Cognicity and KnowNow in The News

KnowNow was pleased to be in its local rag the ‘Portsmouth News’   this week which was great coverage for KnowNow and extends awareness of Cognicity down to the South Coast.  Our 3rd week at Cognicity started with a highlight – a workshop session led by Mischa Dohler.  It was a privilege to share stories, thoughts and ideas with Mischa for a morning.

This week also saw us entertain a few visitors too.   It is great having such a cool work place.  level 24 of One Canada Square.   The view is to die for!

View West from level 24

View looking west from level 24

Focus. Focus. Focus.

This week has been about narrowing our focus on what we want to deliver with Canary Wharf.  Taking the Lean Approach learned last week and applying it to kn-i @Cognicity.   This has been in two areas; firstly with the use cases we want to run with and secondly in narrowing down the modules we need for kn-i to deliver those use cases.   This is all about an evolution.  Have a MVP (minimum viable product) that gives us the permission to do a fuller roll out and grow from there.

Interoperability is the Aim

KnowNow is actively collaborating with our fellow Cognicity participants.  An essential criteria that Cognicity needs to demonstrate is interoperability.   A few ideas were discussed and I am pleased to say that we have some potential use cases to develop over the next few weeks.   I hope to be able to write about in future blogs how kn-i is collaborating with:  Alchera Technologies – looking at linking kn-i to density triggers in a particular place;  Jooxster and 8.3LED linking with kn-i to offer a light-as-a-service for personalised car park way finding;  Solar Cloth – looking at developing kn-i for pop-up events, using Solar Cloth to power a new low power intranet access point from BluPoint.  I am sure as the weeks go by we will find other interoperability opportunities with other Cognicity challenge members.

Its the architecture see

I am a great believer in having fit for purpose design for today that is also thinking about the future.   My training has been influenced by the memory of trying to keep poorly designed IT applications alive many years ago, so I know how a poor design and short termism can lead to greater pain and expense later.    To that end kn-i is based on a robust architecture, which puts in the foundations but does not necessarily have all the bells and whistles from day one.  kn-i is hosted on IBM Softlayer and developed using IBM Bluemix, having this rolls-royce under the covers lends confidence to our plans as we grow kn-i in the future.   We will evolve the kn-i service, its scale and capability as kn-i grows.  This is Lean after all!

The mentors at Cognicity have all given the kn-i architecture and technical foundations a once over and for the moment are satisfied.  The proof will be in the pudding.  How does kn-i scale? How does the user really interact (people tend to do the things you least expect!)?  Can we manage concurrent connections and maintain great service?  All to be tested over the next few weeks.  Yet, due to the way kn-i is architected I am confident that it will meet the challenge head on and pass these tests with flying colours.

Mentors

One of the massive benefits that Cognicity is bringing KnowNow is access to mentors.   KnowNow has three of the best in Nicole, Bill and Todd.   I really appreciate the guidance that I am directly receiving and take on board this excellent advice.    Thank you!

And Finally

David was busy in Brussels this week sharing our activity at Cognicity with the EU and the Smart Cities team.  This is related to Commitment number 6026 in the EU Smart Cities Marketplace.  The good news is that we have been invited to Berlin to give an update and a demonstration in May.   Plus, Luxembourg are interested in kn-i too.   Adding to the list of  cities that could enjoy kn-i.

Last Word

KnowNow is on the cusp of being included on the UKTI stand at CeBIT 2015.  This would be due to the KnowNow collaboration with SoFWiRED and our use of the AdinAR asset.   This will be one of our use cases we will put forward for Cognicity too, applied to the Docklands Museum.  Exciting times…

Rendering of UK's Houses of Parliament

UK’s Houses of Parliament visualised and rendered by Sofwired’s Adinar

Thanks for reading, Chris