horizontal. Give examples of
horizontal ecosystem roles. (1 Marks) because provide popular solutions ie same their product
are the same as to others(communication campany, platforms)
c) Give examples of at least three differences between corporate and startup life/career. (1 Marks)

Let's start with the definitions: a startup is a company in usually the first stages of its
development that wants to scale up quickly. Startups are often young, innovative,
collaborative, focused on growth, while corporations are often established,
slow-moving, hierarchical and focused on productivity.
d) Explain what i=unfair advantage is. (1 Marks)
a real unfair advantage is something that can’t be easily copied by your competitors
Lean canvas unfair advantage could be something like fantastic experts on your team (which
is not always the case for many companies) or cutting-edge technologies that you have
e) What is the first step when starting up a company, identifying a problem or technology? (1
Marks) identifying a problem
You are an investor and a team of 3 engineers is pitching their solution to you. What would you
recommend to them? (1 Marks) go and prepare your Pitch deck

f) You are an investor and a team is pitching their solution to you. The team has identified a
problem and among themselves agreed that it is a problem which everyone would love to use.
What would you recommend to them? (1 Marks) identify competitors and prepare your unique
value propositions and unfair advantages
g) A startup offers their solution for free to the end users and they still generate revenue. How? (1
Marks) they are doing marketing/increasing number of customers/have database for new
marketing image of users
h) You are arranging a meeting with a company to offer them your IoT solution. Whom should you
aim to meet, Chief Digital/Innovation officer or Head of IT? (1 Marks)
i) You are building an IoT solution. List the main technological components/ functional blocks you
have to include in addition to sensors, (1 Marks) IoT Platform,cloud gateway,user
interface,cloud(storage and processing),communication protocal

Part 2: 60 minutes (open book)

Question 1 (30 Mark)

A team of engineers, regular users of bus transport in Kigali, has

identified that the bus transport is safe, reliable and cheap.
They also identified that it could be significantly improved if
there was a way to know when the next bus would arrive to
their bus stop and if there were free places on that bus. They
decided to design a solution to address this problem and to
start a company to commercialize the solution.
Provide a high-level system design for such solution, identify
potentials components/devices to deployed on the buses,

Sensors (GPS, Camera, RFID, ), MCU, Power Supply,

Communication interface (WiFi), cloud gateway, Cloud, User
Interface (Mobile App)
Describe a potential business model (Business Canvas Model)
and what actions you would do to ensure the existence of the
identified problem (User needs gathering / Need assessment
through data collection / interviews, questionnaires, …) .
Estimate market size in East Africa.
A high-level system design for the solution to address the problem of knowing when the next bus
will arrive and the availability of free places on the bus could involve the following
components/devices:
1. Bus Tracking System: Install a GPS-based tracking system on each bus to continuously
monitor their real-time location and transmit it to a central server. This system should be
able to provide accurate bus arrival times.
2. Passenger Counting System: Implement a passenger counting system using sensors or
cameras installed inside the buses. This system will provide information about the
number of passengers currently on the bus and the availability of free seats.
3. Communication Network: Establish a reliable and efficient communication network to
facilitate data transfer between the buses and the central server. This could be achieved
using cellular networks, Wi-Fi, or a combination of both.
4. Bus Stop Displays: Install digital displays at bus stops that show estimated arrival times
for the next bus(es) and indicate the availability of free seats. These displays can provide
real-time information to passengers, allowing them to make informed decisions about
their travel.
5. Mobile Application: Develop a user-friendly mobile application that integrates with the
bus tracking system and provides passengers with real-time bus arrival updates, seat
availability information, and other relevant features. This application can also include
features such as trip planning, fare payment options, and notifications for delays or
changes in bus schedules.
6. Central Server and Database: Set up a centralized server to receive and process data
from the bus tracking system, passenger counting system, and other components. This
server will store the data, perform analysis, and distribute the information to bus stop
displays and the mobile application.
7. Analytics and Optimization: Utilize data analytics techniques to analyze historical and
real-time data, identify patterns, optimize bus routes and schedules, and improve the
overall efficiency of the bus transport system.