Reminiscing on this year and looking forward to 2022
As we look ahead to the new year, here’s a glance back at key 2022 milestones.
Acquired by Nordamatic:
Spica Technologies has grown into a global technology provider. This year has been incredibly eventful on both a global and regional scale. The major development earlier this year was that Spica was acquired by Nordomatic, which is a leading Smart Buildings system integrator in Scandinavia.
Along with the acquisition came more products:
The GemEx Engine® is Spica’s enterprise-grade Workplace Experience Platform & apps, connecting people, places, and data which has the following solutions:
Smart Booking System
Employee Workplace App
Workplace Analytics & Alerts
Service Requests
Access Control Integration
Visitor Management
Spica Energy powered by ecopilot®, a smart AI solution for real-time HVAC energy savings can:
– Save 40% annually in HVAC energy
– Harness the thermodynamics of a building (free energy!)
– Use weather forecasting & real-time data to automatically optimise HVAC efficiency
– Improve indoor climate and occupant comfort
Yanzi Health is the latest innovative IoT sensor from the Yanzi networks product range, a recent addition to Spica’s comprehensive SmartCloud offering for smart building solutions. the all-in-one IoT Sensor for IAQ & Occupancy Monitoring. This is the sensor for everyone who just wants a simple and secure solution to monitor the health of the building.
New Features for Spica Workplace:
In terms of product development, 2022 was a vital year for our company. We expanded our team and worked to improve our Spica Workplace GemEx Engine® platform and App, developing new features that are assisting us significantly in providing value to our clients.
Here are some of the creative innovations developed and released by our team this year:
Portfolio analytics:
The Portfolio Analytics dashboard sits within the GemEx platform. It evaluates the overall health and history of your portfolios using big data to make accurate portfolio investment decisions.
Requests:
The requests module in GemEx makes it simple and easy to submit and manage requests in the building. It responds to and tracks requests in real-time, maximising the organisation’s potential to manage service requests in an efficient and professional manner.
Visits:
The Visits module supports seamless communication between the Host, Visitor and Reception staff using in-app notifications, emails and instant alerts in our browser-based admin portal.
It provides a positive, professional experience for your visitor whilst abiding by your company’s security policies. Employees can easily schedule and support their guests during their visit while front-of-house staff have all the tools, they need to plan their day and manage each visit.
Booking Analytics
A more comprehensive view of bookings and occupancy data, allows the business to gain a deeper understanding of its operations and identify areas for improvement.
By visualising booking data in the form of charts, you can gain insights into how the employees or tenants are behaving and what factors are driving their booking decisions. This can help you identify trends and patterns in user behaviour.
Gain true insight with a comparison of what employees intend to do against what they actually end up doing. Our dashboard shows you this gap to help you better understand where you have inefficiencies in your building for instance are people booking meeting rooms but not turning up? This indicates wasted space which could be used by others or space that can be repurposed into a breakout area.
Yanzi Launch
In September, Spica’s parent company Nordomatic, announced the acquisition of the remaining 40% of the shares in Altacogni AB. Altacogni is a high-tech start-up created by a seasoned development team based in Stockholm and with customers across the world. The Altacogni team has developed a comprehensive Internet of Things (”IoT”) software and hardware platform for Smart Buildings under the brand Yanzi Networks.
Yanzi Health is the latest innovative IoT sensor from the Yanzi networks product range, a recent addition to Spica’s comprehensive SmartCloud offering for smart building solutions. With improved accuracy, this sensor can be powered from a USB-C wall outlet or a Power over Ethernet (PoE) and acts as a mesh node for other Yanzi sensors.
Read our blog on how Spica’s solution: GemEx Engine platform and Yanzi Health IoT sensor can help your school monitor Indoor Air Quality:
Schools & Air Quality: CO2 Monitoring on campus
Introducing Yanzi Health: One sensor for IAQ & Occupancy
Events attended by Spica this year
Girl Tech Event
In April, Spica took part in #GirlTechWM, an annual event for young women aged 12-14 years old in the West Midlands.
We delivered interactive workshops for 200 female students by challenging them to design a super streaming app which combines all streaming services; Netflix, Disney, HBO, and Amazon Prime, all into one app to help people spend less time browsing and more time watching.
Through this fun interactive workshop, we wanted to showcase to the students the designing process our UI Designers go through for our Workplace experience app. We hope to encourage these students to consider a STEM related career path and to give them a hands-on experience of what working in the tech sector is all about.
WorkTech Conference in Stockholm
We took part in WorkTech Conference in Stockholm on June 8-9.
There were expert speakers from EY, Microsoft, Smart Building Certification and etc.
Spica co-hosted the Digital Revolution: From Insight to Impact panel with EY on Thursday 9 June at at Six.
On the panel were Tim Streather, MD, Spica, Cecilia Rihm, Energy Product Manager, Spica and Jessica JK Schmidt, Senior Management Consultant, EY Sweden, demystifying workplace technology across the spectrum from BMS to employee workplace experience apps, exploring attitudes to new tech and strategies for identifying and implementing new solutions.
Our Client Technical Director, Paul Jones joined members of the EY team in leading tours of EY’s brand new LEED Platinum headquarters in Stockholm. Paul showcased the fantastic functionalities of the EY version of our Spica Workplace experience App, called EY MyDay and how the app has helped EY promote a healthy and creative workplace.
West Midlands PropTech Showcase
Our MD and co-founder Tim Streather attended SuperTech WM West Midlands PropTech Showcase hosted by Shoosmiths in May this year where he spoke about how Spica are focusing on healthy buildings, a rising subject in PropTech recently, and showcased some of our case studies on how we have helped provide workplace transformation for clients around the globe.
Spica in the Media:
FMJ article with M&G
Our partnership with M&G Real Estate has led to the creation of M&G MyWorkplace app.
The MyWorkplace app is aimed at employees, visitors and contractors, that offers a range of features to help streamline the workplace experience.
Spica Technologies have developed an app for M&G to help their employees book desks, lockers or parking spaces, help familiarise with the layout of a particular M&G building and raise a request to the onsite facilities team.
Read all about our partnership with M&G Real Estate at Fenchurch Street in this article from Facilities Management Journal (FMJ) via the link below:
Partnership with M&G Real Estate article
PropTech Hot Seat podcast
Our MD Tim Streather caught up with Carol Tallon on iPropertyRadio.com to discuss Spica’s unique integration-first approach, ESG innovation and the future of the workplace.
Listen to the full episode here to find out what’s next for Spica:
PropTech Hot Seat podcast with our MD Tim
Authority Magazine Article
Our Product Director Lynda Gillson sat down with David Leichner to discuss ‘The Future of The Internet of Things (IoT) And How It May Improve Our Health & Our Lives’ for Authority Magazine.
Lynda Gillson discussed the latest IoT projects she’s working on and shares her 5 tips to create a highly successful career in the IoT industry.
Read the full article here: Interview With David Leichner
Maddyness Article
Our Managing Director Tim Streather shared his thoughts with Maddyness UK about how businesses can succeed by finding eco-friendly and cost effective solutions.
“By integrating IoT solutions and Smart Energy AI products into a Smart Building System, Facilities Management (FM) teams are able to view a centralised dashboard in order to view, track and optimise buildings, and make business decisions in real time to save costs and improve worker comfort.”
Read the full piece here: Saving money in the modern office
Award nominations in 2022
- Our product ecopilot® was shortlisted for the BESA Group National Awards 2022 in the Product Innovation of the Year Award Category.
- We were honoured to be shortlisted for Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s Excellence in Technology & Innovation Award, sponsored by . Aston University.
- We’re happy to announce that Spica has ranked number 22 as one of the UK’s most innovative property technology creators of 2022, in BusinessCloud’s PropTech 50.
- Our highly talented team member Małgorzata Sosnowska was nominated in the Rising Star Category for the Midlands Women in Tech Award 2022!
Spica Family
We had an array of wonderful team activities this year to connect and strengthen the Spica team bond. . We’ve also had fantastic new additions to our team of Spica stars, check out our new starter blog here: New Starter in 2022
Summer BBQ at Bruntwood:
The best part of our Spica Technologies office is being located at Innovation Birmingham Campus, in the heart of the Knowledge Quarter where we had a great Commonwealth Games Summer BBQ in July. Organised by the Bruntwood SciTech team, they hosted a lovely Summer BBQ with great food, awesome entertainment and fun games to take part in!
Summer Socials:
In July, we didn’t let the 40-degree heat stop us from having fun! We had an amazing summer social playing pool, beer pong and taking a dip in Birmingham’s largest ball pit.
Christmas Party:
To round off the year, we had a fantastic Christmas party at the NEC. It was a wonderful night. The venue was great, the attention to detail was excellent, and the food was scrumptious. We had the opportunity to welcome our new starters beginning in the new year, which was great for getting them acquainted with the team.
New Starters joining us in the new year
We’re excited to announce our new starters joining us next year!
Stefani Ermogenidou would be taking a new role as Content Marketing Executive
Paul Mundy would be joining our organization as a Business Developer Manager
Tokunbo Akanda will join us as our Software Delivery Manager
We have an exciting range of opportunities for the next year!
Check out vacancies to apply: Careers Page
At SPICA Technologies Ltd, we are on a mission to make the workplace experience more productive and enjoyable for employees whilst culminating in an engaged and happier corporate culture.
This was a quick overview of what Spica did in 2022. And in 2023, we anticipate announcing new discoveries, product updates, and other developments.
