Pitching for the Win

In mid-August, we sponsored the Fast Pitch Event at the M2M Evolution Conference in Las Vegas. The event is similar to a mini hack-a-thon for companies, developers and entrepreneurs to promote their innovative ideas. Participants have three minutes to pitch a business idea that leverages M2M technology with our developer toolkit and network to solve a business need. There’s also the chance to win more than $10,000 in cash and prizes.

Above all else, it creates a forum for introducing unique concepts and invites developers to use our tools to enable innovation and quickly convert ideas into working solutions. Each year, participants surprise the judges with fresh M2M ideas.

This year, the top M2M innovation award was presented to 13- year-old Kyle Smith from Dallas, Texas. His entry, Fire-Fly, is a forest fire tracking system that detects, predicts and helps mitigate forest fires. A remotely-piloted drone places Fire-Fly sensors in the forest to detect smoke, temperature, wind, humidity, and lightning. Using Wi-Fi and cellular transmission, the sensors communicate to a hub device in the field that then relays information to a central hosted fire management system.

Kyle designed his concept with the intention of using AT&T’s M2X platform as a developer sandbox for further building/testing his Fire-Fly solution. As the new school year starts, Kyle will have quite the story to share with his classmates. Learn more about AT&T’s M2M solutions.