How do you know what’s going on at home when you go to work? Once the "Little Ant" smart camera was launched, it was a hit, selling 1 million units in less than a year. Another "Little Ant" sports camera, which is only a little larger than a matchbox, can shoot 170 degrees wide angle and can shoot 60-120 frames per second. It was listed on US Securities News and soon opened up overseas markets. "We are proud that many foreign athletes held our sports cameras in their hands at the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games," said Da Shengwei, founder of Little Ant Technology.
Although founded only five years ago, the internet company is already a global leader in imaging intelligent end point products, computer vision algorithms and other fields. It is the only Chinese company to win Amazon’s "all-round seller". At the Shanghai Science and Technology Awards Conference held last week, Da Shengwei won the Outstanding Contribution Award for Youth Science and Technology.
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Starting a business for the first time in Shanghai, I learned to define products according to the market
When he was a high school student in Henan, Da Shengwei participated in the National Mathematical Olympiad League and won the first place in the province. Hua Luogeng is the idol of Da Shengwei. Although he later majored in electronic engineering at Tsinghua University, he never lost his love for mathematics, and his solid mathematical foundation paved the way for him to make a career in the field of integrated circuits. When he was studying for a master’s and doctoral degree at the University of California, Davis, his mentor Steve Lewis was the originator of analog integrated circuits. This learning experience inspired his interest in integrated circuit design. After graduating from the doctoral qualification exam with full marks, in order to accumulate more experience, Da Shengwei worked for two excellent analog integrated circuit companies in Silicon Valley for another five years.
In 2006, Dasheng Wei, who had made up his mind to return to China to start a business in the future before going abroad, chose Shanghai and founded "Panda", which means laying a good foundation in the integrated circuit industry. The company sold its self-developed power management and audio processing chips to the consumer end point product industry, and survived the financial crisis in 2008. Later, it was acquired by a company. Dasheng Wei is grateful for his first venture in Shanghai – it honed his resistance to stress and leadership, strengthened his grasp of unknown and uncertain risks, and made him really learn to define products according to market needs.
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"Consumer products pay special attention to detail, small is big"
The second time I started my business, I was moved by a carton of Xiaomi’s mobile phone. This carton containing the mobile phone does not look as delicate as people are used to, and it is even a little simple and rough, but the most important components of the mobile phone are unreservedly "dried" with meticulous drawings on it, which is clear from the outer packaging. This is highly suitable for Xiaomi at that time to open up sales with high configuration and close to the cost. Da Shengwei was inspired to create a computer vision brand in the field of mobile Internet, and also pursued the ultimate configuration and affordable price.
In 2014, "Little Ant" was officially established. From "Pan Da" to "Little Ant", Da Shengwei believes that consumer products pay special attention to details, and small is big.
The field of computer vision is not a technical field that Da Shengwei is good at, but he is very optimistic about the prospects of this field. As the saying goes, a hundred things are better than a hundred things, and computer vision can make people more "far-sighted". "Xiaoyi" has built the world’s first video-based Internet of Things open API, which is widely used in new formats such as smart travel, smart home, smart retail, and smart parks. From the "Xiaoyi" smart camera that can see the movement at home after going out to work, to the "Xiaoyi" sports camera that captures precious moments while diving, skydiving, skiing, and surfing, the average age of this 300-strong company is 29 years old. Half of the foreign employees and 60% of the highly educated R & D personnel. Technological innovation and global vision are natural genes.
Just a year later, "Xiaoyi" established an Israeli research and development center, independently developing edge computing algorithms, with the smallest algorithm and the lowest power consumption, to achieve the most suitable functions in the end point device. So far, more than 100 overseas patents have been produced. This year, "Xiaoyi" also expanded overseas markets. They took an Uber car in San Francisco, USA, and chatted with partners about products along the way. When they arrived at the destination, the driver took out an "Xiaoyi" sports camera and asked, is this what you are talking about? It turned out that he bought it online and waited two months to get the goods. "At that time, we were very excited and felt that it was the right time. The overseas market exists." Today, "Xiaoyi"’s visual products have covered 17,942 cities in 168 countries around the world, and half of the market is overseas.
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From the slightest disturbance to the police, until the stranger shows up
In July this year, Xiaoyi Technology will settle in the artificial intelligence island of Zhangjiang Science City. "We have an ambition to combine artificial intelligence edge technology with cloud data to build a Cloud as a Service platform. In layman’s terms, to make more companies’Xiaoyi ‘, we will become’Cloud Ant’." Da Shengwei said that from the physical world to the digital world, the point of contact is the device of the Internet of Things. They hope to make the Internet of Things devices smarter by strengthening artificial intelligence computing. "Take the smart camera as an example. In the past, the alarm would be called when there was a slight disturbance, but now only strangers will be alerted when they appear. This is the optimization of edge computing. Edge computing is done locally, processed in real time, faster, and cheaper than cloud storage. "
After experiencing two very different startups in Shanghai, Da Shengwei’s greatest emotion is that he must maintain the habit of learning, not only learning about emerging technologies, but also learning from young people with endless creativity. At "Little Ant", Da Shengwei has always advocated an open, transparent and open corporate culture to encourage young people to be more creative.