Orange Poland has created an IoT ecosystem in the country in cooperation with a number of partners. In June, 50 start-ups dealing with IoT responded to the operator’s invitation to participate and eight have proceeded to the acceleration stage. On 16 October, Orange announced the finalists at Orange City in Warsaw.

Orange Poland positions itself as a leader in IoT in Poland. It offers a wide range of services, from smart metering to bike sharing. The operator holds a 40 percent share in the Polish IoT market. Cooperation with start-ups is an important element of Orange’s activities. Under the programme Orange Fab, start-ups can get support from experts, access to systems, equipment and laboratories of Orange, allowing them to develop new products and adjust them to market demand.

The following firms have qualified for cooperation with Orange: Asta Labs, offering the Asta Inventory of Things, a system for managing the IoT inventory of operators of telecommunications networks, transport and energy networks, manufacturing companies and municipal and regional governments; VE Systems, offering a system for securing bicycles; Unified API, running a project for micropayments for IoT services; Fabryka Bezpieczenstwa Fabe, offering a system of security monitoring for industry; Retailic, offering products such as sensor-based services for retail to analyse consumer behaviour in shops; Smartporter, offering a product combining an electronic lock with an online system for administering commercial facilities for lease; Erly, offering an application for renting powerbanks in a network of charging stations located around a city; and Magic To Go, offering premium digital signage enabling communication with clients on screens using augmented reality, face detection and content personalisation live.

Orange Fab is an international programme for start-ups, created by Orange. In Poland, the programme started in 2014 as one of the first accelerators in the country. Finalists of the accelerator programme can participate in international events such as Viva Technology in Paris and get support for market entry in countries where Orange Group is present.

Beside Poland, Orange Fab runs in France, Israel, Japan, Spain, Senegal, Cameroon, Belgium, Luxembourg, Jordan and the US.

So far, over 800 start-ups have registered to the programme in Poland, 31 of which have proceeded to the testing stage and ten have been implemented commercially, e. g. chatbot for communication with clients via Messenger, a city lighting system forsmart urban furniture (solar-charged benches, bins, bus shelters) or a platform for English language online learning.