NEC launches FIWARE Lab node in India

New partnerships accelerate adoption of FIWARE-based solutions

Tokyo, Japan & Noida, India, 26 April, 2018 – NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and NEC Technologies India Private Limited (NECTI) today announced the launch of a FIWARE Lab node in India to encourage application developers, solution providers, government bodies and academia to experiment and innovate with FIWARE based solutions for smart cities. The new facility is expected to result in greater FIWARE development within Asia, as now all experiment and research data can be kept within the boundaries of the region.

In conjunction with the launch of the new facility, NECTI signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) today with partners that include Tech Mahindra, Hughes Systique and Mobilepedia in order to explore collaboration on joint development of FIWARE-based solutions.

The FIWARE Lab node, which is part of the FIWARE community, is a non-commercial sandbox environment where innovation and experimentation based on FIWARE technologies will take place. The lab node will be hosting Internet of Things (IoT) and smart city solutions for India and Asian countries. The new facility is the first FIWARE Lab node in India endorsed by FIWARE Foundation e.V, and the first FIWARE Lab node in the world based on the latest Openstack release named Pike.

The NEC Group aims to achieve revenues of more than 150M USD from India and other parts of South East Asia by fiscal year 2020 through FIWARE-based solutions aided by the FIWARE Lab node. Since last year, NECTI has built a capacity of 100 engineers in FIWARE and related IoT and smart city solutions and plans to enhance this to 250 engineers in the next year.

During the inauguration event held today, more than 40 partner companies and organizations were represented, including Tech Mahindra, Hughes Systique and Mobilepedia, expressing their strong interest in working with NEC on the development of solutions using FIWARE. Ms. Sunita Sanghi, Senior Advisor, Niti Aayog, also graced the occasion as a guest speaker and congratulated NEC Technologies for the FIWARE lab node.

NEC welcomes organizations, entrepreneurs and individuals to utilize this lab for learning FIWARE, as well as to test their applications while capitalizing on Open Data published by cities and other organizations.

The FIWARE Lab node in India managed by NEC enables companies developing smart city solutions for India to keep their experiment data within India. FIWARE brings in royalty free standards for interfaces and data models that help to integrate applications easily, which can be an edge over others for the smart city opportunities in India,” said Mr. Ulrich Ahle, CEO of FIWARE Foundation through a video message during the launch event.

Backed by Indian Government’s strong initiatives for smart city and digital India projects, we have seen huge demand in India to develop IoT-based applications for multiple sectors, for which FIWARE technologies can serve as an open and common platform. In this sense, India is a natural choice for us to establish the FIWARE Lab node,” said Naoki Hashitani, Senior Vice President, System Integration, Services & Engineering Operations Unit, NEC Corporation. “We will fully utilize this facility in order to contribute to the FIWARE community’s efforts and to develop and test our innovative solutions based on FIWARE technologies to address growing smart city opportunities.

I congratulate NEC Technologies India on the launch of the FIWARE lab node. Technologies which are open help encourage collaboration among companies and provide an environment for innovation. I wish NEC and its partners all the best in this initiative”, said Sanjeev Malhotra, CEO, Center of Excellence-IOT, NASSCOM.

At Tech Mahindra, we strongly believe in Open source platforms and solutions. We are excited to collaborate with NEC Technologies India in promoting the concept for the benefit of Citizens through various IoT solutions”, Statement by Tech Mahindra.

The FIWARE Lab node launch by NEC couldn’t have come at a better time. India is aiming to become a hub of innovation and this lab node gives us an opportunity to work with NEC Technologies India in co-creating solutions and value added offerings in smart solutions,“ said Mr. Vinod Sood, MD, Hughes Systique.

Mobilepedia congratulates NEC on launching a FIWARE Lab node in India. This will give a big boost to standards based smart solutions in India and will go a long way in bringing like-minded companies together to collaborate and create innovative solution for smart cities. Mobilepedia is the first non-European Gold member of FIWARE, first company in India to deploy FIWARE based solution in any Indian Smart city and is willing to explore the possibility to collaborate with NEC Technologies India on various smart city solutions,” said Mr. Mukul Mahajan, Director, Mobilepedia

NEC is a platinum member of the FIWARE Foundation. NEC was the first Japanese company to join the Foundation and has joined the board of directors and technical steering committee of the FIWARE Foundation, the foundation’s decision-making authorities, thereby contributing to development, standardization and promotion of the FIWARE technology to accelerate smart city and smart industry businesses utilizing IoT.

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company’s experience and global resources, NEC’s advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC Corporation.

The NEC Group globally provides “Solutions for Society” that promote the safety, security, efficiency and equality of society. Under the company’s corporate message of “Orchestrating a brighter world,” NEC aims to help solve a wide range of challenging issues and to create new social value for the changing world of tomorrow. For more information, please visit

https://www.nec.com/en/global/about/vision/message.html

About NEC Technologies India Private Limited

NEC is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies and brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to provide solutions for empowering people, businesses and society. Headquartered in Japan, NEC started operations in India in the 1950s, accelerating its growth through the expansion of business to global markets. NEC in India expanded its business from telecommunications to public safety, logistics, transportation, retail, finance, unified communication and IT platforms, serving across governments, businesses as well as individuals. With its Centre of Excellence for analytics platform solutions, big data, biometrics, mobile and retail, NEC in India offers innovative new services and solutions for India and global markets. NEC operates across India with offices in New Delhi (head office), Noida, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru.

For further information please visit: NEC Corporation