We recently had the opportunity to sit down with WBA member Veniam and ask them a few questions. João Barros, CEO & Founder, was kind enough to take the time to discuss what 2017 and beyond has in store for Veniam.

João Barros, CEO & Founder of Veniam

To start off, can you tell us a little bit about Veniam?

Veniam moves terabytes of data between vehicles and the Cloud, and this is accomplished by what we call “The Internet of Moving Things.” Essentially, we connect vehicles to each other and to the internet, making them a part of the wireless infrastructure. We view vehicles as more than just machines that carry people and goods – in fact, they are active nodes in the internet and a critical element in the Smart City ecosystem.

What has Veniam been up to thus far in 2017?

After building the largest mesh network of connected vehicles in the world in Porto, Portugal, we deployed similar networks in Singapore and New York, and we have a healthy pipeline of cities in the future where we expect to deploy networks as well. In Singapore, for example, we started on-campus at the National University of Singapore, where all the shuttle buses offer free Wi-Fi to students, professors, and visitors. In addition, they’re collecting data that can be used for Smart City applications that will improve the lives of residents.

In 2017, we’ve gone one step further and started devoting time to autonomous vehicles. For future mobility services to be able to operate, large amounts of data will need to be transported between vehicles and the Cloud, enabling these vehicles to reliably communicate with each other. We now have the largest set of connected vehicle data in the world – roughly 30,000,000 miles of data that allows us to develop reliable services. We are now in the process of combining our data APIs with existing projects in the connected vehicle space, and also introducing our networking technology into the reference platforms for autonomous vehicles.

What does the rest of 2017 have in store for Veniam?

Currently, we’re expanding our presence in the U.S. and in Asia, and there are a couple of new projects that we’re undertaking in Europe as well. We’re working very closely with a number of partners, including Verizon, Cisco, Liberty Global, Orange, and Yamaha Motors. We’re also continuing to collaborate with other telecom operators such as StarHub in Asia and Vodafone in Europe.

We enjoy working with telecom operators for three main reasons:

  1. They have access to fiber and cellular networks, so they have the necessary backhaul;
  2. We enable them to accomplish a lot more with their infrastructure and provide new services that they can upsell to their existing customer bases;
  3. These telecom operators have very large service fleets, and this can also play a role in creating mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, mobile advertising, and mobile sensors that can create more data for Smart City applications.

What does being a member of the WBA mean to Veniam?

The WBA has been a great forum for us to present our disruptive ideas, and we’ve had very interesting interactions with a number of cable and telecom operators at the events and from talks that we’ve given. As a start-up, it’s been very helpful to be a part of this network and see some of our ideas get adopted throughout the industry. We’ve also seen benefits in terms of recruiting. Overall, being a member has been a very positive experience for us.

For more information on Veniam, please visit the company’s website.