A good startup lawyer can help you avoid major pitfalls that will be costly and potentially even lose your company. Here are a few reasons why you should get a startup lawyer as soon as possible for your startup (and even before you form a company).

Dealing with the government or the regulator

Depending on your business model, your startup may or may not fall within regulated space and also the location of your company’s jurisdiction. As a general rule, existing rules and laws applicable in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, transportation will also apply to your startup if your company is involved in any of these regulated industries.

In other words, it may be easier to get a business off the ground if your industry is not heavily regulated such as photography or management consulting services.

Whether you like it or not, gone were the days where you can “move fast and break things” like the old Silicon Valley mantra. So having a good lawyer involved while you’re sorting out your MVP may be a good idea so that you don’t get into trouble and may even get fined or penalised for breaking the law.

For example, let’s take a look at the fintech space. If you are involved in the fintech space, you should check with a local fintech lawyer on your company’s relevant regulator. For instance, if you are in Singapore, there is only one relevant fintech regulator which is the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

But if you are in Malaysia, there can be two potential regulators involved (so you need to know which one to choose and engage based on your business model) namely the  Securities Commission of Malaysia (the regulator in charge of the capital market) or the Central Bank of Malaysia (the regulator for financial services). A good corporate lawyer can help you pinpoint the actual regulator that you should speak to so that you can get the necessary regulatory approvals to get your business off the ground.

Also Read: Legaltech on blockchain is set to be the next hot investment sector. Here’s why

Before going straight for a meeting with the regulator, you should get a local legal counsel to highlight the key legal or commercial issues to look at on your business model or your draft application. A good counsel with strong previous working relationships with the regulator can also prepare you before the meeting by highlighting key regulatory issues that usually get asked to address them during the meeting.

Sometimes, your business or startup may not require a specific licence or regulatory approval to start your business. For example, operating a donation or reward crowdfunding does not require Malaysia’s licence, unlike equity crowdfunding or peer to peer platforms.

Regulators are usually busy people and have no time for trivial stuff like validating your business model and so on. You can avoid unnecessary consultations that can be fixed with an initial meeting with a local fintech lawyer.

Dealing with third parties and the public

Before you get your product or service to the market, you need to make sure that you have managed the risks and potential liabilities that may arise from anyone using the product or service offered to the market.

You must map out carefully the stakeholders involved in your business models like customers, suppliers, users, employees and even the usual people on the street that may end up using your product or service.

Dealing with other people within your company

When starting a new company, you may have a cofounder. Usually, different cofounder may bring other skills to the company since you may not necessarily possess all the business acumen to succeed.

Also Read: Assisting both lawyers and the clients, SmartLaw builds the case for the use of AI in the legal field

A good example is when you are fundraising for your company. You’ve been pitching for a while now, and you finally got an investment term sheet from potential venture capital. This may be the best time to get a corporate lawyer involved. A good lawyer can help you highlight the term sheet’s commercial terms and tell you if they are standard and industry practice.

In my experience, I’ve come across startups that only get help when they’ve signed the term sheets! Of course, an investment term sheet may not necessarily be bin. Still, it can also create a negative impression with the investor at even a possible start of a long relationship. Imagine if you are the investor as well. It can be annoying and frustrating, and the investor may even walk away from the deal.

Here’s a bit of free advice. Take the investment term sheet seriously as even an actual definitive agreement. Get a lawyer as soon as possible even at the term sheet stage!

Another usual scenario where you should get a lawyer is to engage someone to help you with your company. For example, you need to get your first version out to get market feedback for your MVP. You’re a domain and subject matter expert in your industry but needed a developer to get it off the ground.

After asking around, you found a developer that has agreed to come on board in your company. She agrees to join so long as you make her a technical cofounder or a CTO in your new company. In return for her product development and technical expertise, she has agreed to contribute her time to the company to exchange shares.

Both of you decided to agree verbally and not put this in arrangements writing. Six months later, the newly appointed CTO got a better offer and decided to leave your venture to take up a new role and wish you all the best.

In this scenario, if it’s a bad break up, you may not even get her to sign the necessary assignment of her work like the source code which may have meant for the company. This is usually a “red flag” for venture capitals when you don’t have a clear intellectual property assignment, so we don’t know who actually owns the software?

Also Read: How Lupl aims to solve the fragmentation of technologies in the legal space

Everyone who contributes to the company like employees, independent consultants, contractors or even advisers needs to sign a confidentiality and assignment agreement. This protects confidential information like customers’ personal data and valuable intellectual property like source code assigned to the company ownership. These are some of the usual examples of why you should engage a lawyer as soon as possible.

Where can I find a good ‘startup lawyer’?

A ‘startup lawyer’ is usually a corporate or commercial lawyer that also advises early-stage companies or startups. They are usually attached to large or medium-sized law firms or even a sole proprietor that runs their own solo practice. The best way to find them is by engaging your local ecosystem agency responsible for promoting startups or even your startup mentor for a referral.

More and more corporate law firms are also offering “startup-friendly” packages. Just take note that your family divorce lawyer aunty is not a corporate lawyer. Get an upfront fee quote so that you know the legal fees and what you’re paying the law firm, including the scope of work before you onboard a lawyer for your company.

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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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The year has begun with a bang and we at e27 have been busy drafting our OKRs for the first quarter. With all the pivots and uncertainties that 2020 brought, we are ready to rock 2021. What about you?

To aid the planning process, we have a ton of guidance from our dear contributor community. From how startups can avoid legal hassles to what will the future of travel look like to the potential of the fintech industry in Taiwan to the need for diversity in developers; they have covered it all.

Enjoy reading some of our top picks and feel free to join the bandwagon. We are now seeking views and opinions from not just CEOs and founders but also mid- and entry- level office goers, students, academics, topic experts, consultants, and advisors.

From the investors’ desk: The future of work in Southeast Asia by Gavin Teo, General Partner at Altara Ventures

“As early stage venture investors in Southeast Asia, our team actively invests ahead of where technology is changing the future of work.

In 2020, three major employment-linked themes rapidly accelerated – remote work as the preferred way to collaborate, online commerce as the preferred way to shop for goods and on-demand meal, grocery and package delivery as the preferred way to purchase local services.

In fact, while Uber’s total rides decreased, the share of non-passenger trips in Q1 2020 increased in both absolute and relative terms by nine to 31 per cent compared to Q1 2019, according to data. In emerging markets, the same pattern emerged for gojek and Grab here in Southeast Asia and all signs point to these trends accelerating post-COVID-19.”

Life after COVID-19

How young and women developers are nurturing the tech ecosystem for a stronger post-COVID-19 world by Thye Yeow Bok who leads the Google Developers Relations Startup SEA

“Since the beginning of the year, 40 million people in Southeast Asia have connected to the internet for the first time (compared to 10 million in 2019 and 100 million between 2015 and 2019).

With technology providing vital access to online shopping, food, healthcare, education, finance and entertainment, more than one in every three digital service consumers started using a new type of online service due to COVID-19. Of those new digital consumers, nine out of 10 plan to keep using at least one digital service beyond the pandemic.

As the region recovers from COVID-19 and as more people turn online, developers and tech solutions are more important than ever. And as the tech infrastructure matures, the need for tech talent increases.”

How Vietnamese startups are braving the COVID-19 pandemic by Duyen Tran

“COVID-19 is here to stay in the foreseeable future. In Vietnam, in the second half of 2020, the number of newly infected cases continues to rise, sparking the third pandemic wave.

Yet again, the country has successfully put the outbreak under control with stringent measures from the government. Having reported only 1,451 COVID-19 cases and 35 deaths by the end of 2020, Vietnam is considered one of the world’s lesser impacted countries.

Plus, as the US-China trade war shows no sign of cooling down, foreign companies have found it pertinent to look for alternative markets. Vietnam, whose 2020 GDP growth among the world’s highest (2.91 per cent, according to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam), has become a logical choice in the eyes of investors.”

Here’s what the world of business travel will look like in 2021 by Amanda Tay

“As we start to see hope for a vaccination against the virus, local businesses in Singapore are hopeful that they will be able to recover from the recession period as most industries saw some improvement in the fourth quarter of the year as COVID-19 restrictions were eased.

Aside from business travel expenses which have inevitably been cut, business expense and travel management startup, Navisteps, saw a new work-from-home expense category emerge last year, where companies allocate a portion of their budget to supplement their employees’ work-from-home conditions, such as the purchase of laptops and web cameras, to boost employee work productivity.

The Singapore government has also supported citizens by allowing workers working from home to claim deduction against employment income for charges such as electricity and telecommunication expenses not reimbursed by employers.”

What’s happening in the world of fintech

Taiwan’s fintech ecosystem is such a laggard. What does its future hold? by Jun Wakabayashi, analyst at AppWorks Accelerator

“Certainly, when I dug into our own ecosystem, out of the 395 active startups that have passed through AppWorks Accelerator, only 15 or four per cent were found to be working on fintech, with only eight of them headquartered in Taiwan.

It’s rather a curious phenomenon. I’ve always heard about Taiwan’s lacking fintech capabilities, but at the same time, I also recognise that the country features many characteristics conducive to innovation around financial services, including a strong talent pool, high rates of internet/mobile penetration, widespread access to credit cards and bank accounts, and a generally higher willingness to pay and save compared to other, more emerging countries in the region.”

Why consumers’ financial wellness is the social responsibility of fintech players by CEO of Atlas Consolidated, David Fergusson

“This is true everywhere if you are already a member of the middle-class. But it also misses a critical point. The world’s middle-class is expanding, and by 2025, more of the middle-class will live within Asia than outside of it.

People sometimes forget that a financially healthy middle-class is the engine of prosperity. It provides the skilled labour, the capital, the consumer demand and the tax pool for any country. A country’s prosperity relies on a prosperous middle-class.

Yet today, middle class consumers are more than ever bombarded by companies tempting them to deplete their wealth for short term pleasures and to take on more debt, to the detriment of long-term financial health.”

Do you take cash? 3 hurdles to a cashless Singapore by Phil Pomford, GM at Worldpay from FIS

“With more than half of the population making some change to their payment methods amidst the pandemic, the cashless future that the fintech industry has been building towards seems more of a reality than ever.

However, the fact of the matter is that significant challenges remain, and I’ve highlighted below three reasons why we won’t be a completely cashless society anytime soon.”

Digital transformation

Making offline marketing cool again: How this AI startup is changing the future of B2C advertising by Deon Tan, an outreach executive at BLOCK71 Singapore

“For small businesses that focus mainly on offline sales in their shops, there is no practical way of collecting offline data to aid marketing efforts. Furthermore, even if businesses have the budget to employ third-party research companies to do the job, offline data collection is often time-consuming and labour-intensive.

Instead of spending huge amounts of money for market research, many small business owners opt to rely on memory and rough guesses to design their marketing campaigns.

I spoke to Jun Ting, serial entrepreneur and founder of Aimazing, who has been working to perfect the solution for the last five years.

Read the interview extract below to learn how Aimazing plans to make offline market amazing again!”

What new digital solutions mean for Indonesia’s F&B sector by business analyst at YCP Solidiance, Rafael Damar

“YCP Solidiance’s latest forecast estimate that F&B e-commerce sales would reach IDR15 trillion (US$1 billion) by 2024.

Given the prolonged COVID-19 social restrictions, those figures are highly achievable as the market has become heavily reliant on online delivery services to mitigate health and safety concerns. However, online delivery is only one piece of the puzzle in Indonesia’s digital F&B landscape.”

Startups need to know

What employers in Singapore need to do to boost employee experience in times of crisis by Ben Thompson, CEO and Founder, Employment Hero

“While working from home has several benefits – like more time with family and fewer hours spent commuting– the effects of the pandemic have triggered or exacerbated mental health issues, largely stemming from longer working hours and heavier workloads as the line between work and home diminishes.

Here’s what our survey results suggests employers can do more of in 2021 to enhance the employee experience and boost engagement:”

How to protect your early stage startup from unnecessary legal hassles by Izwan Zakaria; corporate, tech, venture, and startup lawyer

“It may be easier to get a business off the ground if your industry is not heavily regulated such as photography or management consulting services.

Whether you like it or not, gone were the days where you can “move fast and break things” like the old Silicon Valley mantra. So having a good lawyer involved while you’re sorting out your MVP may be a good idea so that you don’t get into trouble and may even get fined or penalised for breaking the law.”

–

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, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

The post From our community: Altara’s investors’ on what to expect in 2021, social responsibility in fintech and more… appeared first on e27.

 

Grab Financial Group (GFG), the fintech arm of the Southeast Asian ride-hailing giant, announced today it has raised over US$300 million in its Series A funding.

The round was led by Korean asset management company Hanwha Asset Management, with other investors such as K3 Ventures, GGV Capital, Arbor Ventures and Flourish Ventures, joining.

The fresh funds will go towards expanding its team and increasing “more affordable, convenient and transparent” financial solutions in the region, the company said in a statement.

This marks the inaugural external investment into GFG, which provides a suite of financial products in insurance, lending, wealth management and payments.

In a region where over 70 per cent of the adult population is still underbanked, and millions of SMEs still need crucial funding, GFG aims to help bridge these unmet needs and close the financial inclusion gap.

GFG claims its total revenues have increased by over 40 per cent year-on-year in 2020, and expects to have a full revenue potential of US$60 billion by 2025.

The firm claims that its retail wealth management product, AutoInvest, nearly doubled its monthly users in December 2020.

Also Read: Grab-gojek or Tokopedia-gojek: which merger will make better business sense?

In addition, its insurance distribution quadrupled its monthly active users to over 4.5 million within three months, distributing over 70 million insurance policies since launching in April 2020.

Capitalising on the rise of digital banks within the region, its digital bank consortium with local telco Singtel was awarded a digital bank license by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

“We are at an inflexion point in Southeast Asia, as the pandemic has accelerated the need for digital financial services that help us grow and protect our incomes,” said Reuben Lai, Senior Managing Director of Grab Financial Group.

“We expect GFG to continue its growth on the back of a business model which supports the changing lifestyle of consumers. Besides, we are pleased to invest in a company that is fulfilling the socially responsible role as an enabler of financial services to the underbanked and unbanked population in Southeast Asia,” added Yong Hyun Kim, CEO of Hanwha Asset Management.

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Image Credit: Grab

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Taiwan is often not the top of mind when it comes to fintech in this part of the world. For one reason or another, first impressions generally evoke a sense of conservatism or stringency, with little room for fintech innovation, at least when compared to some of its peers in the region such as Singapore or Hong Kong.

Certainly, when I dug into our own ecosystem, out of the 395 active startups that have passed through AppWorks Accelerator, only 15 or four per cent were found to be working on fintech, with only eight of them headquartered in Taiwan. 

It’s rather a curious phenomenon. I’ve always heard about Taiwan’s lacking fintech capabilities, but at the same time, I also recognise that the country features many characteristics conducive to innovation around financial services, including a strong talent pool, high rates of internet/mobile penetration, widespread access to credit cards and bank accounts, and a generally higher willingness to pay and save compared to other, more emerging countries in the region. 

Yet, activity in this space feels paltry at best. There are currently less than 60 fintech players operating in Taiwan, in contrast to around 350 in South Korea, 600 in Hong Kong, and 1,200 in Singapore. Regulations are often cited as a primary deterrent. Regulations, however, are the bedrock of any financial system to prevent it from breaking.

So, what is it specifically about Taiwan’s regulatory regime that seems to turn founders away? And what opportunities, if any, have yet to be uncovered for prospective fintech players looking to enter Taiwan?

Also Read: Meet the 20 startups selected for Taiwanese accelerator AppWorks virtual showcase

Money in the bank

Taiwan displays a very robust financial services sector and is considered “overbanked” by most standard measures. There are 36 domestic commercial banks and 5,055 branch offices catering to a population of 24 million people according to Taiwan’s Central Bank.

That’s equivalent to 210 branches per million population; by contrast, Hong Kong counted 165 and Korea 133 in 2017. Consequently, roughly 94 per cent of all Taiwanese adults now have bank accounts, visibly surpassing the global average of 69 per cent.

The high concentration of financial services in Taiwanese cities has led to high levels of convenience, demonstrated by the ratios of 141 ATMs per 100,000 people (compared to the global average of 53), roughly two credit cards and three NFC payment cards (i.e. Easycard, iPass, iCard) per person, and the highest insurance coverage in the world.

Despite the well-established banking system, the penchant for digitalisation among financial institutions is still sparse. Speaking to my own experiences as a consumer, I find myself commonly faced with clunky mobile banking apps or often displacing my physical passbooks which are still widely used by banks.

Strict KYC/AML/anti-fraud procedures and largely paper-based processes can sometimes turn simple banking requests into half-day, in-person affairs. And of course, limited English speaking staff, user interfaces, and forms pose a distinct set of challenges for foreign entrepreneurs.

From a startup’s perspective, establishing partnerships with banks and more specifically winning their trust is an uphill battle, to say the least.

One lending startup that I spoke to spent more than a year meeting with multiple rungs of internal team members within a bank from product to sales to credit risk to compliance, all in an effort to convey their value proposition and get buy-in across the hierarchy for a potential collaboration. By contrast, it only took them three months to establish the same type of commercial partnership in a neighbouring country.

Also Read: Taiwan’s enterprise AI firm iKala raises US$17M for expansion into Indonesia, Malaysia

The tides, however, seem to be gradually changing. In 2016, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) which oversees all finance sectors unveiled a strategy to revolutionise fintech development in Taiwan. It details a handful of priorities including doubling e-payment penetration, promoting blockchain adoption, creating a fintech incubation hub, while issuing an industry-wide mandate for banks to collaborate more with startups and digitalise some of their existing service offerings.

All these initiatives aim to ensure that financial institutions adequately meet consumers’ evolving needs and play an active role in facilitating Taiwan’s digital economy, instead of falling by the wayside.

In 2018, for example, the country’s largest P2P lender LnB successfully established a customer data-sharing agreement with Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan, which leverages the online platform to reach a younger, more digitally savvy segment of the market.

Meanwhile, Fubon Financial, towards the end of last year announced its partnership with local blockchain developer AMIS to launch a blockchain-based money transfer service. 

Do a quick Google search and you’ll find many other recent press releases from banking institutions similarly touting their embrace of startups and digital technology, distinctly contrasting the general tone several years ago.

It’s a good start, but more work needs to be done in moving beyond PR rhetoric and reforming the overall mentality towards innovation among decision-makers in both financial institutions and regulatory agencies. 

Better safe than sorry

The basis of Taiwan’s regulatory and broader legal system finds its roots in Germanic civil law, which is widely adopted across continental Europe, Latin America, and many parts of Asia including Japan and South Korea.

It’s a rule-based system that basically says “you’re only allowed to do what I say is allowed” as opposed to the more principle-based common law found in the US or UK where it’s more of an “if I don’t prohibit it, then you can do it” attitude, according to Shan Luo, managing director of FinTechSpace, a government-supported incubator for local and international fintech startups. 

Also Read: Building a global tech innovation brand with Taiwan’s vibrant tech ecosystem

Consequently, many regulations in Taiwan follow a positive-listed approach, restricting the scope of possibilities to a very narrow band that may not adequately capture the evolution of technology. For example, a typical KYC process for opening an online brokerage account might stipulate a national ID card as a requirement under Taiwanese laws, whereas a negative-listed approach might just require anything that proves your ID.

The latter is a broad stroke up for interpretation, whereas the former is a granular instruction that specifically dictates what is allowed, with anything outside those bounds requiring a codified change in the law, which can take upwards of two years.

The rigid legalese not only stems from the fact the regulators can be held personally liable for any fraud, misconduct, or oversight that resulted from their decrees, but also Taiwan’s largely export-driven economy.

As a global manufacturer of electronic goods, Taiwan derives roughly 55 per cent of its GDP from exports and is thus very cautious in preventing money laundering or any financial crime that might undermine its status as a reliable trading partner.

It comes as no surprise then that most finance-related activities require a license, which normally comes attached with steep capital requirements and strict AML procedures that fall beyond the means of a typical early stage startup.

Finatext, for example, is a Japanese startup that offers zero-commission online stock trading, very much in a similar fashion as Robinhood in the US. In order to set up shop in Taiwan, they would need at least NT$200 million (US$6.7 million) of paid-in capital to secure a brokerage license, a steep hurdle from what they’ve experienced in their home country.

Also Read: Why Taiwan’s AI ecosystem is a fast-emerging opportunity during the pandemic

“Japan has long recognised that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to startups. Their brokerage license actually comes in 4 types, ranging from light to heavy, depending on the nature of your business. For us, we’re doing a purely online business and thus qualified for the light version which requires minimal capital requirements,” says David Tsai, managing director of Finatext Taiwan. 

Zero-commission trading is actually not even allowed due to protections by not only the FSC, but also the brokerage unions who fear that the business model may threaten the job security of thousands of brokers. Nevertheless, Taiwan has long recognized the value of fintech and begun to make small but resolute steps forward.

In 2018, FSC launched a regulatory sandbox for startups to trial their business without the associated regulatory risks. EMQ (AppWorks is an investor) was the first startup to enter the sandbox, where they’ve been able to successfully roll out their cross-border remittance service to the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Taiwan. 

More recently, the FSC announced its plan to roll out Open API across its entire banking sector, which essentially allows third-party service providers including startups to more seamlessly integrate with banks and leverage their data. Ultimately, this would allow customers to enjoy a more diverse and convenient array of financial services through technology, bringing Taiwan closer in line with global standards.

Complement, don’t disrupt

While Taiwan’s financial system may not have as many glaring pain points as those markets in Southeast Asia where up to 70 per cent of the people are either unbanked or underbanked, the country still has its fair share of gaps and inefficiencies in the market. But the more successful models have skewed more towards those that complement existing infrastructure, not disrupt it. 

Moneybook, for example, is riding on the fact that most adults are simply inundated with financial products and need a better way to organise their personal finances. “Consumers on average have two to three bank accounts, with a new one opened whenever they switch jobs, and two to five credit cards, each with a different purpose.”

Also Read: Neobanks: the future of banking?

“Our online platform helps consolidate all of that and provides users with a holistic view of their spending and overall financial health,” details Isaac Chiang, co-founder of Moneybook. 

While consumers have no trouble quickly gaining access to cheap financial products like low-interest loans, SMEs often have challenges obtaining a debt facility. “Companies that have annual sales turnover over NT$100 million (US$3.5 million) shouldn’t have a lot of problems when applying for bank financing.

But smaller companies, with turnover below NT$100 million (US$3.5 million) it’s still not easy, due to a lack of collateral or financial history. But if they are eligible for a loan, the terms are usually not very favourable, and the three months of KYC and overall on boarding process also presents its own set of pain points,” depicts Anson Suen, founder of FundPark. 

Clearly, there are still many parts of the economy where traditional banking institutions cannot necessarily reach. This is why the FSC recently granted online banking licenses for three digital banks Next Bank, Line Bank, and Rakuten International Commercial Bank, who can theoretically offer more low-cost services and access a subset of the population due to the absence of physical branches.

E-payments is another area that the government has been promoting heavily, setting an ambitious goal of 90 per cent penetration by 2025. Heavy tax incentives for mobile payment adoption has led transactions to reach NT$120.9 billion (US$4.15 billion) in the first seven months of this year, growing 127 per cent from the year prior, with the lion’s share dominated by JKOPay, LINE Pay, and Apple Pay. 

Beyond the pastures

In the realm of venture capital, we often try to visit things from first principles; that is, holding our unconscious biases and knee-jerk assumptions up to a microscope and see if they still hold true, usually after several rounds of asking “why.” 

Any impressions of stringency surrounding Taiwan’s fintech landscape are generally true. Taiwan is a developed market with an extensive and in many cases restrictive regulatory regime; however, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any problems to solve.

Also Read: Will fintech and neo-banking be the next frontier for co-working spaces?

The country’s fundamentals are comparatively solid, in terms of internet/mobile penetration and availability of financial services, which collectively lead to a whole new set of opportunities. This is clearly evident in the growing success of mobile payments and potential promise of digital-only banks.

Of course, a conversation around fintech wouldn’t be complete without mentioning blockchain. 2020 has been the year of decentralised finance (DeFi), now with over US$14B of total value locked-in, with many Taiwanese companies riding the wave such as Steaker, Fuly.ai, and Pelith.

Certainly, the very concept of decentralisation is rather provocative, as it negates the need for any centralised authority like the FSC in the first place. But it’s still early days DeFi, and whether or not it can fulfill the everyday financial needs of consumers while adequately protecting their interests has yet to be fully proven.

As we’ve seen with the eras of ICOs/STOs/IEOs, regulatory frameworks are likely imminent as DeFi grows in adoption, but hopefully not to the point where it throttles innovation. 

Nevertheless, with recent initiatives like the regulatory sandbox and open banking, Taiwan has been making a steadfast push in not only catching up with other fintech hubs around the region but effectively putting itself ahead of the curve.

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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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As reflected in the many stories that e27 had published last year, 2020 was a tough year for many industries –including F&B. One major change that took place during the time was that dine-in completely disappeared due to lockdown measures implemented in many countries, leaving restaurants with only takeout and delivery options.

According to a recent report by venture capital firm Momentum Works, food delivery in Southeast Asia (SEA) grew by 183 per cent in 2020 compared to 91 per cent in 2019.

A large part of this growth could be attributed to the fact that the lockdown prompted many in the region to download apps offering food delivery services, as the number of downloads increased 2-2.5 times in March and April. But, it is still unclear whether the demand actually translated into profit for the companies.

The report titled “Food Delivery Partners in Southeast Asia” also mentions that Grab contributed to close to half of the region’s food delivery GMV at an estimate of US$5.9 billion.

However, it is important to note that the report only covered orders placed through Grab, Foodpanda, gojek, Deliveroo, LineMan, Baemin, and Now between 2019 to 2020. So it might not reflect the overall performance of every food delivery platforms in the market.

Also Read: Understanding the economics of food delivery platforms

Grab, which offers ride-hailing and financial services, leads in five out of six Southeast Asian markets in 2020 in terms of GMV, followed by foodpanda (US$2.52 billion) and gojek (US$2 billion).

While big restaurants seemed to have the opportunity to go digital, it also left behind a lot of smaller food stalls to fend for themselves. Grab aims to tackle this challenge by launching an initiative called Hawker Centre 2.0 pilot programme to imitate the experience of customers when they visit a hawker centre by delivering the same food to users at home.

But now as things are slowly getting back to normal after the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines, some experts predict that the F&B sector is bound to bounce back.

Pandemic stressors for the F&B sector

Aside from the positive news, the report also identified temporary stressors linked to the growth of food delivery apps in the future:

1. Increased commission levels for food delivery as a result of the increase in overall cost structure which was largely amplified when delivery options became the restaurants’ only source of revenue.

2. With unemployment rising, more displaced workers have turned to food delivery. This may have led to a drop in earnings per rider, creating friction between food delivery riders and operators.

Also Read: Understanding the economics of food delivery platforms

3. The volume surge, coupled with the dispersal of orders (geographically from office to residential areas), puts the operational efficiency and unit economics of major food delivery platforms to test.

Strategies that food delivery players are taking

There are clear differences between the three key food delivery players, as stated by the report:

1. Since Grab is not just a food delivery platform and has a presence across a wide range of verticals such as payments, taxis, shopping and more, its strategy is to ultimately lower the cost of acquiring users.

2. Foodpanda’s user acquisition and market share strategy in SEA are based on heavy price promotions, as they clearly have a high growth expectation.

3. gojek, while still strong in Indonesia, is seeing declining market share in its home country. The efforts to expand outside
Indonesia since late 2018 has minimal impact, and their market share in food delivery is insignificant in Thailand and Vietnam.

You can access the full report here.

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Image Credit: BBH Singapore on Unsplash

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As early stage venture investors in Southeast Asia, our team actively invests ahead of where technology is changing the future of work.

In 2020, three major employment-linked themes rapidly accelerated – remote work as the preferred way to collaborate, online commerce as the preferred way to shop for goods and on-demand meal, grocery and package delivery as the preferred way to purchase local services.

In fact, while Uber’s total rides decreased, the share of non-passenger trips in Q1 2020 increased in both absolute and relative terms by nine to 31 per cent compared to Q1 2019, according to data. In emerging markets, the same pattern emerged for gojek and Grab here in Southeast Asia and all signs point to these trends accelerating post-COVID.

On-demand freelancing is the next wave of the gig economy

If the 2010s unleashed the on-demand “gig” economy upon consumer services, the 2020s will expand this into the realm of businesses, a trend we consider to be the formalisation of blue-collar labour to meet B2B and B2B2C demand. Many jobs in logistics, supply chain and local services are well placed to benefit from being organised via software platforms, where real-time business demand can be met by short term supply of freelancers.

Globally, this is the natural extension of business process outsourcing, which is expected to generate US$230 billion in 2027, expanding at a CAGR of 5.2 per cent (post-COVID-19), according to data. In high growth emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, we expect this trend to grow even faster.

As an example, Indonesia, a country of 260 million people, 40 per cent of the regional population and over US$1 trillion of annual GDP output, is also the home market for gojek and other technology pioneers in the rapidly growing, on-demand market for consumer and business services.

In November, Indonesia passed the omnibus bill, a key element of President Jokowi’s policy focused on bolstering economic growth by making the Indonesian workforce more fluid and less hindered by bureaucratic hurdles. Previously, labour laws prevented employers from quickly hiring or rightsizing their workforces based on business needs, and also limited the number of functions that could be eligible for short term outsourcing.

Also Read: Why the future of work in Singapore is remote

President Jokowi has claimed that the bill intends to create “an additional million jobs a year”, many of which will come from expanding demand for short term, blue-collar by growing businesses that need labour on short notice.

Taking a page out of the ridesharing playbook

These tailwinds have spurred the growth of innovative workforce companies such as Sampingan, a software platform that connects businesses with trained freelancers for task-based jobs. In the company’s two-year history, it has provided over 300,000 workers with temporary employment, at an accelerated rate even during COVID-19.

The co-founding team, Wisnu Nugrahadi, Margana Mohamad and Dimas Putra previously led product and growth teams at Gojek and Palu, a BPO services business. Having witnessed first-hand the success of Gojek’s technology playbook for matching ride demand with ojek or drivers, Sampingan’s technology matches business demand for couriers, warehouse workers, canvassers, surveyors and other roles with blue-collar labour.

This market has to date been served by traditional “job shop” staffing agencies like ISS and Arina on the one end and desktop-era job boards such as Jobstreet and JobsDB or more recently, mobile optimised jobs classifieds apps like AdaKerja and Google Kormo on the other end.

Only now are on-demand platforms like Indonesia’s Sampingan, India’s Apna, Thailand-focused Workmate and Malaysia’s GoGet attempting to combine the quality assurance of integrated supply with the speed and cost of decentralised recruitment and advanced technology to manage and verify fulfilment. This is the future of organising the informal economy in the region.

Technology is the key enabler of recruitment speed and success

Our analysis of the market suggests that key success factors combine speed, reach and quality of recruitment with flexibility to substitute blue workers across different roles. Mobile technology is a critical enabling factor to ensure rapid fulfilment rates as well as a level of customisation that would otherwise require specialised training.

For example, a leading player in the payments industry partnered with Sampingan to recruit and deploy a short-term workforce in a matter of days, to onboard warung merchants in tier two and three cities onto their payment network. Sampingan was able to recruit rapidly and verify fulfilment real-time.

Also Read: Is the gig economy taking over?

A worker facing mobile app used geo-location and smart photos to verify activity and a merchant checklist to ensure a “handshake” had taken place.

Concurrently the customer was provided with real-time dashboards to track recruitment, deployment, completion and to review other measures of fulfilment quality across disparate tasks and vendors. Previously this would have to be done via first-party recruitment and training or engagement of a staffing agency, both of which would have been costlier and taken longer to execute.

Global trends suggest consolidation will occur in Southeast Asia

We’ve seen large companies built based on the use of technology for recruitment in other mature markets. For example, in the US, UpWork is an American freelancing platform that raised US$170 million from leading VCs such as KPCB, Benchmark, NEA before IPO-ing in 2018.

The company is now valued at US$4.5 billion. Other companies have come hot on their heels in the on-demand staffing space, such as Wonolo, a Bain Capital and Sequoia portfolio company last valued at US$160 million; Shiftgig, a GGV Capital portfolio company last valued at $150 million and Instawork, a Google Ventures and Benchmark portfolio company that has raised over US$30 million, according to Pitchbook. Closer to home here in Asia, companies such as Betterplace in India and 51job.com in China have also raised substantial investment capital.

Finally, we expect that global leaders in the staffing industry will be increasingly acquisitive in Southeast Asia, looking to acquire technology businesses with key digital capabilities in workforce recruitment and management.

SEEK Group, an ASX-listed company valued at US$8 billion has acquired majority stakes in multiple employment marketplaces including JobsDB in 2010, JobStreet in 2014 GradConnection in 2019 and FutureLearn more recently.

We expect that as the region continues on its onward march of economic growth, more jobs will be created and in particular, short-term, blue-collar jobs for businesses that need tasks completed on demand.

This virtuous cycle will be supported by new businesses that match demand and supply and, crucially, ensure high-quality fulfilment in a flexible way, which is only scalable using technology. And with that will come the global growth and exit opportunities, driving wealth and value back into the regional economies here in Southeast Asia.

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This article was co-written by Huiting Koh.

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Technology is supposed to help us, but without a carefully balanced use, it can destroy our lives and society instead.

You’ll learn about:

– The current situation

– How it affects you

– How you can fight back

If you don’t see the Apple player above, click on a link below to listen directly!

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This article was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: Michal Czyz on Unsplash

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We are hearing a lot about how the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the shift to digital payment trends. And, truth be told, the evidence is clear on this; for example, Worldpay from FIS’ recent global survey, Generation Pay, found that almost half in Singapore are now using digital wallets or cashless payments and 74 per cent of respondents find contactless payments are making their lives easier.

These trends have led to a number of think-pieces about the looming inevitability of a cashless society. However, there are still significant obstacles on the course to a cash-free payments landscape in Singapore, making the prospect still decades away.

With more than half of the population making some change to their payment methods amidst the pandemic, the cashless future that the fintech industry has been building towards seems more of a reality than ever.

However, the fact of the matter is that significant challenges remain, and I’ve highlighted below three reasons why we won’t be a completely cashless society anytime soon.

Implications for the underbanked

One of the most important issues when we consider a cashless society is that going cashless impacts people differently based on their access to financial services.

Going cashless wouldn’t just inconvenience those who still prefer cash, it could alienate groups like the underbanked or the elderly who rely heavily on cash and are otherwise unable to make transactions.

A report by Bain & Company found that two in five adults in Singapore are underbanked or unbanked. This means they do not have a bank account, or they may have limited access to mainstream banking services like credit cards or loans.

While we could see widespread adoption to cash-free transactions sooner than expected, to abandon cash completely is still unfeasible without disenfranchising a segment of our population. The government has ramped up efforts in recent months to encourage digitalisation, and there are new initiatives to help seniors go cashless.

However, businesses can also address the challenge by providing flexible payment methods that include both cash and digital payments.

Also Read: JazzyPay raises US$500K from Cocoon Capital to help businesses adopt cashless payments amid COVID-19

Existing infrastructure

Another problem is that there’s a lot of infrastructure in place to make cash work, and those things will take time to phase out. Consider ATMs: there are still thousands of ATMs in Singapore, and in recent years part of the over-the-counter consumer transactions have been migrated to next-generation ATMs.

Serving as “mini branches”, these ATMs can help fulfil common functions such as cash deposits, or account and card related requests without customers having to wait in line at a branch. Even as people move away from cash, it will still be quite sometime away before ATMs become obsolete.

On the other end of the spectrum is the technology required for contactless to work, which offers a faster, more frictionless payment experience that’s more convenient compared to cash payments. For example, contactless cards were first introduced in the early 2000s, but have only recently become a norm for newly issued cards in Singapore.

According to Visa, mobile contactless payments grew by 12 per cent in Singapore in 2019. Contactless card payments continue to be the most popular option, with 84 per cent of Singapore respondents using this mode of payment.

Additionally, 32 per cent of Singapore respondents to the Worldpay from FIS’ Generation Pay study said that they are yet to receive a contactless-enabled credit or debit card by their bank.

Cash is still king

We should also be careful not to overestimate the stickiness of behavioural change in the pandemic, and the inevitability of a cashless society. In fact, 71 per cent of respondents to the Generation Pay research in Singapore are still using cash, and 76 per cent said they feel more comfortable using the payment methods they have always used such as cash, check, and/or credit and debit cards. Cash management is also a concern as more than half agree that not using cash makes it easier to lose control of spending.

Also Read: Fave raises funding from Pine Labs to expand cashless payment solutions to SMEs

And consider the many instances where we rely upon cash, such as when we give red or green packets during festive seasons such as Chinese New Year and Hari Raya. Or when we are buying groceries at a wet market. Eliminating cash poses logistical hurdles and ultimately requires behavioural and mindset shifts, none of which have reached a critical mass.

As of today, there are no truly cashless societies, though it should be noted that China is well on its way to becoming one. The longer the pandemic lasts, the closer we will get to a cashless society, but with these hurdles, the old adage rings true in Singapore: cash really is still king, even if consumers are making unprecedented changes to their spending habits.

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COVID-19 has proven the well known proverb, “necessity is the mother of all invention” once again. Social distancing measures in response to COVID-19 have led to a remote working revolution and greatly accelerated digital transformation in the workplace. 

Organisations across Singapore and the world are reinventing themselves and adapting to the sudden shift in dynamics – and in recent months it has become evident that more needs to be done to better engage and support the overall wellbeing of staff who are adapting to unique and uncertain working conditions. 

While it’s generally acknowledged that businesses are doing their best to adapt to the ‘new normal’, employees still feel like they need more help to get through this state of flux. A recent survey on employment trends in 2021 found that 79 per cent of Singaporean small and medium enterprises (SMEs) said they still need more support from employers to achieve their 2021 career goals. 

It’s fair to say that in an already unsettled climate, the key to a successful business lies with the productivity of its employees. Unhappy workers who struggle to find stability and purpose can only contribute so much to an organisation before throwing in the towel.

In fact, our survey revealed that 36 per cent of Singaporeans cited a lack of mental health support as the main factor behind employee discontent, followed by financial support (33 per cent).

While working from home has several benefits – like more time with family and fewer hours spent commuting– the effects of the pandemic have triggered or exacerbated mental health issues, largely stemming from longer working hours and heavier workloads as the line between work and home diminishes.

Also Read: Looking beyond the crisis: Top 5 trends that will characterise work-life in 2021

Economic instability, budget restraints and pay cuts have also impacted employee wellbeing, leading to increased stress and anxiety that subsequently affects workplace efficiency and productivity. Whether its implementing blended working models or utilising technology to support employees remotely, employers must remain cognisant of employee wellbeing and needs as we move into the New Year. 

The good news is that there’s an upside to all this; the silver lining to this pandemic is a push for businesses to reassess the status quo and reevaluate employee engagement strategies for a new future of work. More employees are also becoming vocal about their needs, which is pushing organisations to equip themselves with resources that can help them live and work better. 

Here’s what our survey results suggests employers can do more of in 2021 to enhance the employee experience and boost engagement:

Be clear on expectations about working hours

Now that technology has enabled us to be connected at all times, it can be difficult for employees to feel like they are allowed to log off at the end of the work day. 

Our survey found that work-life balance continues to remain a key component of employee satisfaction and 51 per cent of employees agree this should be the most important value for employers to support in the coming year.

No surprises, but this sentiment was much higher for entry level employees (64 per cent) who want work-life balance to be a key priority for employers in 2021.

Employers must assist employees in finding a balance between work and rest, encouraging them to disconnect after work hours unless they receive any urgent requests.

Implement flexible work schedules and switch focus to achieving clear objectives

Flexible working arrangements have increasingly gained traction in Singapore and around the world, so it comes as no surprise that 48 per cent of Singaporeans surveyed indicated a desire for this in 2021.

Employers can also consider giving staff autonomy over their working hours, where possible, as this pandemic has shown all of us that the regular nine to six schedule is certainly not the only way to be productive. Focus on setting clear objectives then provide employees with the freedom to determine their most productive work schedule. 

Also Read: How to increase employee satisfaction for the long haul

Review salary cuts and budgeting

While it is understandable that companies may have a tighter grip around annual budgets, or carry out salary cuts to stay afloat during this time, it is also good to check in on employees who may need the financial assistance more than others.

In fact, 41  per cent of respondents have demanded more financial support to meet the rising cost of living and working amidst the pandemic-induced volatility. Perhaps a salary evaluation or an exception can be made on a case-by-case basis for employees who need the aid. This can help to assure and support employees during these uncertain times. 

Don’t forget to reward and recognise

Thirty-three per cent of Singaporean employees want to work for an organisation that rewards and recognises their efforts. Some ways to reward and recognise your employees in the digital workspace include making regular team announcements about any new achievements, recognising milestones and encouraging peer-to-peer shoutouts.

Making time for performance reviews and goal setting regularly with individual employees can also motivate and encourage.

Make time to connect

Recreating the same interactions you would experience in a physical office can be difficult to do online, but not impossible. Plan ahead for weekly or monthly online sessions where your team can bond and put work aside for a bit to get together virtually and have fun.

Also, the best way to find out if current processes are actually helping your employees feel motivated and engaged is to put in place a feedback system in place. Consider setting up a monthly survey where you can receive genuine feedback to find out what works or what doesn’t in your workplace.

Managers should also be checking-in with each of their reports for 1:1 coaching sessions. We recommend check-ins occur weekly or fortnightly particularly while employees are working remotely. 

Place more importance on your virtual on boarding

First impressions count. Bringing onboard new hires in the new normal is going to be a fairly common occurrence, and organisations now have to adapt to introducing employees into their culture and work processes digitally.

Also Read: Ecosystem Roundup: How challenger banks can succeed in SEA; Singapore SMEs digitalise at higher rates than global peers amid crisis

Our survey shows employees are realistic in anticipating the changes that may arise in 2021 due to remote working, but while 69 per cent of employees indicated they feel prepared for these changes, entry-level employees feel somewhat unsure or unprepared (24 per cent) about the upcoming changes – stressing the need and importance for a robust on boarding process in times of uncertainty.

In such unprecedented times, it’s important to look at how you can create the same welcoming atmosphere as in real life, and also have a structured on boarding process to ensure new hires are clearly aligned with their new role, responsibilities and workplace culture. 

The workplace of the future will look vastly different from what we might have expected pre-pandemic, and the confidence that employees have in their organisations will be determined by how well employers adapt.

Technology has become an inextricable part of human experience and maintaining employee satisfaction and engagement will rely heavily on the digitalisation of processes and systems that simply makes more sense of today’s business and employee needs.

Through implementing better and more efficient ways of working, we can be confident that the future of work will be brighter for both organisation and employee.

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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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Waste management — an unromantic topic — is often a neglected but critical environmental service.

Organisations and smart cities collect and analyse waste and recycling data to improve their service performance and profitability. Many of them have invested million of dollars in waste management technologies, such as sensor technologies, radio frequency identification (RFID) and software systems, which help in collecting operational data.

However, there still remains a gap in analysing and extracting actionable insights from this data and using it to improve waste collection, recycling, pricing, performance and sustainability.

Two Singapore-based entrepreneurs Vladimir Chuchkin and Dr. Elias Willemse are determined to bridge this gap using new-age tech tools.

“Waste Labs runs a proprietary Artificial Intelligence platform that helps waste management companies and cities to build and operate sustainable waste collection and recycling,” said Chuchkin.

Both Chuchkin and Willemse have many years of working experience in the waste management industry.

Willemse spent 12 years doing his R&D in advanced analytical methods (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Optimisation Modelling) to improve waste management. Chuchkin, on the other hand, had hands-on experience structuring and implementing complex energy projects including waste-to-energy plants.

Also Read: One man’s trash is another’s gold: How Tridi Oasis plans to transform plastic waste management

The two met at Entrepreneurs First, a programme that helps entrepreneurs find co-founders, in Singapore. They spent hours discussing how their experience could be turned into a scalable and sustainable business, and eventually conceptualised Waste Labs.

How Waste Labs works

The startup uses data and AI to address the four main elements of waste collection:

1. Identifying and analysing new customers (waste producers), 
2. Selecting optimal resources and scenarios to collect their waste, 
3. Analysing performance and profitability of existing waste collection operations, 
4. Improving resources and routes to gain maximum cost efficiency for the collection business.

“We start with building a ‘Digital Twin’ of the area. In a sense, it is a digital map of all the city’s waste and waste infrastructure. You can use it for visualising and modelling many different activities around waste management and recycling,” Chuchkin explained. 

For instance, in Singapore, the startup combined over 20 different datasets to identify and map all the waste and recyclable producers, population attributes, infrastructure relevant to the waste management, road networks, etc. 

“The next step is that we run our AI to calculate what we will need to collect the waste or recyclables in a new area. Our platform will advise on the number of routes, type of trucks and number of crew to service that particular area in a cost-effective manner,” he added.

Chuchkin further said it takes only a few minutes for Waste Labs to generate a collection scenario for more than 100,000 service points. “Such speed allows us to generate and test over 100 collection scenarios within a week. The Digital Twin is helpful to imagine how the future system will perform in real time.”

Waste Labs’s planning, he went on, is “13x faster” in comparison to the traditional pen-and-paper routing and typically allows you to use at least 10 per cent less resources.

Once the collection of waste and recyclables commence, the collector can further use the online platform to analyse and improve the collection performance. The collector is not required to install any special devices, but rely on their GPS records which are already available.

“We use AI again to decode and visualise how exactly they collect the waste, build the benchmarks and spot early operational inefficiencies. With these insights, the waste management or recycling company may opt to fine-tune their collection plan with the help of our platform and improve their efficiency and profits,” he elucidated.

Since its inception in May 2020, Waste Labs has implemented projects with a few major industry players in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. One of its first clients was ALBA W&H Smart City — a joint venture of the German ALBA Group that provides waste collection and recycling services around the world. 

As per Chuchkin, over 40 per cent of the world’s waste and recyclables are not collected, and it ends up polluting environment. Besides, the increasing scale and complexity of collection operations are slashing profit margins of the service providers. Waste management companies and cities strive to build data-driven operations but are limited in tools to extract actionable insight from their data.

Waste Labs’s services can be used by governments, municipalities and private companies, or anyone looking to understand their waste infrastructure better, analyse their performance, innovate and improve their waste processes, minimise carbon footprint, or reduce costs associated with waste collection.

“Today”, he maintained, “it goes beyond the traditional waste management companies; even businesses and manufacturers are forced to focus on end-of-life of their goods.”

Globally, the total addressable market (TAM) for waste management is US$4.7 billion. The Southeast Asian portion of it is approximately US$2 billion.

When quizzed about the company’s geographical expansion plans, he remarked that it aims to take the business to other parts of Southeast Asia.

“Of course, since Waste Labs was founded in Singapore, we are focusing on the markets that surround us. But the best part about our solution is that it can work anywhere. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the world’s most advanced economy, or one of the poorest/remote provinces of Southeast Asia, our platform can produce equally great results for any part of the world,” he said.

It also works for different types of waste — plastic, food, electronic or the most common municipal waste. What matters is the focus of the client on operational efficiency and sustainability.

“One of our aspirations is to be able to help countries, which are struggling to establish proper waste collection systems, plan comprehensive full-cycle projects where waste is collected and recycled or turned into electricity. From our experience, for this to happen, it’s not the technology but is the Data that is the Holy Grail,” he shared. 

A lean team, Waste Labs currently employs only four people, including the founders.

Also Read: Can the new waste disposal app bail out Bali from its waste problem?

Although the company was founded in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the pandemic had no impact on the startup’s initial growth. However, several challenges remain, one being the long sales cycle.

As for the revenue models, the company banks on several streams, including subscription and one-time fee. The fees range depending on the territory covered and the fleet size. 

“We believe we have a robust technology, so we received positive reactions from the market very early in the journey, which resulted in our ability to generate revenues starting from the third month of our operations. Currently, the scope of our initial contracts keeps expanding, and we are looking to get the funding to further accelerate that trend,” he said.

A bootstrapped venture, Waste Labs is now working to close its seed round to fuel its product and sales growth. Chuchkin revealed that the startup has already received commitments from some investors and is looking for one or two more.

“Meanwhile, we are always looking for like-minded data scientists and software engineers to join us on a mission to shape a sustainable environment and make the smart cities’ waste management systems more efficient,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: Waste Labs

 

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