While not exactly Silicon Valley, Singapore’s desire to clinch the top spot as the innovation hub in Asia has ranked us sixth place in last year’s joint study conducted by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organisation for the most innovative countries in the world.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has previously said that the city-state was not moving fast enough for digital transformation, and we can then see why various initiatives have been brought to life to further nudge this along – starting from creating the new Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) to spearhead occasions like Smart Innovations Week, and hosting events such as Innovfest Unbound.

Fresh off of Smart Nation Innovations Week, the Overdrive team attended Innovfest Unbound 2017, a two-day innovation festival connecting brands and global corporations with disruptive technology and creative insights to fuel innovation and growth in Asia.

Intent on spreading more knowledge on the Internet of Things (IoT), Overdrive set up a booth showcasing the team’s capabilities and examples of what their technology and software are able to do and achieve in a bid to connect all things on the move.

The team was also proud to share their stories of The School Bus Project, an initiative that began in 2015 when the team paired up with a bus fleet service in order to create an IoT solution to address some of Singaporean parents’ biggest concerns: the safety of their child as they travel to and fro school.

From discussing with other firms about technology-focused Asian opportunities, to attending talks at the event and forging new relationships with other entrepreneurs, co-founder Aston Chia believes that the event was “rather refreshing because of the many great ideas displayed by the very passionate people behind them.”

A particular talk that caught the team’s eye was ‘A Smarter, IoT Powered World’, an eye-opening panel lead by the CNET Asia team.

The panel discussed the climate of technology and change in Singapore and Asia, moreover addressing the possibilities of IoT moulding the shape of the future, the pillar of which being security.

Explained further by David Siah from Trend Micro, there is a global need to introduce security protocols that should come hand-in-hand with smart devices and the networks they sit in, as these innovations will ultimately carry and transmit personal and sensitive data in an effort to make our lives easier.

Regardless, the panel sought their final words to have a bigger, more optimistic outlook on how IoT can truly make our lives easier: “We’re just at the beginning. There will be a ramp-up of new applications (of IoT) in the marketspace, and it’s exciting for all of us as it means eventually, with all these data points, the environment is smarter and working harder for you,” said Joanna Reijgersberg-Siew of Philips Lighting.

Truly intent on connecting every day things to every consumer, Zen shares his thoughts on the general trends of technology: “Advancements in battery technologies will be essential to the future designs of machines we use, and will have a major impact on the environment. Artificial intelligence also plays a part and will then have to follow two paths with the consideration of contextual or non-contextual data and reasoning in order to produce meaningful results.

IoT will also continue with the proliferation of sensors. Overdrive aims to be the industry leader in this respect, providing expertise in the deployment of suitable sensors based on specific situations and use cases, aggregating this data, and then feeding the information into other higher level purposes such as AI.”

With that, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of the year!