Growing the Ecosystem: a Spotlight on LoRaWAN® Ambassadors

With leading long range and low power, LoRaWAN networks are being utilized today in hundreds of innovative applications for smart cities, homes and buildings, agriculture, metering, supply chain and logistics, and more. The LoRa Alliance® is committed to enabling the large-scale deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) applications operating on the LoRaWAN® protocol. Members benefit from a vibrant ecosystem of active contributors offering solutions, products and services to create new and sustainable business opportunities worldwide.

Among the LoRa Alliance’s most successful outreach programs is its Speaker Bureau. The LoRa Alliance Speaker Bureau currently consists of 65 experts, or “LoRaWAN Ambassadors,” and continues to grow its global roster of leading individuals with a diverse set of expertise from a range of the LoRa Alliance’s Sponsor and Contributor Member companies. In this blog, Olivier Beaujard, Sr. Director of the LoRa Alliance at Semtech, explores the program, breaking down its function, track record of success and how it helps expand the global reach of LoRaWAN.

Spokespeople for the Growth of LoRaWAN

The program’s main aim is to promote and educate the market on the LoRaWAN protocol in local markets, in addition to opportunities at higher profile conferences. There is often great coverage for global, vertical market or even regional areas; however, individual countries are at different stages of LoRaWAN network implementation and companies or regulatory bodies in these countries often want to know the latest to advance their country’s adoption. The LoRa Alliance aims to increase publicity and accessibility in each country where LoRaWAN networks are operable.

Being a LoRaWAN Ambassador offers great value for Member Companies and its representatives as it delivers a chance to become the “go-to” or “point person” for LoRa Alliance news and access to the global ecosystem. This helps the LoRaWAN protocol grow regionally as well as increase the profile of the Member Company and its individual representatives.

In addition, the LoRa Alliance offers comprehensive support for its representatives, including:

• Researching and sharing industry and regional opportunities with ambassadors

• Supporting the submission of speaking applications by creating topic abstracts and determining key takeaways for the event audience

• Providing training sessions throughout the year, including reviewing best practices for the program and for delivering presentations to in-person or virtual audiences

• Supporting content creation for and review of presentations, such as brainstorming key use cases and solutions

• Promoting events and sessions and ensuring the ambassador has end-to-end support and information to be successful

Record of Success

Despite ongoing challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic, LoRaWAN Ambassadors have had a busy 2020, participating in 17 events as of October, with more planned to come. A variety of recent and upcoming ambassador opportunities can be found below with links to access key resources, view the session and more.

• May 2020: Charles Paumelle, Chief Product Officer and Co-founder at Microshare, participated in a webinar showcasing the LoRaWAN network use case at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam (part of the webinar is in Dutch)

• August 2020: Karthik Ranjan, LoRaWAN Ecosystem Leader at Amazon Web Services, gave a presentation during the IoT World & 5G Connectivity virtual conference titled, “Harnessing the power of LoRaWAN for deploying your LPWAN IoT applications”

• August 2020: Rémi Demerlé, Director of Business Development at Semtech, participated in a Datatopia podcast for the new ENLIT 365 online platform

• September 2020: Jorge Varona, Vice President of Engineering at Semtech, gave a keynote presentation to the South America market during Innovatech Digital, and a recording can be found on the LoRa Alliance YouTube channel

• September 2020: A panel of ambassadors from Actility, Microshare and myDevices, and moderated by Semtech, presented at the Innovatech Digital event, and a recording is posted on the LoRa Alliance YouTube channel

• October 2020: Dave Kjendal, CTO and COO at Senet, participated in a virtual interview to discuss LoRaWAN networks in the water industry and the recording is posted on LinkedIn

• October 2020: Yannik Kopp, COO and Head of Sales at LORIOT, virtually presented on the Smart City Solutions stage during the INTERGEO Digital event. Learn more about his session, titled “Smart City – Buzzword or Reality?” on the event’s website

• October 2020: LoRa Alliance hosted two panels of ambassadors during Smart Cities Week

  • Panel 1, “Connectivity, Security, and How Cities Can Track Their Data Using LoRaWAN,” is posted on the LoRa Alliance YouTube channel and features Wael Guibene, Principal Engineer and Director at Charter Communications, Nicolas Jordan, Co-founder of Actility and Boris Stöckermann, Director of BD and Innovation at Minol-ZENNER Group, and moderated by Sara Brown, Vice President of Marketing at MultiTech

  • Panel 2, “How Cities are Solving Challenges all Over the World Using LoRaWAN,” is posted on the LoRa Alliance YouTube channel, with Jack Stuart, Director of Marketing at TEKTELIC, Jose Fernandez, Founder of Aonchip, Yannik Kopp, LORIOT, and Tony Tilbrook, CTO and COO at NNNCo

• November 6: Christian Olivier, VP Americas at Actility, will present at IoT Tech Expo North America virtual conference on the IoT Sensors & Solutions track on the panel, “Connectivity is Key; IoT’s role during a Pandemic”

• November 18-19: Ali Hosseini, Founder and CEO at SenRa, will present “Smart Cities with Smart Tech” at Global Smart Cities co-located with third edition of Global Inclusive Disaster Management Conference and Global Sustainability Conclave in India

• December 8-9: Nicolas Jordan, CEO at Abeeway, and Oliver Hersent, CEO and CTO at Actility, will present on the “5G & Connectivity track” at IoT Online Conference

Discover the LoRa Alliance

The LoRa Alliance provides its members the amazing opportunity to collaborate with global leaders in promotion of the LoRaWAN protocol. If you are an ecosystem leader at a LoRa Alliance Sponsor or Contributor member company, passionate about the LoRaWAN protocol and looking to join the LoRaWAN Ambassador Program, the LoRa Alliance recommends you reach out to Megan Leonard, Global Events Manager, for more information.

For more information about the LoRa Alliance, including articles and expertise for the development or deployment of leading, effective IoT solutions based on the proven LoRaWAN protocol, explore the resources at the link below.

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