Microland Digital Warriors

Microland Digital Warriors | 49 © MICROLAND LIMITED 2020. Internal Circulation Only 48 FlyingMicroland’s digital flag with pride As you read this, Pratip probably is pottering around in his kitchen, making himself some delicious payesh in his Bengaluru apartment (yes, that’s the Work from Home life gifted to him by COVID-19). So it is difficult to imagine that between steaming pots of milk, rice and sugar, he created a digital solution for a global customer with the potential to be patented. “The client has several sites in places outside the city. These sites are huge. Sometimes you have to drive 10 minutes within the site just to find a mobile signal,” explains Pratip. “Establishing connectivity between two buildings was a tough task for the client. Even a Cat 7 cable would be stretched to its limits. And Wi-Fi signals would go off in rain and snow and would be visible to others.” So he built an omni-directional point-to-point wireless link using Fluidmesh. The customer, although willing to try the solution, said to Pratip, “It can’t be done!” And sure enough, when Pratip set up the pilot on a West Virginia site, it went kaput. The client went, “I told you so!” But Pratip wasn’t giving up. “It has to work,” he retorted. The mistake Pratip made was to deploy the solution without testing it in a lab. So the client agreed to set up a lab and…sure enough, when the solution went live, it worked. “We kept the Microland digital flag flying high,” he says. The solution is so good that in a lab its range is 8 km; in real life it is between 2 and 3 km; and Pratip could patent the solution. But he doesn’t have the time to think about filing a patent. He is too busy trying to work out a point-to-multi-point solution now. Pratip is not a stranger to patents. In college he created a cryptographic solution with four friends used in Indian ATMs to prevent fraud and was patented. Now, he simply wants to use the opportunity provided by Microland to explore new tech, learn, grow and enjoy his work—between making payesh. Pratip Kr Biswas This Digital Warrior created a potentially patentable solution that resolved issues related to reliable connection for distances beyond 1,500 feet with Fortinet wireless bridges. The solution developed using Fluidmesh technology enables reliable connectivity of up to 5 kms.”