Over the course of the past two years, HWTrek hosted 80 hardware creators and accelerators to visit Taiwan, Beijing, and Shenzhen on Asia Innovation Tour 2016 (April), Asia Innovation Tour 2015 (August), and also on the first tour in April 2014. We’re organizing the next tour in November 2016 to Shenzhen, Osaka, and Kyoto. You can register on the HWTrek platform and create a project to apply to join the Asia Innovation Tour Winter 2016 cohort destined to meet manufacturing industry experts, see assembly lines in China and Japan, and gain insights about their consumer markets for smart, connected devices.
We reached out to a participant in our third tour HWTrek Asia Innovation Tour (Spring 2016), Johann Kok (Founder of SeeBox) to learn more about his project and his insights.
While on tour in Shenzhen, Johann had this to say: “I really enjoyed this trip; it was extremely insightful. I’m here with the main goal to establish relationships for future manufacturing and sourcing.”
Please introduce yourself and your project?
SeeBox is a unique ground-breaking tool and platform designed to educate children in physics and create the next generation of electronic and software engineers. Access to proper education in the region has left Africa with a skills gap that will hamper economic growth. Furthermore, there is a global shortage of engineers that will only become more pressing as technology use expands.
SeeBox is a gamified educational tool that is fun and easy to use by both children as well as students, offering unique benefits and no teacher required. It is also a cloud-based monitoring and control system, with application in the test and measurement environment. SeeBox has won numerous innovation awards, among them the educational category at the African Entrepreneurship Award in October 2015.
What’s the inspiration for your project? What problem does it solve or address?
SeeBox has huge potential for alleviating the growing international technology workers shortage. We want to change the way children are taught electronics because the existing methods are not producing enough professionals. This is especially relevant in Africa, where there is a dire shortage of technical skills, as well as a lack of technical training infrastructure.
The next disruptive technology confronting civilization is going to be artificial intelligence, as in robots. AI software will take over jobs of call center operators, and even advisory roles like law practitioners. AI cars and buses will drive themselves, factories will operate without human workers. Like all disruptive technologies before it, e.g. the industrial revolution, AI will bring creative destruction. It will destroy many jobs but will also create new jobs requiring different skills. Those who saw it coming will have prepared their children with the necessary skills as technology workers. SeeBox has the potential to empower young people to become participants in the coming AI economy, instead of victims.
What solutions did you use for hardware design?
Was done in-house by our own engineers.
What solutions did you use for prototyping?
Low-volume PCB printing and population, 3D printing for the enclosures.
What resources have you used for sourcing and supply chain management?
Components are sourced from suppliers everywhere. PCB manufacturing is done in China and population is done by a local company. It is envisioned that later on as the volumes increase this could be outsourced to China as well.
What were the most difficult things to source for your project and how did you source them?
The MOQ on many electronic components created a problem. We ended up buying them from places like Digi-Key.
Is your team co-located or do you work with remote team members?
We work from a central office. Some of our engineers work from home some days and only come into the office few times a week.
What tools, if any, do you use for real-time collaboration on your project (with team members and partners)? Dropbox and Google Docs
What’s the greatest challenge working with a team?
What have been the significant challenges or obstacles you’ve faced on the project? How were they resolved?
Financial and cash-flow constraints. We self-funded a part of the project. The Africa-wide competition we won in 2015 assisted greatly with the prize money enabling us to complete the project.
What are the takeaways and lessons learned from working on this project that you’d like to share with other hardware companies?
Perseverance, very hard work, knock on all doors and be willing to challenge yourself to learn new things and do what is necessary for the project to succeed. It will take over your life for a while :-)
What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to the beginning of your product development?
Select your contractors and workers extremely careful. Don’t just assume that everyone is motivated, driven or even honest.
We all know the phrase “hardware is hard.” Is there something that was much easier than you had initially thought when you started out on your hardware journey?
Nope, it was pretty much all hard!
What trend do you see that is changing your sector/industry or what shift would you like to see happen?
The trend towards technology in education and the widening skills gap in education, with a growing need for technically skilled workers, and many traditional careers set to be replaced by AI and automation. SeeBox is well-placed to address the problem, by enabling more learners to be prepared for training in a technical career path.
What’s next for your project?
SeeBox is now at commercialization stage. Development will continue, however, so we can expand the educational offering of the SeeBox.
You joined the HWTrek Asia Innovation Tour to China this past spring, what did you learn or what are the significant takeaways you have from the experience?
I build valuable contacts for when we are ready to outsource our production to China. I also established connections to future suppliers.
What are your ‘go-to’ sources for tech information and news? (Do you have any recommendations for a must-read/watch/listen to article, book, blog, film, or podcast, etc.?)
Dataweek, PC Mag, and several LinkedIn groups.
And now for something completely different, some fun questions:
What’s currently on your playlist, what are you listening to these days?
Mostly classical music.
What fuels you (coffee, tea, or….)? When you’re low on creative juice, what is your #1 method to get back on track?
I take a walk.
What do you recommend (place to go/see, what to eat) for a visitor to Johannesburg/Pretoria (anywhere you’ve lived that you’d like to share)?
It depends on what someone is interested in. If you like nature, culture, and history, in Pretoria I would say Union Buildings, Voortrekker Monument, Botanical Gardens, Groenkloof nature reserve, and Sammy Marks museum.
What gadget would you love to have from your favorite science fiction film or book?
I would like a holodeck room like in Star Trek.
