The launch marks the market immersion programme that enables Singapore-based startups to showcase their solutions to Thai enterprises, government entities
The Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE), a national private-led organisation seeking to drive entrepreneurship and innovation in Singapore, joins hands with True Digital Park (TPDK), an innovation ecosystem for both Thai and international startups industry players, to officially launch the new True Digital Park–ACE Singapore Centre.
The partnership was announced today during TDPK’s T.O.P 2019 – Together of Possibilities Grand Opening event.
Back in May 2018, ACE and True Digital Park signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that represents the collaboration between Singapore and Thailand in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation.
The opening of the Centre marks ACE’s support for local and international startups with market access opportunities. The Centre is the second one launched by ACE this year and the first within Southeast Asia.
With the Centre, Singaporean startups will be able to leverage on the TDPK-ACE Singapore Centre as a Landing Zone for access to local partners, spaces for work, and participate in market-focussed programmes.
True Digital Park (TDPK) has been a key strategic partner for Singapore startups to ‘soft-land’ and use Bangkok as a launchpad into the Thai market. Located in the heart of Bangkok’s cyber-tech district, the facility houses startups, venture capitalists, accelerators, and government offices.
Singapore startups arriving in Thailand through TDPK will be able to plug-in from day one to help them gain a foothold in their internationalisation plans.
In conjunction with the opening of the True Digital Park-ACE Singapore Centre, ACE also brought along a delegation of 14 Singapore startups. These startups are part of a 4-day ACE Market Immersion Programme to identify and explore business opportunities in the Thai market.
They are:
Ai Pallete, an AI platform for FMCG product innovation.
Excide, a platform that scales finance capabilities for SMEs in Southeast Asia by leveraging on technology to re-design finance processes and implemented by a curated group of qualified finance talents
Fleetnetics, a flagship product of DewTouch, is a platform that takes car rental, spare part distributors and motor garages to the cloud.
Haulio, a Singapore-based digital container haulage network.
Infinitus, a blockchain-based mobile application that protects and safe keep users’ private keys, mnemonic phases, pincodes, and recovery seeds for all types of crypto wallets.
Motorist.sg, a Singapore’s AutoConcierge Platform that simplifies vehicle ownership.
OFFEO, a design-driven online video maker that enable small businesses and marketers to create compelling social media videos easily.
Omniaz, a platform that drives the global alcoholic beverage industry toward technology and data to become the leading global BevTech company.
Rock Nano Global, a company that creates gamification and game-based learning type products.
SecureAge, a data security company headquartered in Singapore that places real security and usability on equal footing.
Ezyprocure, intelligent procurement solutions to market that help maximise productivity, cashflow, and profitability.
Small Batch Learning, a startup that solves the problem of “how do we fund free education” by launching the world’s first Smart Learning Network.
SmartAHC, a platform that provides data infrastructure, which leverages on Internet-of-Thing, Artificial Intelligent, and Computer Vision Technology, to bridge the livestock data and livestock producers’ ERP system.
TakejiDesign, a startup with a mission to produce disruptive media and technology that helps businesses and/or organisation achieve greater efficiency and excellence by driving impact in their industry and consumers’ daily lives.
On the sidelines of the launch was also the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between ACE and the Singapore-Thai Chamber of Commerce (STCC). STCC is a registered chamber in Thailand with about 250 corporate members that promotes and develops various aspects of economic and social relations between Singapore and Thailand.
Under the MOU, companies in each of ACE’s and STCC’s respective ecosystems can expect to benefit from access to community events, workshops, programmes, business contacts, and investor networks, among others.
Acronis states that the funding will allow it to expand the engineering team in Singapore, Bulgaria, and Arizona
Cyber protection startup Acronis announced that it has received a US$147 million investment led by Goldman Sachs. The investment round, the company said, sets the valuation of the company to over one billion dollars.
Acronis said that the funding will be used to expand its engineering team in Singapore, Bulgaria, and Arizona; build additional data centers; and grow through acquisitions.
Additionally, Acronis plans to use the capital to accelerate the business growth in North America in partnership with Acronis SCS, an independent software vendor and distributor for the public sector.
Acronis was founded in Singapore in 2003 and incorporated in Switzerland in 2008. Using AI technologies and blockchain-based data authentication, Acronis offers data protection in any environment, including physical, virtual, cloud, mobile workloads, and applications.
“The investment round led by Goldman Sachs will help us to fast-track the product development through acquisitions of companies and additional resources, and accelerate the growth,” said Serguei Beloussov, founder and CEO of Acronis.
Recently, Acronis announced the Acronis Cyber Platform that enables third-parties to customise, extend, and integrate Acronis’ cyber protection solutions to the needs of their customers and partners.
Acronis products include:
Acronis Cyber Protection solutions for data safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security.
Acronis Cyber Platform that enables third-party developers to customise, extend and integrate cyber protection into their solutions
Acronis Cyber Infrastructure that provides the most cost-efficient and secure environment for running cyber protection solutions and data storage.
Acronis Cyber Architecture that guarantees the privacy of data and gives customers the full control of data location.
Acronis Cyber Cloud that enables service providers and enterprise IT to deliver cyber protection services to end customers.
Furthermore, Acronis also noted its plan to focus on the combination of traditional data protection and cybersecurity into one integrated solution addressing all Five Vectors of Cyber Protection– ensuring the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security of data (SAPAS). The SAPAS covers services such as backup, security, disaster recovery, and enterprise file sync and share solutions.
The company has dual headquarters in Switzerland and Singapore and currently operates in 18 countries.
Also, Indonesia finally will have its green data centre campus, and FIT Company launches a wellness ecosystem app FITCO
InstaReM launches digital money transfers from Canada [Press Release]
InstaReM, the Singapore-headquartered digital cross-border payments fintech has launched its service in Canada, in a move to strengthen its presence in North America.
InstaReM is registered as a Money Service Business with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) to remit and transmit funds out of Canada. The launch of the digital money transfer service will help individuals and businesses in Canada to send money to over sixty countries with InstaReM’s Zero-Margin and Low-Fee international money transfers.
Canada is one of the leading remittance-sending countries in the world, which is attributed to the large expat population from different parts of the world. In 2017, as much as US$24.6 billion was sent out of Canada in remittances with countries like China (US$4.14 bn), India (US$2.88 bn), Philippines (US$2.37 bn), France (US$1.23 bn) and Italy (US$1.07 bn) being the top recipients, according to the World Bank.
Wellness startup the FIT Company launches FITCO, combining all wellness-related services under one app [Press Release]
The FIT Company, a healthy lifestyle and wellness startup, announces the launch of FITCO, a mobile app that offers holistic wellness service. Right now, FITCO has two main services categorised under two main pillars: Move, for physical activities, and Eats, for access to healthy, nutritious food.
With its services, Move lets users book personal, group, or trainer-led fitness sessions based on schedules and locations with the on-demand coach. Eats, on the other hand, lets users choose a menu from a nutritionist-approved daily catering service or consultation with a nutritionist.
FITCO is now available in both Play Store and App Store.
Indonesia to get its Green Data Centre Campus early in 2020 [Press Release]
Jakarta, Indonesia will have its first green data centre campus early in 2020, an official statement said. SpaceDC, which is the company behind the initiative, will use natural gas to produce electricity to power the data centre.
Furthermore, it will also recycle waste heat from the gas generators to provide cooling through absorption chillers, a unique energy-saving feature for a Southeast Asian data centre.
The 1.8-hectare campus in Jakarta Barat will house two data centres, the first being JAK2, a 2.6MW Tier III facility.
“Lowering the environmental impact of data centres is at the heart of SpaceDC’s company philosophy. When selecting a site, we always look for innovative ways to use local natural resources to create green energy and reduce our carbon footprint,” says Darren Hawkins, CEO of SpaceDC. “Our 26.6MW Indonesian campus will be powered by natural gas, which will both reduce the environmental impact and increase the overall fault tolerance of the site.”
Indigram Labs partners Department of Science and Technology, NIDHI-SSS to fund potential startups [Press Release]
Indigram Labs Foundation (ILF), a technology incubator and accelerator, announces that a US$1.4 million seed fund is in operation to support promising startups under the scheme “National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations – Seed Support System (NIDHI-SSS)” of the Department of Science and Technology.
Indigram Labs is an agriculture ecosystem, focusses on the technological, social, and financial solutions. It is one of India’s leading agribusiness incubators based in New Delhi and aims at fostering and nurturing viable business ideas through the process of consulting, mentoring, leveraging technology tie-ups and giving access to various platforms.
NIDHI seed support is a system for providing financial assistance to potential startups with promising ideas, innovations, and technologies. This will help a few of the incubatee start-ups with innovative ideas and or technologies to graduate to a level where they will be able to raise investments from Angel Investors or get a loan from commercial banks /financial institutions.
Startups with innovative and executable ideas/products oriented to the agriculture sector are welcome to apply for this opportunity through the Indigram website.
–
Apart from eliminating the cost of significant dedicated infrastructure, cloud-based solutions usually come at a pocket-friendly price
Choosing the right authoring tool for your business is a matter of diligence. After all, an authoring tool is supposed to reduce the time of course development and the wrong choice can actually cost you more time.
With several types of authoring tools now available in the market, business owners have a significant variety to choose from. However, one special variety of authoring tools that are fast gaining popularity is cloud-based authoring tools.
Cloud-based authoring tools allow users to virtually eliminate the time taken to create the course material and upload it to the learning management system.
However, being on the cloud gives these authoring tools many other advantages. Some of them are:
Saves time
As mentioned earlier, the foremost benefit of using cloud-based authoring tools is quick delivery of course materials. With online creation, approval, and delivery, new updates and course contents can be rolled out in as little as one day.
Cloud-based authoring tools also save time by eliminating the need to involve the IT department for permission to download the authoring tool on your device. It also helps users avoid slow installation processes and is not dependent on system maintenance to deliver optimum performance.
Moreover, many cloud-based authoring tools offer standardisation features that allow for a common change to be applied across content assets and templates. This means no more spending hours replacing a logo across hundreds of pages of content.
Another way these authoring tools save time is by eliminating the need for review meetings to ensure content is up to the mark. When multiple users can access and work on the course content at the same time, everyone stays on the same page.
Speaking of being updated with developments, another great advantage of cloud-based authoring tools is their ability to enable collaboration.
Enables collaboration
It is obvious how a cloud-based eLearning authoring tools can enable collaboration. The time-related benefits of collaboration were described in the previous section.
However, the benefits of collaboration exceed quick delivery of course content. Being able to collaborate means stakeholders and users in remote locations can connect, share ideas, and make changes to the course material in real-time.
This means the comprehensiveness of your course is not limited to the capabilities and understanding of a single resource.
Making changes is easy
Unlike downloadable authoring tools, cloud eLearning authoring toolsenable users to make changes to the course content, even after it is “live”. Sure, making changes to the course content in a computer hard-drive and uploading to the LMS is possible, but is hardly time-effective.
On the other hand, with cloud authoring tools, an instructional designer simply has to log in to their account, make changes, and save them. These changes will start reflecting in the course content whenever a learner next logs into their account. The best part is, many authoring tools allow designers to make small changes to the course content even through mobile devices.
Secure online storage
As secure as you may take your cybersecurity, data saved on a computer hard drive can never be considered safe.
Even a simple and honest mistake of saving the course content in the wrong folder can result in the loss of invaluable course content that was the product of paid man-hours.
Using a cloud-based authoring tool absolutely eliminates this risk. Not only is your data protected in a cloud server, most authoring tools automatically save any changes made to the content, along with an “edit-history” of the content.
Easier to track progress
Most modern cloud-based authoring tools come loaded with tracking technology such as the xAPI. This technology allows designers and organisations to effectively monitor how the learners are interacting with the course content.
The tracking abilities powered by xAPI also allow users to track learner performance metrics such as test results and time taken to complete assessment exercises.
Easier standardisation of content
Cloud-based authoring tools provide shared access to templates and resources to everyone involved in the course development process. This central repository doesn’t just give the designers a library of reusable content; it also makes sure the branding and formatting of the course content are consistent throughout.
Conclusion
The future is based on the cloud, and the future is here.
This doesn’t just mean that businesses of all shapes and sizes can find a cloud-based authoring tool to suit their needs. It also makes this smart solution scalable.
As your business needs growth, you will be able to add more collaborators to your authoring tool, without a hole burning inside your pocket.
–
Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.
Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.
By skipping past the difficulties our emotions can bring, we miss important opportunities to grow
What do scorn, hate, anxiety, shame, and regret have in common?
According to David Hawkins, they may be killing us.
It’s no secret that our emotions can play a significant role in our mental and physical health. But Hawkins, a psychiatrist and lecturer, theorises that what we feel daily is a matter of life and death — at least on the cellular level.
Hawkins’ theory is based on his recent finding that all emotions have a specific amount of energy. While Hawkins believes lower-energy emotions like anxiety and shame contribute to cell death, more positive states of mind like peace, joy, love, and reason can actually make us healthier.
Powerful as our emotions may be, here’s the good news: we’re not victims of the feelings that negatively affect our lives. Research on neuroplasticity demonstrates that the human brain is more than capable of reorganising itself.
But where do we start? How do we gain control of our emotions — and even leverage them to be stronger leaders and creatives?
Learning how to manage our emotions begins with a basic understanding of the brain.
The science of our emotions
Our brains are made up of two primary structures.
The limbic system controls our emotions and behavioural responses, triggering a sympathetic nervous system response when we’re under stress. This is part of the fight-or-flight reaction, the brain’s instinctive, physiological way of protecting us when it senses we’re in danger.
Have you ever felt nervous before a big presentation? You have the limbic system to thank for your sweaty palms and stomach butterflies. Ever been cut off by a reckless driver on the interstate? Your cheeks grow hot, and your heart begins to race because your limbic system senses a threat. In short, the limbic system helps us survive.
The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is far more evolved. If someone’s ever told you to “use your head,” they’re probably referring to the prefrontal cortex, the conscious part of the brain that allows us to reason, delay gratification, and experience the meaning beneath our emotions.
While the limbic system is responsible for keeping us alive, problems can arise when it’s in the driver’s seat for too long:
“When people are in the grip of fear, anxiety or depression, they are unable to make realistic assessments of situations,” writes Dave Gray, an author and visual thinking coach. “The prefrontal cortex goes ‘offline’. Creative thinking and innovation, indeed, all higher-level brain functions, are stifled”
So, how do we find mental balance?
If the limbic system is the brain’s accelerator, the prefrontal cortex is like the brakes — helping us slow down, assess the situation, and respond to our emotions appropriately.
Learning how to hit the brakes is the premise of emotional regulation, or the ability to control how we respond to our feelings — and an important step toward our personal growth and wellbeing.
The art of emotional agility
No one is born with the ability to self-regulate. We see this with babies who can’t fall asleep without being rocked, and toddler meltdowns in the grocery store checkout line. Children communicate through emotions.
By the time we’re school-aged, most of us have learned how to temper our emotional responses to difficult situations, whether through positive thinking or distraction.
We learn that we can control our emotions, and they don’t control us — a critical facet of our wellbeing. In fact, emotional regulation is a vital part of maturing socially and an important pillar of mental health.
But there’s a difference between merely moving past our emotions and actually managing them. While emotional regulation focuses on preventing a negative response, emotional management can help us leverage emotions for personal and professional growth.
Harvard Medical School professor and psychologist Susan David calls the practice of managing our emotions by mindfully engaging with them “emotional agility:”
“Whereas positive thinking and avoidance have overemphasised the role of our thoughts, emotional agility is a skill set that builds on our ability to face our emotions, label them, understand them and then choose to move forward deliberately,” David writes.
“It is the ability to recognise when you’re feeling stressed, be able to step out of your stress, and then decide how to act in a way that is congruent with your values aligned with your goals.”
If emotional regulation is a science, then emotional agility is an art.
With the ability to strategically embrace and harness our emotions, we can grow in our creative, communication, and leadership abilities. As a social scientist and author Joseph Grenny writes:
“The ability to recognise, own, and shape your own emotions is the master skill for deepening intimacy with loved ones, magnifying influence in the workplace, and amplifying our ability to turn ideas into results.”
Between the occasional disappointment of slow growth, the frustration of a bug in our software, or even simple office miscommunications, my tendency is often to move on, with a smile on my face. There are bigger things to worry about, and I want my team to see me as positive and resilient.
Isn’t that what good leaders do?
While staying calm in the face of adversity is part of managing a team, it’s not necessarily the best way to manage emotions. In fact, evidence shows I may be doing myself a disservice by wearing a grin when my pulse is speeding beneath the surface.
Burying emotions has an equally risky impact: When we avoid or numb how we feel, our emotions often come back magnified. One study shows that smokers who actively tried not to think about cigarettes ended up dreaming about cigarettes, which led them to smoke more.
Numbering our emotions can negatively affect our behaviour, but more importantly, it can also limit our potential. To become truly resilient, we first have to experience our emotions. We have to allow ourselves to feel difficult things and experience life’s trials in order to grow stronger and wiser.
While it’s tempting to escape uncomfortable emotions by quickly moving on, distracting ourselves, or faking positivity, choosing to dig in and feel them can strengthen and stretch us:
“Unless we can process, navigate and be comfortable with the full range of our emotions, we won’t learn to be resilient,” writes David. “We must have some practice dealing with those emotions or we will be caught off guard. I believe the strong cultural focus on happiness and thinking positively is actually making us less resilient.”
Hiding from our emotions also disconnects us from ourselves. Difficult feelings mirror what we care about most in life, because “emotions like sadness, guilt, grief and anger are beacons for our values,” says David. For example, if you feel frustrated when a colleague arrives late for a meeting, you probably value respect and punctuality.
2. Tell a new story
While moving on to the next meeting or email during a moment of anger or disappointment seems like the simpler response, it can be more beneficial to reframe how we feel — to challenge the story our emotions are telling us.
When we view our emotions as “negative,” an escape attempt is inevitably around the corner. But reframing how we feel helps us to challenge and take ownership of our emotions
Beneath the surface of every feeling is a story. Think about it: in the face of a harsh and uninvited critique, you’re probably frustrated by your co-worker’s lack of tact, but look deeper, and you’re probably threatened by his comments because you wonder if you actually are incompetent.
Often, these stories represent core beliefs that took root much earlier in life.
To manage the emotions that surface in the heat of the moment, Joseph Grenny recommends exploring your “primal story.” For example, if you feel ashamed when a colleague criticises you, try to trace back the origin feeling or experience.
When was the first time you felt ashamed of yourself?
As long as we believe these “primal stories” to be true, Grenny says we’re doomed to be victims of our emotions, which leaves us feeling out of control.
But understanding your origin story is the first step to challenging the emotion that comes from it:
“I’ve become aware of the primal origin of the stories I tell — and learned to challenge the perception that my safety and worth are at risk in these moments,” writes Grenny.
3. Build your emotional vocabulary
Managing our emotions also means simply identifying them. A big emotion without a name can feel overwhelming and unending. But naming our emotions empowers us to be realistic about their impact and find a solution.
Psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett says misinterpreting our emotions can cause us to respond inappropriately — and that’s easy to do since many emotional sensations feel similar.
Rather than describing yourself as sad, which feels vague, try labelling your emotion as “dejected” or “disappointed.”
Feldman Barrett refers to this specificity as “emotional granularity,” which can help us more deeply understand our circumstances, or reframe negative emotions to feel less threatening. For example, realising that you’re disappointed by an investor’s reaction to your presentation probably feels more manageable than a vague sense of sadness.
Hitting the brakes to accelerate growth
Reframing and naming emotions may not be an escape route for everything we feel, but that’s not the goal in the first place.
Emotional agility aims to manage, and even leverage, emotions to move forward in our work and our relationships. Because when we can hit the brakes on the emotions that hold us back, we can begin to accelerate toward the things we want the most.
–
Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.
Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.
