1,000 mangrove saplings planted in sensor-ready area

Ericsson Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh head Todd Ashton (fourth from right) together with edotco Group’s team and volunteers during the planting of the saplings.

ERICSSON and edotco Group Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Axiata Group Bhd (Axiata), have planted more than 1,000 mangrove saplings in Kampung Dato Hormat, Sabak Bernam, Selangor.

This initiative further expands Ericsson’s “Connected Mangroves” project in the area which was initiated in 2015.

More than 200 volunteers from Ericsson Malaysia, edotco and the local community came together for the mangrove planting activity.

The area where the mangrove saplings were planted has been equipped with sensors to monitor real-time information on soil and weather conditions, fires, water levels and any intrusion from third parties to ensure the saplings reach full maturity.

These sensors help compile and send data directly to the cloud where farmers, NGOs, analysts and authorities can access it to understand more about the health of the saplings.

The Connected Mangroves project, the first of its kind in the world, combines cloud, machine-to-machine and mobile broadband to help the local community to better manage the growth of new mangrove saplings and the planted areas.

Since 2015, the project has consistently shown 80% of new mangrove saplings reach maturity through timely interventions by the local community, based on sensor data.

Ericsson is now looking at expanding the Internet of Things (IoT) solutions which are currently being used for the roject.

The company has also announced a hackathon – “Technology for Good Challenge 2.0” – co-organised with Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia – to stimulate innovations in the IoT space for the mangrove ecosystem and create local use cases to accelerate cellular IoT adoption by universities and industries.