One of my major undertakings for DISH was the innovation lab, or iLab. Our goal was to create a location that inspires and supports innovation within the company, no matter what form it took. At the time, DISH had acquired a 5g spectrum and was looking into IoT applications, so one of our main focuses when starting the lab was physical computing.
In order to support the IoT and wireless device innovation push, we offered a few different different services for employees. First, we allowed our employees to borrow Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, and components so that they could experiment with making their own concepts and learn on their own. This was a very successful program that fed into our company wide “Innovation Sprints” as many of the participants got their equipment and basic info on usage from us.
The second way we helped was by offering training sessions based around Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and the new wireless spectrum. We held dozens of classes, and we received great feedback from our students. Many of our students went on to create their own ideas to both support the new spectrum as well as improve their day-to-day operations. Below are the slides from our introductory courses for Arduino and Raspberry Pi.