Collaborating with 36 Partners, XL Axiata Builds X-Camp IoT Lab

Now local Internet of Things (IoT) developers can rejoice. The laboratory facility that has become a dream for every actor in this ecosystem is officially present in Indonesia. With this laboratory, Indonesia is expected to be more agile in maximizing the potential of domestic IoT.

The IoT lab called X-Camp is the result of a 'gang' collaboration initiated by cellular operator XL Axiata with 36 other parties. Each party has its own role, starting from the provision of machines, properties, to developing curriculum to create resources.

The launch of X-Camp was also inaugurated by the Minister of Communication and Information (Menkominfo) Rudiantara and Minister of Industry (Menperin) Airlangga Hartanto at the XL Axiata Office in Jakarta. X-Camp will be operationally effective in mid-November.

"X-Camp was built to expand its implementation. This lab is also a place to bring together stakeholder in the IoT ecosystem. This is the business of the future, if we are not prepared from now on, we will not be ready," said XL Axiata's President Director and CEO, Dian Siswarini at the launch of the X-Camp IoT Lab in Jakarta yesterday.

He hopes that X-Camp can become a forum for presenting digital solutions according to industry needs. He even mentioned that X-Camp is the most complete IoT lab ever presented by a cellular operator, and the only IoT lab that is part of the GSMA Lab Alliance in Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Industry, Airlangga, revealed that his party was preparing policies to accelerate IoT adoption. Because IoT is part of the Industrial 4.0 revolution.

“Out of ten , one of which is infrastructure. Of course, the role of XL (mobile operator) is very important. It should be noted that globalization is part of trade war. With the Industrial revolution 4.0, we are trying not to be left behind," he explained.

On the same occasion, the Minister of Communication and Informatics Rudiantara also briefly mentioned the lack of domestic human resources (HR) who have the ability in this field. This is one of the big challenges in driving the adoption of IoT in the country.

Therefore, XL also cooperates with a number of leading universities to build local resources from higher education. They include Gadjah Mada University, Brawijaya University, Semarang State Polytechnic, and Surabaya State Electronics Polytechnic. The rest followed to join the X-Camp Lab Alliance program.

NB-IoT development to innovative collaboration

X-Camp provides a variety of facilities for developers or maker IoT. Please note, X-Camp is a lab for the development of Narrowband (NB-IoT) technology. Meanwhile, NB-IoT is being predicted to be the next IoT technology because it can run on 2G, 3G, and 4G cellular networks.

Of course, the development of NB-IoT is in line with the wishes of cellular operators such as XL, considering that operators are currently developing a fifth generation (5G) cellular network to maximize higher NB-IoT adoption.

This is also agreed by the Founder and CEO of DycodeX, Andri Yadi who was met DailySocial at this launch event. DycodeX is one of XL's collaboration partners in building X-Camp, and the first startup to introduce another IoT technology, namely LoRa.

Andri revealed that the development of NB-IoT this time was carried out by collaborating with the startup Kayah, a startup providing wooden bicycles from Depok, in designing products bike sharing.

Furthermore, X-Camp provides a number of facilities where para maker or developers can carry out various activities, ranging from idea development, prototype IoT products to small-scale production. Here, they can also do testing user experience.

“There are many goals for the X-Camp development, namely market education, business incubation, joint development, and lab development. From here, we meet startups with industry, we can explore IoT ideas, to create collaborations.” said Director of Technology XL Axiata, Yessie D Yosetya.