New Delhi: The commercial real estate market in India has moved beyond just offering space and is now expected to adapt aggressively in the coming years…
Demand? Well for smarter infrastructure is now heightened more than ever. Next level of innovation is no longer about developing taller buildings we know so far… it is about making every building more efficient, sustainable and independent, with the Indian real estate market forecast to grow to almost US$1 trillion by 2030 and buildings using up nearly 30-40% of the world’s energy, and contributing to a considerable portion of global carbon emissions…
At the heart of this transformation is Garima Bharadwaj, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of deep-tech company Enlite that develops AI-driven intelligent infrastructure solutions for commercial buildings . Bharadwaj’s first-hand experience with the early days of disruptive startups such as OYO and The Moms Co., gave her a first-hand experience of how technology can re-invent the traditional business. It was during those experiences that it became clear that India’s booming real estate market was suffering from a serious shortfall.
Bharadwaj said buildings are being built and inhabited at an unprecedented rate but intelligence surrounding them hasn’t kept pace. She recognized the technology layer for enabling physical infrastructure as the next big opportunity as the world became increasingly urban, energy costs went up, and sustainability goals were rising.
She decided to co-found Enlite with the conviction you can’t do much more with automation than what you see in modern buildings. They require intelligence that can make decisions in real time, optimize their operations and conserve energy with a minimum of added complexity for customers.
There are challenges here though, which don’t occur in software startups: building a deep-tech company. Product development cycles are extended, hardware deployment creates an operational risk, and it is essential that systems perform reliably in unpredictable real-world environments in order for the product to be a success. Infrastructure technology is different from digital products that can be updated with a single click, as it needs to work reliably within the built environment, which has aging electrical infrastructure and environmental conditions that change over time and that are always occupied.
There were days that it seemed like Bharadwaj was making less than expected progress, he admits. Hardware timelines changed, patience was required for testing, and deployments in the field revealed other factors. But each successful installation reinforced the conviction that the market issue was very real. Every successful deployment helped to diminish uncertainties and further strengthen the company’s vision for the future.
This attitude has influenced the engineering culture at Enlite. Many tech firms are on the pursuit of more complicated solutions, whereas Enlite will strive to make their solutions more simple for their customers. The best engineering is technology that is easy to use, says Bharadwaj.
The company’s philosophy is based on ‘customer-first engineering’ and its engineering expertise is concealed behind the scenes while customers see a simple, frictionless solution. Bharadwaj said that any solution that needs a specialist setup, much training or constant technical support is still not a complete engineering.
Diversity is the other major force behind innovative thinking at Enlite. The company is proactive in gathering people from various technical fields and fostering them to question traditional norms in building automation. It is this cross-disciplinary thinking that has led to several patents, not because the goal of the invention is to secure a patent but because original ideas have simply occurred by asking questions of the approaches already used.
Intelligent building technologies are increasingly being recognised as one of the fastest-growing segments within the PropTech industry. Artificial Intelligence, IoT sensors, cloud computing and predictive analytics will drive the global smart building market to more than US$200 billion in 10 years. Intelligent infrastructure will be a key element in enhancing operational efficiency while promoting sustainability in commercial real estate as it spreads across offices, hospitals, educational institutions and industrial parks in India.
The biggest differentiator, though, is execution.
Bharadwaj feels that technology and talent is not the only thing that makes it to success. The true test is to get innovation to happen over and over again in hundreds of real buildings. Each deployment needs to consider the imbalanced power supply, aging wiring systems and facilities that are in use that can’t afford downtime. Earning scalable “reliability” demands more than just a good prototype.
The work that she has done at OYO and The Moms Co. continues to influence her decision making. The first venture experiences re-emphasized swiftness and keeping the customer in mind. At Enlite ideas are tested early, customer feedback drives product development and product and business strategy change when evidence suggests it should.
Company’s next big frontier is AI of course. Although the conversation around AI largely involves software, Bharadwaj feels the future is in the melding of AI and physical infrastructure. Intelligent buildings will become more and more autonomous, making dynamic decisions according to varying conditions, occupancy and energy demands and no longer scheduled systems.
<p>The post How Enlite a Deep-Tech Startup is Building the Future of Smart Buildings in India first appeared on Hello Entrepreneurs.</p>
