Insight Robotics Ltd
- HKGCC Membership No. :
- HKI0324
Protecting Forests and Plantations with Robots
Hong Kong may be well-known for its financial and property sectors, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of local tech companies doing some interesting work. Insight Robotics Limited is one of them.
The company, which was founded in 2009 and employs engineers from several countries, develops robotics-based solutions for wildfire detection, agricultural surveying & mapping, plantation management and pipeline & electrical fault detection.
“We solve problems through the use of robots for obtaining data. That is the meaning of our company name,” said Rex Sham, co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Insight Robotics Limited, who graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in Computer Science.
“In the beginning, our business was aimed at disaster relief using robots. However, we found that there was no business potential in this area. Our team did not give up and continued to do research even when the company was facing bankruptcy. Finally, we found out about a potential opportunity in risk management of forests,” said Sham. “We extracted the eye detection and wireless sensors from the robots and developed a fire detection tool.”
“People are not good tools for data collecting as it is inefficient for a person to monitor a forest and collect data by hand. Instead, people should make decisions using their experience and intelligence”, said Sham. Robots can engage in large-scale data collection with precise results while humans can make decisions. “That is why we insist on not trying to extinguish fires but on developing robotics to reduce the probability of such disasters in the first place,” added Sham.
Start-up challenges
As Insight Robotics Limited focuses on fire prevention and pest control services, it does not have many competitors with comparable technology. However, they still face difficulty in getting customers to fully trust their services and products.
“Forestry and agriculture are narrow sectors for business. We tried to find distributors to help us sell our services. However, they lacked industry knowledge and were not professional enough. As a result, potential clients did not trust our services and thought that we were trying to sell them useless things,” said Sham.
Due to the difficulties in selling and promoting their services to clients, the company decided to form their own sales and marketing team.
“We taught the team professional knowledge about forestry and agriculture. They had to visit a forest to experience the actual environment. They also learned about how forestry company scientists work. We then sent them to overseas exhibitions where they met with forestry bureaus and private plantation companies,” said Sham.
Though it is Hong Kong-based, the company has clients in Mainland China, the U.S., Malaysia and Indonesia.
In Guangdong, the local sales team lives near clients so they can serve the clients effectively.
“Each project requires around nine months for completion and our sales team must stay near the clients. This way, they can arrive within three hours if the client suddenly wants to have a meeting. The client is always pleased that the sales team are on standby anytime,” said Sham.
Mitigate risks and reduce costs
There is a saying that prevention is always better than the cure. Through their core technology, Insight Robotics Limited provides decision-makers with relevant information to prevent disasters. They mitigate risks by using wildfire detection, agricultural surveying & mapping, plantation management and pipeline & electrical fault detection.
Fire and insect infestations cost governments and private companies a lot of money every year. Forestry companies have to pay large premiums to insurance companies which raise premiums if forests burn. “In order to reduce insurance premiums, forestry companies have to prove that their losses from disasters have been reduced after implementing a fire detection system,” said Sham.
Through early detection, the company’s aerial survey solution helps agricultural managers prevent large-scale damage to crops. Timely intelligence reduces risks and safeguards resources, thus preventing and constraining further losses.
“We are using real-time data to predict and analyze the future. The alarm system has to work when a fire suddenly starts,” said Sham. “We place robots in a forest; each robot generates 8GB of data every day. We keep improving the mathematical model and adding more parameters such as weather, sunshine, and terrain. The mathematical model applied to software allows us to detect the flames.”
Forest fires, viruses and insect infestations can not only harm plantations and forests but also entire ecosystems, especially as a virus can spread through dozens of square kilometres of forest quickly. Insight Robotics Limited’s detection system can prevent this by detecting outbreaks at an early stage. By this, they are reaffirming their mission statement of “saving the world, bit by bit, grid by grid.”
