Work

Giovanni Vandewaetere is an embedded systems design expert at Quicksand micro-electronics. An engineering company that designs micro-electronics for industrial, medical and consumer applications. Specializing in ultra-low power electronics, combined with long-range RF solutions. One of these RF solutions is a network called SIGFOX.

SIGFOX is the world’s leading provider of dedicated connectivity for the Internet of Things. The network complements existing high-bandwidth systems by providing simple, economical, energy-efficient two-way transmission of small quantities of data over long distances. It lowers the barriers to wide implementation of IoT solutions and greatly extends the battery and service life of connected devices.

Giovanni has been developing SIGFOX devices from the beginning, long before the network was available in Belgium. Working closely together with SIGFOX, Quicksand became the first company to develop a commercial application that communicates bidirectionally over the SIGFOX network.

A grasp out of the projects that Quicksand engineered as a subcontractor:

• Econation Lightcatcher, an intelligent daylight solution.
• Zembro the first intelligent bracelet specially designed for the elderly.
• HydroKonekt Smart valve, a battery powered SIGFOX watermeter with valve.
• TankU a SIGFOX connected ultrasonic tank monitor.
• BGR Mona, a development platform that was the first prototype of the June smart meter reader. Containing multiple radio modules and communication options, a camera and a powerful Cortex-M7 processor.
• QW Development kit an mbed enabled platform to quickly explorer the SIGFOX network.

There’s many more, but naming them all would take us out of scope!

Note: If you have a project and you are looking for a subcontractor or technical advice, feel free to contact Quicksand via info@quicksand.be .

Before starting work at Quicksand, Giovanni started out his professional career in 2013 as an IT Infrastructure support engineer at Savaco. Providing server migrations, virtualization, maintenance and general IT support using hardware and software from market-leaders like HP, Microsoft, VMWare, Citrix, Symantec and CheckPoint.  In 2015 he returned to Quicksand, the company where Giovanni had his internship during his master’s-thesis.

Job-experiences during summer internships:

• Performing maintenance tasks to the coastal trams of “De Lijn” as an electrical technician [2012]
• IT support technician at the “AZ Damiaan” clinic [2011]
• Engineer at Anttron Electronics [2010]
• Worker at an Industrial bakery called “Vermaut’s Boerenbrood” [2007, 2008, 2009]
• Worker at the brick-yard “Desimpel” [2006]

Studies

Giovanni started high-school at the “Broederschool”, following the Math and Sciences program. After 4 years he switched to an electricity-electronics program at the “VTI”, as this was more in his field of interest.

After graduating high-school, Giovanni started his bachelor’s degree Electronics-ICT at the university college KHBO in Ostend, located at the Belgian coast, directly at the beach. Giovanni graduated magna cum laude from his bachelor’s degree  in 2011.

He then went on to follow a transition program of 1 year, giving the opportunity to switch to a Master’s degree. In the mean time Giovanni also followed Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) courses after class at “CVO De Avondschool Oostende”. Earning him qualifications for “Network Fundamentals”, “LAN Switching and Wireless”, “Routing protocols and concepts” and “Accessing the WAN”.

In 2013 Giovanni graduated magna cum laude as Master of Science (MSc), Electronics – ICT. Earning him the title of a fully qualified Industrial Engineer.

Giovanni still thinks that a day nothing learned, is a day wasted. This is why he strives to extend his knowledge every day, for the rest of his life.

Life

Born on July 10 – 1990, Giovanni is the son of Stefaan Vandewaetere and Brenda Vanhoorne.

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