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Industrial Talk is brought to you by Armis. Yes, you are in the digital transformation game. Yes, you need to find trusted companies, trusted individuals to help you along with that journey. The Armis platform delivers complete asset intelligence, you know what that means, insights into your connected assets, you're in the digital transformation game, you have to have that insights into what is connected, go to armis.com Find out more, you will not be disappointed. Also, AiDash, AiDash is on a mission to create a greener, cleaner, safer planet from space. AiDash helps core industries become more resilient, efficient, and sustainable through the power of satellites and AI. Go out to AiDash.com find out more. On this episode of industrial talk. We are broadcasting live on site, distribute tech 22. And if you need to go to an event, and you're in the energy and utility space, that is a conference for you, incredible professionals, great companies providing incredible solutions, solving problems. We were also very fortunate to run into Rahul Saxena, CTO and Co-Founder at AiDash. And I'm telling you right now they've got incredible technology, helping utilities deal with their maintenance challenges around the world. It doesn't matter because they do it from the sky. Enjoy the conversation with Rahul. Hey, how you doing?
01:44
Doing great. Glad to be here, Scott.
01:46
Pretty cool. We're back in sort of person. That's for me. I like it. Yep. He's got a great booth over there. A lot of buzz over there, too. Yeah, that's right. You know, that's, that's always a good thing, right? Yep. All right. For the listeners out there. Let's talk a little bit about Rahul and and give us a little background, then we're going to start talking a little bit about AiDash for the individuals that don't know anything about it. And then we're gonna start talking about some interesting news that exists with AI data. So give us the background revenue.
02:17
Sure. So hi, everyone, Rahul Saxena. I am co-founder and CTO at AiDash, dash, we use the technology around satellites and AI to solve problems around operations, maintenance and sustainability for companies which have distributed assets, namely power utilities, which this conference is all about. So we have different products around the asset management, like vegetation management, we offer IBMs, or there is something around encroachment into gas and electric utilities. And then we have a couple of words around sustainability say,
02:51
see what's interesting about it, I enjoy the fact that that leveraging satellite, in conjunction with an AI platform allows utilities, specifically here, just because we're at distribute tech, utilities have a better insight, better capabilities for managing assets from a vegetation perspective. Is that sort of an accurate statement? Am I leaving anything out there?
03:15
That's absolutely correct. So So vegetation management specifically is a big issue with utilities. There is a huge, yep. Yep. So we have a product, which is live and currently being used by 50 customers all over the world, family in us.
03:31
For for the listeners out there when we start talking about vegetation management from a utility perspective, but what is the typical spin for utilities?
03:41
So typical spend for utilities, depending on how big their distribution network and transmission line network can be anywhere, not from couple of millions to you know, 200 million or more worth of annual spend.
03:55
And seeing and that's typically, typically from my my history, real reactive to a certain extent you try to plan. But the reality is, is that other things sort of take precedent, you just don't. It's a sort of a unique, unique situation. And here's a solution that says, Now you go over here, that's the here's the reason why, and then don't worry about over here. And they were able to really direct resources, valuable resources in a way that makes sense. So that's, that's, that's pretty good. All right. There's other things. It's not just vegetation management, we're talking about AiDash with the solutions of satellites and the AI component. What else can we do with it? What else like what, what other value can we gain from that? Like there's a you guys have a press release? You're expanding your capabilities?
04:51
Sure. Yeah. Let me get get straight to it. So yeah, so yeah, apart from these products, so we today earlier today announced the next product. So again on the asset management side, yep. So apart from vegetation management, now we are getting into things around disaster and disruption management. So there are a lot of Disasters are happening, they were like around 15 disasters just last year, causing a havoc, which took almost like a $1 billion kind of spent. Right. So that's kind of a diamond. So, so so. So well, while you're working the satellite, and AI and other products, we felt this technology can really be used to solve these use cases, which are really becoming very important for utilities.
05:32
But given an example of let's say, Me from Louisiana, we had our hurricane. And of course, everybody's, when power's out, people are not happy. So how does the solution that AiDash provides help with that disaster, and in the recovery of that?
05:53
Sure. So for any storm, there are three stages, before, during and after. So what we do is before the storm, typically utilities will get into great hardening and greater resiliency activities, you want to make sure the storms, the poles are all okay, you replace the poles, which are not good. Maybe set up some flood gates, you raise the height of the substations, we do all that stuff. So that's, that's what you do before. So using this product, so we have a great hardening module, where you can plan all these activities, you can do prioritization, you can do management, you can have an app which can use now you see certain field workers in the field and track it all in one place. So that's the prevention. So predict and prevent kind of a stage where you use, you know, satellite imagery to predict and then use this module to prevent it, then as you get closer to the storm, so typically, our model starts predicting the storm and the impact 72 hours before the storm. So usually, that has been a challenge so far. So the sooner you know, you the better you can plan, you can deploy the resources correctly, you can actually, you know, get the right resources much in advance. So we have a resource prediction module as well. So it gives a extent of damage, which is predicted based on the outage. So it takes into account different things it takes into account, what was the you know, damage based on the previous similar storms, it takes care of the weather data to figure out the, you know, what could be the damage caused by the new storm, you take all that into account and come with a damage prediction, as well as a resource or climate model? So you can do all that, right?
07:32
I, that just makes so much sense. If utilities, and this is always a conversation I'd have with people is like, okay, here comes a storm? Did the utility do their part to strengthen that grid? You don't know? You know, I don't know. I don't know if those conversations are happening. Or in many cases, in the case of Louisiana, we find that here's a storm, here's another storm, and it's hard to even get ahead of that grid, you know, strengthening component because we're just trying to get the power backup. Yep. But I'm always fascinated by during like, our last storm, how do they determine where to deploy the resources, where, you know, everybody starts coming in from different states saying, hey, you need help. Here we go, we got some lineman blah, blah, blah. To do that, effectively, that just means for me as a consumer, my power gets up sooner.
08:28
Exactly. So so the idea here is we take into account the weather data, and we try to work with different vendors, which can get us satellite data in near real time, real time is not possible. But you can get near real time. And you know, as we learn more and more about your GPS, as we work with different customers do different pilots and take them to production, we learn more and more the model gets keeps getting more accurate. So you can do a better predictions as you go along. And after the storm has passed, again, you can do some scans from satellites, you can use our app and web component to track this real time that is tradition activities, and try to make it more efficient.
09:01
As seen, and of course, we're after the storm, right? You know, you're okay, so you got to the satellite, you're looking at it, you're saying hey, oh, this is this has impacted this has impacted you could sort of hold off here. You can make those those predictions, those tactical decisions, which is very good. But then it just sort of loops right back to grid stabilization, because he just had now it's after stabilize it, and then you keep on learning as you keep on going. And so ideally, correct me if I'm wrong, that the impact over a period of time will be less. I'm not saying it's gonna go away. There will be power outages, there will be vegetation and for whatever flying into poles, whatever it might be, but you can have a greater confidence that maybe the impact will be minimized.
09:50
So that's exactly right. So apart from these three modules, great heightening preparedness, and then the the resolution of the A repair work, we also have a module called retrospect, wherein you can, you can analyze, you know, what you predicted and what you actually saw. So over a period of time as more than most on some happened, you learn more. And you can also generate your regulatory reports from there.
10:14
And you know, what's great about this is the fact that me consumer, I can be a manufacturer, I can be whatever I mean, it doesn't matter. I'm a consumer of power, I want reliable power, I want to know that the utilities are using all the tools available to be able to ensure that the power is delivered. And I see the use of satellite AiDash, all of that in conjunction is only a and the ability to just have that bird's eye view that ability to say yes. And then taking limited resources money. Yeah, and deploying it properly. That's a heck of a solution. I'm all giddy about it.
10:58
Sure, yeah. So we're excited as well to, you know, solve this big, big issue.
11:02
And where do you where do you see it going? Because Because I see there's a velocity with technology, I see that innovation is like really fast. I see. Use cases being developed as a result of going Yeah, I saw that I got this and we just put them together. Now we have, where do you sort of see where AiDash is going and what's been what's happening there.
11:21
So I think from as we have our earlier product around vegetation management and coastline management are now this new launch with DDMs. So we're trying to, you know, manage everything around the assets at scale. Right. So the idea is to get into all these different issues, whether it's vegetation encroachment disaster, so have one solution, which you know, has different products, where you can link everything together. So for example, we do vegetation management, so if a customer takes our vegetation management product, as well as DDMs product, so we already have the vegetation data. So sometimes they might want to combine their plant so as so that let's say they have a vegetation plan, which is a plant, which is planned out, and a storm comes at it, you know, the plan goes on, right? So you can have the DDMS pick data from vegetation and you know, make sure both the plants are in sync.
12:07
I'm telling you, man, you guys are at the cutting edge. I love what you guys are doing. And it's it's impressive. I I can't say that enough. Because being an old guy like me, we used to just be real reactive with our asset management. And I mean, real reactive. It rained and so he just like, Oh, I gotta go out there and trim trees. Or, hey, the storm came through seems like a branch felon or whatever, you know, it doesn't matter. How does somebody get a hold of you and just love exactly what you guys are talking
12:35
about how they get selected is the best place to reach out to me and I'm
12:39
very good. All right, listeners. Rose the man. Hey, I dashes the company. I will have all the contact information for AiDash Rahul out on industrial talk.com You need to reach out to this company. It's fantastic. They're doing great things and it never stops. You guys never stop. Because you guys just sort of eat drink this stuff on. Exactly. sort of sad and good. Thank you for doing it. But anyway, all right, listeners. We're gonna be right back. So stay tuned, we will be back with another great conversation shortly. So stay tuned. You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network. All right. Once again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk and a hearty thank you to Rahul Saksena, CTO and co founder of AiDash, delivering the technology delivering the innovation to help utilities definitely deal with their vegetation management. It's a brave new world out there. And it's being led by companies like AiDash, excellent conversation, exciting Most definitely. Also, you need to find trusted, trusted Sherpas to help you through this whole technology. AiDash is definitely one of those companies. All right. You need to go to distribute tech 22 must attend. It has great companies, great people solving problems. And if you're in the utility and energy market, it is a must attend, you will not be disappointed. I wasn't disappointed. But you could tell there was a lot of buzz going on there on the floor because it's pretty noisy and raucous crowd. Put that on your calendar. All right. People be brave dare greatly hang out with people like Rahul and you're going to change the world. Thank you very much. We're going to have another great conversation shortly. So you're not going to
