The National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) announced the results of the first phase of the call for the selection of pilot projects of Internet of Things (IoT), launched in June of last year.

The selection focused on supporting solutions implemented by public or private non-profit technological institutions within the focus of each of the following environments: smart cities, rural environment, and health.

With an approved budget of R $ 30 million, 15 pilot projects were pre-selected from 11 institutions at this stage of the framework. Subsequently, the proposals still go through another stage of detailed evaluation by the BNDES operations team.

The Internet of Things Applied to Pediatrics (IoTAPED) project, for the monitoring of children with obesity, both remotely and in health units, was submitted by RNP through the Center for Research and Development in Digital Technologies for Information and Communication (CTIC) , and is one of the proposals approved for the next stage.

According to the coordinator of the CTIC, Wandersom Paim, the initiative considers the results generated by another project, Smart Solution for the Treatment of Childhood Obesity through the Internet Potential of Things (in English, OCARIoT); selected in the context of the 4th Brazil-European Union Coordinated Call in Information and Communication Technologies.

"IoTAPED expands the solution to attend patients of health plans, providing managers and health professionals with technical and strategic knowledge for intelligent decision-making, based on evidence of treatments and health policies conducted and conducted in real time," explains Wanderson Paim.

The pre-selected project is carried out in partnership with the University of Fortaleza (Unifor), Instituto Atlântico, State University of Ceará (UECE), Center for Research and Development in Telecommunications (CPqD); WDA Tecnologia, the Nucleus of Strategic Technologies in Health of the State University of Paraíba (Nutes / UEPB) and Unimed.

About BNDES IoT Pilots

BNDES IoT Pilot is an outcome of the study "Internet of Things: a plan of action for Brazil", supported by BNDES in partnership with the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communications (MCTIC) and conducted by the McKinsey / Fundação CPqD / Pereira Neto Macedo Advogados.

Its objective is the selection of pilot projects of technological solutions of Internet of Things (IoT) for support with non-refundable resources in the three prioritized environments: Cities, Health and Rural. BNDES 'participation with non-reimbursable funds may reach 50% of the eligible items. The minimum amount of Bank support for each pilot project plan will be R $ 1 million.

According to the development bank, the selected proposals cover all regions of the country and propose solutions based on IoT linked to topics such as lighting networks efficiency and use of real-time images and data in public safety; semaphore optimization; increased rural productivity through pest management and microclimate forecasting; optimization of machinery management in the field; monitoring of animal health and welfare through sensors; automation of hospital management and remote monitoring of patients with hypertension, obesity, cancer, and sleep disorders, as well as the remote diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy.

Also according to the BNDES, in the health area, projects were selected in the South, Southeast and Northeast regions, with varied objectives, from the monitoring of hypertensive patients with childhood obesity and cancer, as well as for the monitoring of assets, such as oxygen cylinders.