TelematiX. The grand telematics event 2019

It’s already been two months since the epic TelematiX conference finished. During it, we gathered together the community representatives from all over the world to share their international experience. And it worked just great! Now, when the dust has settled, we want to refresh some TelematiX memories and share the details with those who think that pictures on Facebook and YouTube videos are not enough. 

And everything indeed turned out to be global. Judge for yourself: over 560 professionals in GPS monitoring and IoT from 300+ companies and 70+ countries of the world got together on July 30 - August 1, 2019, in Minsk. The event was taking place in Minsk Marriott Hotel, one of the few hotels in Minsk suitable to accommodate so many people on a single occasion. Training sessions, Gurtam solutions, and presentations on partners projects, crazy networking… All these had to be fit into the three days schedule. However, let’s dive into some details.

Day one: training sessions

To warm up the participants, we traditionally reserved the first working day for Gurtam training sessions. They were divided into three tracks by languages (English, Russian, Spanish) and four sections by topics (Business, Growth, Wialon, Tech). 

Marketing sessions were popular as always. For example, Kirill Yakunin, Gurtam brand manager, contemplated if the B2B trends were applicable for telematics domain.

Now, the attendees know that all trends should be taken with a grain of salt. But you better watch the session’s record instead of reading about it:

Nastassia Sachenka, Head of HR Department at Gurtam, shared the useful rules of managing the staff. Anastasiya Dubina, Gurtam Business Analyst, encouraged the partners to use the options of my.gurtam.com to the fullest and told how to do it.

Besides, there were sessions on sales, Wialon flagship apps, fuel control, Eco Driving, and so on. We dare to hope that everyone found what they were looking for. All presentations can be downloaded from the personal account.

The day finished in a way many partners have been asking us for a long time – with a city tour around Minsk in a big red double-decker. A good company and some lovely views contributed to the excellent end of a productive day.

By the way, during the first day, each TelematiX participant got a pair of cool telematics socks. We call them telematics not because they send the number of your steps to Wialon or the distance you walked in them but because they are decorated with satellites and vehicles. Two million of them are already connected to Wialon. We were happy to see that many participants put them on almost right away.

Sameer Obeid, CEO, Traklink, Jordan, shows his telematics socks

On July 30, the very first hackathon for developers in the Telematics history began. Within 48 hours, they had to develop a working solution for a real project. Read Gurtam blog post to learn which solution turned out to be the most viable.

Day two: keynote presentations

The yearly results of the company and the community, the vision of where the telematics market is headed, new solutions and trends – all this was highlighted during the keynote presentations by Gurtam top managers. All the participants quite literally gathered in the large conference hall to listen to them. 

After inspiring speeches and a group photo, partners proceeded to panel discussions and workshops that were organized in three languages just like training sessions on the first day.

For example, the panel discussion on the biggest global competitive threats and trends was extremely informative. Sameer Obeid, Traklink, together with Todd Morris, BrickHouse Security, and Kaloyan Kumanov, NIK Electronics, shared their experiences in regards to working on different markets. 

Hardware Expo started working on July 31 as well, and the participants could play with devices up to the end of the conference. Thirty-two hardware manufacturers from Europe and Asia brought their latest solutions and bestsellers here. There were so many trackers, MDVRs, FLSs, and other devices that you could find more only on the specialized exhibition somewhere in China.

Tim Almaev from Escort is explaining things about their FLS 

Day three: partner presentations

At the end of TelematiX, Gurtam partners, hardware manufacturers, and connectivity providers were ready to deliver their presentations and attend some more panel discussions. The topics varied from optimized dispatching & field force management to fuel cards integration and real obstacles that prevent a good integrator from growing. And these are just some presentations and panels in English.

Alongside them, there were talks in Russian and Spanish featuring lots of exciting topics: cutting-edge hardware solutions, video surveillance, ambitious Wialon- and flespi-based projects. 

Mindo Banaitis, CTO, QWEKEE, tells about Wialon-based car sharing solution

Gurtam niche solutions received their share of the audience's attention on the last day, too. Product managers on Fleetrun, NimBus, Hecterra, Wialon app projects talked about the achievements, upcoming functionality, and the tips you can use today.

Victoria Suskova, Product Manager, Gurtam, shares NimBus achievements

Gala Party

Closer to the evening, the participants were anxious to get to the restaurant and relax after three days of hard work. 

Ballerinas dancing at the entrance, red carpet, and waiters serving champagne automatically implied that the party theme would be immortal but somewhat boring classics. But to everyone’s delight, it was not the case. Aliaksandr Kuushynau, Head of Wialon Division, “broke” a huge screen on the stage, and the “rock” Gurtam-style fun began.

Somewhere between airbrushing different body parts, creating crazy rock hairdos, and taking pictures of happy faces we awarded the companies that got to Wialon TOP 50 Global and GPS Hardware Manufacturers TOP 10 (the ceremony took place for the first time ever) while a fantastic firework became the culmination of the evening.

But what do our partners say about these three super packed days?

John Grygorcewicz, PT Phoenix Solusi Indonesia

“Gurtam = Great Unity Relentless Teaming Amazing Memories.”

Pablo Guillem, Localizador Sherlog

“It was a totally great pleasure to know you all in person. I would never have thought better week as I enjoyed those days. All the Telematix, organization, people, workshops, presentations… Congratulations!

You really all do a hard job to feel us all the partners as family. I know it is quite hard work to do and I really appreciate it. I understand the rest of the partners feel as I do.

Now I can understand why Gurtam is growing without limits. It is quite interesting what does the future hold but must be very interesting.”

Rajeev Bajaj, Alba Smart:

“Thank you Gurtam Team for amazing 3 action packed days, excellent and flawless planning, very well-chosen diverse topics, wonderful Gala Award Party, and the best of all Gurtam partner community. One word – “super”! Safe trip back home to all. Cheers.”

The conference also wasn't left unnoticed by people who can hardly tell what telematics is. Belarusian main television channels showed some videos about TelematiX and Gurtam. 

So, that’s it about TelematiX! It was full of joy (after reuniting with friends and colleagues from other countries), full of heated debates and pre-performance nerves, unexpected occurrences and sadness caused by the necessity to get back home. But already next summer Gurtam will be holding Telematics 2020!

We don’t know yet what the next conference will be marked by. But we know that TelematiX will stay forever in our hearts… and albums on social media.