The world has never encountered anything like COVID-19 before and this has inadvertently given rise to the true power and meaning of community, where different communities have rallied together against a common “enemy” to do their part, to flatten the curve.

Community builders and leaders from around the world have been challenged to pivot and re-strategise on how they can engage their communities, moving all activities from offline to online, in the combined efforts to practice physical distancing and yet preserving social connectivity.

These efforts serve not just to keep brands and businesses alive and relevant, but also to preserve the sanity of community members who will suddenly find the need to fill a void in their life.

Kampung Collective, based in Singapore, very quickly pulled together a dipstick survey involving 66 community builders from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China and  India.

This exercise also involved 30 Community Builders from a diverse representation of verticals and industries involving startups, venture capitalists, freelancers and government bodies, in both the profit and non-profit spaces, who participated in an online discussion addressing five key challenges that COVID-19 has impacted their respective communities.

Also Read: theAsianparent onboards ex-Mumbrella Asia GM Dean Carroll to drive offline initiatives for brands, communities

We summarise below the points of discussion and further findings from Kampung Collective:

Challenge #1: How do I build deep relationships with my community online?

One thing is certain, all who participated in the online discussion unanimously agree that over-communication on the online space to community members is preferred over not being heard at all.

The data also suggests that even though members might not be interactive and engaged through the online channels, it does not mean they are not seeing and reading information and activities that are happening real-time as you read this report.

Understanding what your community wants and needs is crucial as this will determine if the connections should be one-to-many or one-to-one and how regular the “check-ins” need to be and at what intensity.

Challenge #2: Our people are facing distress, how can we help?

Show vulnerability and talk openly about feelings because this shows authenticity and builds trust to allow for deeper connections even on the online space.

Now is the time to be creative – explore and start activities and challenges that take members outside and away from work-mode. Adopt more than one channel of connection for each member and understand what works best for each.

Also Read: All in the family: How to build a community that accelerates business

By identifying other empathetic community champions and leaders within the community, we can elevate them and empower them to further your reach and touch more with the personal touch.

Challenge #3: What are some ways we can engage with our community online?

Whilst most people are going to the more accessible and traditional platforms such as Zoom and Google Hangouts, there are actually quite a number of other free-to-use (or paid) platforms available for you to explore, from intimate one-to-one to one-to-many conference-style options.

Challenge #4: Our people are finding it hard to survive or secure their jobs, who will care about community?

It never is easy to communicate a cause and message that is larger than life and especially one that is eating up every aspect of everyone’s life, but as leaders in your respective communities, it is your responsibility to help your members understand this.

As Winston Churchill aptly put it, “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

Now is the time for Community Builders to lead our communities to the common goal to flatten the curve and help bring normality back to everyone’s life again.

Challenge #5: Unsure what type of content should we be sharing now with our community

With the large amount of unreliable information being circulated on different channels, it is important as leaders in your community to be careful to only communicate facts! Content should be positive and can be interspaced between news, resources and fun facts.

Also Read: The Unicroach approach: 10 tips on community building

Understanding what your community would find valuable and useful will help you decide which channels and mediums to use and what sort of innovative initiatives to roll out.

Also for your interest:

The discussion also brought to light more areas for further consideration and have been tabled for the next online meet-up.

Some key areas to highlight would be the issue of digital overload and fatigue with everything now being brought onto the online space; the possible consolidation of resources and channels as a solution to sieve through all the content (noise) for the most relevant to the receiver; attending to those who do not have the means to have the information delivered to them through online channels; and also understanding if the new engagement systems that have been put in place will be the new norm as a long-term implementation for community builders, even after the COVID-19 crisis.

For a more detailed report of the data, you may access it here

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

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India has a population of 1.3 billion and countless daily wage workers are stranded, jobless and hungry. Migrant workers, including teenagers, are walking all the way back home to their villages (sometimes over 50 miles away) and their entire families are starving and in dire need of help.

Indian entrepreneurs and startup investors living abroad all around the world — from Silicon Valley in the West to Hong Kong in the East — have come together in solidarity to urgently raise a US$1M #Covid19IndiaFund to meet the immediate and urgent needs of the most vulnerable families in rural India. 

Prominent entrepreneurs, investors, tech executives and celebrities, such as Craig of Craigslist, Joanne Wilson, Padmasree Warrior, Mira Nair, Shekhar Kapur, Ranvir Shorey, Arlan Hamilton, Nakul Mandan, Nora M. Denzel, have supported #Covid19IndiaFund through donations and/or social media shares. 

With very little action, we can literally save lives in India! In India, our dollars can go incredibly far. With only US$30, we can give food and hygiene kits to a family to survive for a whole month.

After evaluating several options, we have selected American India Foundation (AIF) as our partner non-profit of choice. They already have a vast infrastructure in place, including 300-plus staff members in India, and they will provide us with a transparent impact report a few weeks after the fund deployment.

AIF is a top-rated 501(c)(3) non-profit with corporate partners such as Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Dell and IBM, and board members such as Mastercard’s President & CEO Ajay Banga.  

AIF has already been active on the field (press coverage by India Today and The Economic Times), and our fund will help them further reach hundreds of thousands of Indians in dire need of help. 

This is a race against time, and we hope that you will donate whatever you can afford. Every penny counts! The campaign page transparently describes where your money will go. All donors will get receipts for tax deduction under Section 501(c)(3) of US Internal Revenue Code as well as an impact report post fund deployment.

We hope that you will donate whatever you can afford and invite your friends to contribute. Sharing campaigns on social media can increase our donations by as much as 350 per cent.

Here’s a template you can use: 

Countless daily wage workers are jobless & hungry in India amidst #COVID19 lockdown. Please donate & invite your network to contribute to $1M #Covid19IndiaFund https://bit.ly/Covid-19IndiaFund. Help 25k+ vulnerable families in India with food/survival kits and medical help!

We sincerely appreciate your consideration!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact any of us active volunteers: Ashish Aggarwal (San Francisco), Charu Sharma (San Francisco), Mohan Belani (Singapore), Pritish Sanyal (Hong Kong), Syed Musheer Ahmed (Hong Kong).

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

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In times of global health crisis like this, where many countries are facing either partial or even full lockdown, one of the things that we miss the most is visiting restaurants. For me personally, my favourite part about dining in is seeing the menu –and wondering the process that they had gone through to develop them.

But today, I learned how artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics can play a part in developing a well-loved restaurant menu.

Meet Wrap Bstrd, who dubs itself as the first F&B brand and dark kitchen in Singapore to be driven by AI and data analytics.

As a result of a partnership between tech-driven F&B company Ebb & Flow and AI solutions company SQREEM Technologies, Wrap Bstrd offers a range of wrap dishes that were developed combining behavioural data capabilities and pattern analysis with the skills of chefs, creative professionals, and branding experts from the two companies.

In an email interview with e27, SQREEM Technologies CEO and Co-Founder Ian Chapman-Banks explains how the company’s evaluation of over 200,000 individual data points to map behaviours and trends of distinct consumer groups in Singapore allowed the team at Ebb & Flow Group’s Dark Kitchen Lab to analyse customer journeys, predict demand, and map behavioural intent to purchase.

Also Read: 3 of the strangest uses of artificial intelligence that could make sense in the future

“What this means is that everything that went into the creation of Wrap Bstrd was derived from our ability to pinpoint the exact tastes and preferences of office workers in the CBD area – local comfort food that comes in convenient packaging,” he says.

How exactly does this process better than the conventional way of menu development?

According to Philipp K. Helfried, Chief Investment Officer at Ebb & Flow Group, it starts with enabling the company to take a lot of the guesswork and manual research out of the usual process required to build out F&B brands from the ground up.

“The ability to analyse 200,000 data points and convert these into actionable insights means we are able to glean a very specific direction to work towards when crafting our brands, and the menus. This way we can augment the creativity of our chefs by giving them the tools they need to make sure their recipe is a hit with a very specific demographic; in this case, office workers in the CBD area,” Helfried elaborates.

“Our use of data and analytics also spans more than just the creation of the menu, it also informs our decisions with regards to branding, and marketing; how, where and when we reach our audiences. It also allows us to trial new concepts and brands at a fraction of the cost of conventional methods, so we can test out new menus and fail fast with very minimal cost impact,” he continues.

Also Read: Artificial intelligence has been flourishing incredibly in these 5 Southeast Asia technology hubs

Technology in your plate

 

In their Artificial Intelligence Trends to Watch in 2020 report, CBInsights revealed some of the biggest themes to come up in the world of AI this year: from commercial deepfakes to AutoML to tackling small data problems in AI.

Implementation of AI in industries such as F&B –especially later when businesses will try to survive the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic– might also present an unprecedented urgency to it.

Chapman-Banks is certain that the use of AI in F&B industry will be a trend in the future.

“In the F&B sector, AI or tech is traditionally only used to simplify operations. But we plan to go one step further and use it to craft concepts, develop brands, inform marketing decisions and even help companies make key strategic and business decisions,” he says.

“If you are able to not just know, but really know what your customers want, your course of action becomes much clearer. Which means you can innovate that much faster,” he adds.

Also Read: Artificial intelligence is a key consideration for companies looking to adapt operations to optimise user experience

But as a tech company, SQREEM is aware that the barriers of adoption amongst non-tech business include lack of information.

“Non-tech businesses may not be aware of the possible use cases,” Chapman-Banks points out.

Together with Ebb & Flow, SQREEM is set to launch at least eight AI-driven delivery-only brands.

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Aerodyne makes strategic investment in Middle East’s drone solutions firm FEDS

Malaysia-based Aerodyne Group, a provider of drone-based asset management solutions, has made a strategic investment in FEDS Group Holdings, a drone solutions provider in the Middle East.

The transaction details were not disclosed.

This investment would allow Aerodyne to leverage on FEDS’s growth trajectory and financial performance to further enhance value for its shareholders.

In the Middle East, FEDS provides premium turnkey aerial inspections of infrastructure assets in the energy utilities, geospatial survey, public infrastructure, and telecommunications sectors.

This strategic investment is part of Aerodyne’s two-year global plan, which will potentially see the completion of seven M&As within the period.

In December 2019, Aerodyne announced a similar strategic alliance with Measure UAS in America.

SFA collaborates with MAS, others to support fintech industry affected by COVID-19

Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) today announced the results of the recently-conducted survey with its members on the impact of COVID-19 on the fintech industry.

SFA has been working with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and key ecosystem partners, including National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute), on initiatives to save jobs and fintech companies.

The key findings of the survey are:

• 81.2 per cent of respondents have implemented business continuity plans (BCP)
• 47.8 per cent of respondents feel that COVID-19 has had a significant impact on their business.
• Larger fintech companies seem to cope better with COVID-19 as compared to their smaller counterparts with less than 20 employees

Also Read: Singapore’s SFA signs MOU with ASEAN’s AFIN to promote fintech marketplace APIX

Top-3 areas which fintech companies need immediate assistance on are:

• Advice on available government grants
• Fund raising
• Lead generation

Commenting on the survey results, Chia Hock Lai, President of SFA, said, “We urge fintech companies to take this opportunity to future-proof their business, build up new capabilities and seize new opportunities during this period. Singapore will emerge as a stronger fintech hub as the ecosystem is standing united to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In response to the survey findings, SFA will be working closely with MAS and key ecosystem players like NTUC and e2i to address the main issues of saving fintech jobs through job redesign and upskilling of workers, lowering business cost through the new Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Digital Acceleration Grant for fintech.

Startups can obtain a co-funding up to US$120,000, which can be used for digital solutions and services, facilitating sales with an external auditor to come up with a new self-assessment framework, and funding stimulation through one-on-one access with investors.

Wavemaker Partners adds Gavin Lee to lead the investment team

VC firm Wavemaker Partners has announced that it has appointed Gavin Lee as a new Partner. Lee will be responsible for building the investment team at Wavemaker and is responsible for all investment-related activities.

Lee has led and participated in more than 100 investments and actively supports several Wavemaker’s portfolio companies including Shield and eFishery.

He started his career in venture capital with Matrix Partners China and Infocomm Investments, a Singapore government venture firm now called SGInnovate. He graduated with a BA in Financial Economics from Columbia University and is currently completing his Executive MBA in Finance at Tsinghua University.

CIMB, iSTOX to expand access to private capital markets through DLT

The Singapore branch of CIMB has signed an agreement with ICHX Tech, the operator of the capital markets platform iSTOX. The partnership will allow CIMB clients in the ASEAN region access to a faster, more flexible, and efficient way to raise funds at a lower cost.

iSTOX is the regulated capital markets platform available in any major financial centre to support the one-stop issuance, custody, and secondary trading of digitised securities.

Leveraging on the power of advanced smart contract and distributed ledger technology (DLT) to streamline the issuance and trading process, iSTOX allows investors and issuers to connect directly and removes barriers that have prevented a far greater pool of investors from access to private capital markets opportunity.

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Picture Credit: Aerodyne

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Sequoia Capital invests in Korean grocery startup Kurly

South Korea-based grocery delivery startup Kurly has closed a US$150 million Series E funding round with Sequoia Capital (existing investor), Hillhouse Capital and DST Global, according to TechCrunch.

According to news publication Korean Investors, this round has valued the firm at around US$780 million.

The five-year-old startup, which raised US$113 million in its Series D round last year, has raised about US$346 million to date, according to CBInsights.

MAS extends assessment of digital bank licenses due to COVID-19

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced today that it will extend the assessment period for the award of digital bank licences.

Successful applicants will be informed in the second half of 2020, instead of June 2020 as originally intended.

The total number of applicants until now stands at 21.

As per a statement, MAS said that the delay would allow applicants to dedicate resources towards managing the effects of the COVID-19 on their businesses.

“The global escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic since then has prompted the implementation of enhanced safe distancing measures in Singapore, and many companies are allowing staff to work from home to the extent possible,” read the MAS statement.

“Given these developments, MAS will extend the assessment period for the award of digital bank licences,” it noted.

TranSwap to launch borderless virtual accounts in US, EU, UK, Indonesia 

TranSwap, a payments platform for businesses, is launching a new feature offering free Global Borderless Virtual Account (GBVA) in the US, European Union, the UK and Indonesia.

Through GBVA, customers will be able to easily track transactions and enjoy transparency in fees and exchange rates, claims the company.

“By launching GBVA, we can help businesses, especially SMEs and startups, to accelerate their growth into new markets. They will be able to streamline payment and collection processes through a virtual account, all through a few clicks on our online platform,” said Benjamin Wong, Co-founder of TranSwap.

India’s BigBasket snags US$60M to deliver groceries

Bengaluru-based grocery delivery platform BigBasket closed US$60 million in a fresh financing round from investors such as existing investor Alibaba, according to KrAsia. Other participants include South Korea’s Mirae Asset and UK Government-owned CDC Group.

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: SPH, Snapask partner for online learning; Swiggy amasses US$43M

The new funds will help BigBasket keep up with timely delivery due to the surge in demand owing to the country’s current lockdown situation until April 14, with further chances of extension.

“The round materialised about two weeks ago. It’s a much-needed capital for Bigbasket that has been witnessing a surge in demand due to COVID-19,” a source familiar with the matter told Entrackr.

Other similar food delivery apps like Swiggy and Zomato have also made the pivot to delivering groceries and have each raised significant funding.

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Image Credit: Goh BL

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Right now, the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who managed to nail down working from home, and those who still struggle with it.

Let’s face it.

Working from home has been imposed on most of us with a vengeance. During this pandemic period, it is mandatory to flatten the curve. And we must all cooperate with the best of our abilities to help the world heal faster.

Remote work is just one way of it. In fact, the interest in the search term ‘remote work’ has tripled during the past three months.

Unfortunately, there are several challenges that remote work brings along with it. If you don’t put a lid on these challenges at the earliest, your productivity is going to plummet and your boss might assume that you are slacking at home.

Let’s not make situations so worse.

In this short blog post, I am going to discuss the five most prominent remote work challenges and what you can do to overcome them.

Also Read: How I built a business across three countries with only remote workers

Distractions

If you are someone like me, most probably the kitchen counter would be your work desk. And it will have an abundant supply of snacks which acts as a constant distraction from the pile of work that keeps growing.

If you are living with your family and children, there is also the constant noise and interruptions that you will have prey too.

Well, that is our first challenge to tackle — distractions.

Easy fix

You could be an intern who has just got into your first job or a CEO who has decades-long experience. It doesn’t matter which level of the corporate ladder you are at when you are working remotely; you need a proper workspace.

An ideal workspace for remote work is one where you have minimal distractions, has comfortable seating and a surface to put your work equipment on.

The kitchen counter is definitely not that, neither is the couch or the bed. You need a table and a chair to be productive while working remotely. Of course, you can keep carrying your work to the kitchen counter, couch or bed. Just don’t make them your workspace.

A dedicated workspace helps you prepare psychologically for work. It also helps set a boundary between personal life and work, although both are under the same roof now.

Also Read: (Infographics) Advantages and disadvantages of remote working

Cybersecurity

At work, our IT team would have set up the state-of-the-art IT security systems that would have protected your hardware, software or data from being threatened by cybersecurity criminals.

But, when working from home, especially when you connect to the internet using a private broadband connection, you may not enjoy the same level of cybersecurity.

As per the Techrepublic report, there has been a 667 per cent massive spike in COVID-19 related scams, phishing emails and so on. It is easy for even a seasoned internet user to fall prey to them.

Furthermore, Zoom, which rose to stardom as the go-to tools for virtual conferencing, has also become a hotspot for hackers. A Mashable report suggests that a Zoom security bug can let attackers steal your Windows passwords.

From a personal level and also from an organisational level, these are tough cybersecurity challenges of remote work that should be addressed on priority.

Easy fix

A virtual private network (VPN) is a trusted form of connecting to the internet wherein your device’s internet connection will be routed through a trusted VPN private server then the server provided by the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

It ensures that all the data you send and receive online is not eavesdropped or manipulated by hackers or any unauthorised personnel. In fact, most organisations have been assigning dedicated IP to their employees to thwart cybersecurity threats.

There are also other benefits of using a dedicated IP.

You will be automatically added to your employer’s whitelist. That solves the problem of user authentication for specific tools, databases or such confidential information that you could be trying to access from your home network.

In short, VPN solves the dual problem of cybersecurity as well as improves your access to organisational data.

Also Read: Why you shouldn’t resist collaboration and remote work

Collaboration

Like or hate it, collaboration takes a hit when you are working home.

There is some X factor to face-to-face communication that makes collaboration so easier. Be it fetching a file from a colleague or giving knowledge transfer to a new project — things are more natural when there is face-to-face communication.

One of the toughest (and most prominent) challenges of remote work is the lack of direct interaction. You have to use virtual communication channels like chat, email, voice calls or video calls with fake backgrounds to communicate.

Even with all of these, your message may not get appropriately conveyed since you are not physically present.

How can this challenge be tackled?

Easy fix

The only resort to stay on the same page with a team while working remotely is to use project management tools. There are tons of such tools available online (both free and paid). Some of the best ones in the market are Trello, Basecamp, Slack, Evernote, etc.

Also read: Why remote working is the future for startups

Most of these tools are web-based and thus spare you from the need to download any software or configure them. The only difficulty would be to add team members and make them habitual to using it regularly.

Productivity

Given the many distractions that a home has — the comfy couch, the easily accessible bedroom, the hobbies and crafts that you did not have time to attend to earlier and so on, it is bound that you will get distracted.

When distractions intervene, productivity falls off the cliff into a deep pit. Also, while working remotely, you do not have the sight of your employees as well. This gives some sort of freedom to slack around in your own way.

Easy fix

Maintaining productivity while working from home is not a difficult task. All you need is a bit of preparation.

At the office, the flow of events and the environment might have made your stock of things-to-do and keep going like a well-oiled machine. While at home, you might need a proper plan, perhaps your own to-do list for the day to get things done.

Don’t mind putting pen to paper and writing it down. It has some magical way of ensuring you stack on track.

If that doesn’t work, go for digital alternatives like Google keep, Papier, Microsoft To-do, Trello, Wunderlist and the likes.

Also Read: The future of remote work is happening now, here’s how to make it work for you

Personal well-being

Remote working has several overlooked downsides to it.

Some of them are loneliness caused due to isolation, the need to be always available and for some, even a nagging feeling of insecurity.

These personal well-being issues might seem trivial at first. But, if they are contained at the earliest, they can grow in monstrous proportions causing your entire life — both personal and professional along with it to tumble down.

Easy fix

Having a support system of friends, colleagues and family can help tide over the isolation-caused well-being issues.

To begin with, use the time to get in touch with your near and dear ones with whom you have gotten far due to work and the routine of life.

In fact, the internet is strewn with images of video calls that are bringing together entire families and co-workers who are geographically scattered.

Final Thoughts

Remote work is going to stay, at least for a while. The world as a whole needs some time to heal.

While you are working remotely, you will be bombarded with distractions. You will face cybersecurity issues that you never knew existed. You might even find it difficult to rein in work from colleagues who were easy to work with earlier.

All these challenges cannot be solved in one shot. You have to address them separately, one at a time. Once you have conquered these challenges, you will be able to improve your work productivity, maybe even better than while at work.

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Register for our next webinar: Best practices for communications during the COVID-19 crisis

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

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Prasetia Dwidharma leads seed funding round in Indonesian online trucking startup Webtrace

Indonesia’s online trucking startup Webtrace has secured an undisclosed seed stage funding, led by VC firm Prasetia Dwidharma, with participation from Astra Ventura.

The company said it plans to use the funds to strengthen its marketing and customer acquisition strategy as well as to expand sales headcount.

Erwin Subroto, CEO and Co-founder, said: “Webtrace aims to help those companies by using its technology and solution, to be more efficient in cost saving as well as improving the utilisation rate, productivity, and safety; by implementing IoT sensors and solution that will generate various real time data and analysis.”

Although the characteristics of Indonesia’s geography are a combination from land, sea, and air, land transportation remains the primary way good are moved goods and it touches the lives of nearly the entire population.

In addition, trucking is the physical backbone of e-commerce, and person-to-person shipments, with spending on overland logistics estimated to reach US$290 billion by 2020.

Edutech startup Lido secures over US$7.4M in funding led by BAce Capital

India-based edutech firm focussing on live online tutorials Lido Learning has raised over US$7.4 million in Series B round led by Ant Financial-backed BAce Capital.

The company said it plans to use the funding to expand its offering to Indian students in tier II and tier III cities with more curriculum-focussed subjects, as well as modern skills like analytical thinking, critical reasoning, communication, collaboration, and creativity

According to Outlook India, Lido is BAce Capital’s first edutech investment in India, as part of a strategy to continue investing in early stage companies in emerging economies in India and Southeast Asia.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Indonesian edutech startup Gredu raises Pre-Series A funding round to help ease teachers’ workload

Lido has a community of students, tutors, and parents connected by its technology to make education more accessible. With the COVID-19 lockdown taking place, Lido offers to connect expert teachers to students across the country in subjects such as mathematics and science tutorials for Classes V to IX in ICSE and CBSE syllabus.

LiveIn launches Pay What You Can (PWYC) programme addressing COVID-19’s vulnerable community

LiveIn, a property-technology company for a long-stay term, has launched a PWYC (Pay What You Can) scheme to its existing tenants and any individuals affected by the COVID-18 situation.

This scheme provides access to discounted rooms for LiveIn, which is aimed at helping those who have gotten furloughed, terminated, retrenched, or have undergone a loss of business and/or revenue during the MCO which began on March 18, 2020.

Through this arrangement with the owner-partners, LiveIn is open to invite more home seekers to come onboard and rent rooms with a ‘Pay What You Can’ afford basis, provided they have the necessary supporting documents required.

LiveIn was established in 2015. It provides property care services for homeowners and room-rental solutions for accommodation seekers in the Klang Valley with hassle-free convenience.

According to CEO and Co-founder Keek Wen Khai, the LiveIn Assist Rent-Relief Program can be found on LiveIn’s social media channels.

NUHS launches AI bot to assist instant information access to COVID-19

The National University Health System (NUHS) and Bot MD have announced a partnership to launch the NUHS-Bot MD A.I., a clinical assistant app for frontline medical staff to instantly search for hospital specific information including COVID-19 guidelines and operational directives.

Also Read: Indonesian founder develops CE-approved rapid self-test kit priced at US$10 for COVID-19

Over 500 healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical social workers from NUHS have benefited from the first-phase roll-out, with plans to expand access to more than 3,000 staff across the NUHS healthcare cluster.

The NUHS-Bot MD A.I. assistant is a chatbot that instantly answers questions from hospital staff about hospital protocols, COVID-19 operational directives, drug dosage information, drug formulary, and even on-call rosters. It also allows hospital staff to record their temperatures by integrating the daily temperature reporting form within the Bot interface.

The NUHS-Bot MD A.I. assistant is accessible on any smartphone device and serves as a 24×7 virtual assistant that benefits hospital clinical staff, allowing them to access healthcare information anytime and anywhere, even when they are off duty. The smartphone app also allows hospitals to build custom clinical tools based on their own guidelines and protocols.
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