There are few worse places than hanging onto a capsized sailing boat off the Belgium coast, being buffeted by 25 knot winds and three-metre-high waves but that was where my teammate and I found ourselves back in 2011 as our latest attempt at sailing glory capsized on us and ended in us being rescued by the onlooking safety boats.

That ignominious incident took place during the Junior European Championships in Belgium. At the age of nine, my parents enrolled me and my sister in sailing lessons at the Singapore Armed Forces Yacht Club (SAFYC) and since that day, my sailing pursuit took me to many places around the world including, but not limited to Italy, France and Croatia. 

While I haven’t sailed in years, I still look back at the ups and downs of my sailing career as some of the most formative years of my life that still help me today in my tech journey.

Here are some of the skills sailing taught me that I still lean on today:

Complex and strategic thinking

Singapore is an inherently tricky place to sail and requires a high degree of strategic thinking. The typical condition of light and shifty winds combined with strong currents can be attributed to the fact that Singapore is surrounded by other countries.

I learned how to read charts showing where the currents would come from and began to understand how to read and predict wind patterns.

Discipline and hard work

Sailing involves a lot of discipline, long hours and hard work. I would spend hours rigging my boat at the beginning of the day and de-rigging it at the end.

In this process, we would adjust ropes and strings up to the centimetre to make sure our equipment’s potential was maximised. This was all logged knowledge we accumulated through hours of training and testing optimal set-ups.

Also Read: 5 career lessons from remote-only interns during the Techstars Accelerator Program

Honing my competitive spirit

As I grew more competitive, I began to learn more about myself through serious competition. The support that was offered to me through the Singapore Sailing Federation and the Singapore Sports Council was invaluable.

In addition to my great coach and physical trainer, we had access to a wonderful psychologist who taught me to channel my emotions towards achieving my goals, a nutritionist who kept me on track for my weight-gain programme and a physiologist who helped me with recovery from our intense training sessions. 

My proudest achievement was winning the Byte CII World Championships in 2009. I eventually stopped sailing three years later in 2012 after many more international regattas due to my commitment to pursuing my career instead.

After returning from university in the US in 2017, I worked for a tech firm for a short while before taking a leap of faith and completing a three-month UX Design Bootcamp with General Assembly. 

I enjoy the freedom design affords me and how most design projects directly impact people. Post-bootcamp, I managed to work on contract or freelance with some pretty great companies, but I did miss the sense of being part of a team I loved when I sailed.

After a couple of months, I finally landed a full-time role at Tribe. Tribe is a government supported Blockchain Accelerator dabbling in future tech. We have helped facilitate more than S$50 Million in addition funding for blockchain startups from around the world, with a total valuation of over USD$1 Billion, that are solving some real-world problems from food security to medicine deliveries.

Accredify, for example, has developed a blockchain-based digital health passport that allows users to conveniently access and store test results via mobile app for travel declaration. AID:Tech, on the other hand,  is supported by the WEF and uses blockchain technology to provide a legal digital identity to those without more traditional documentation.

Also Read: How this entrepreneur is stepping up the game for gaming tech e-commerce

They’re currently working with Women’s World Banking to offer micro-insurance to 2 million uninsured and underinsured women in more than 10 emerging markets.

While working with the Tribe team is great, I also indulge in a not-so-secret guilty pleasure — gaming. I believe my love from gaming arose from my love of competition (which was probably the only part I loved about sailing since I don’t even sail recreationally now). During my time at university, I picked up a game called League of Legends and the rest was history.

Currently I am trying to merge my design expertise with gaming through my involvement myself in the local gaming community. My design-mindedness impacts everything from understanding my community when streaming on Twitch to the player experience when I host tournaments online to providing feedback after attending gaming initiatives that I get invited to participate in.

In fact, looking back, it feels as if my life as a whole, especially in sailing, contained many parts of a general design process that made me the design-minded person I am today.

For example, the trial and error of testing setups in sailing is similar to A/B testing, while my exposure to many friends and people from all around the world in my travels exposes me to a plethora of  perspectives — an important advantage to have in design and the tech world.

–

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 How sailing as a teenager prepared me for a career in tech and gaming appeared first on e27.

 

Among the umpteen unprecedented challenges brought about by COVID-19, mental health stands out.

While this issue has been around since time immemorial, the pandemic has triggered more people to open up about their mental health struggles.

What used to be unheard-of about five to 10 years ago in the Asia Pacific region is now being openly discussed across multiple platforms and this has largely affected businesses.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), American companies lose more than 200 million workdays each year to depression, a cost to employers up to US$44 billion. Southeast Asia is no better, as mental health issues affect 86 million people, according to WHO.

Coupled with this, remote working has also caused many employees to have decreased levels of productivity and it has put a lot of pressure on mental wellbeing, according to mental health platform Healthline.

Research done by Healthline suggested that 41 per cent of remote employees report higher levels of stress compared to just 25 per cent of their counterparts who work in the office.

But despite the growing cases of mental health issues, how far do companies and leaders go to take active steps to combat the issue?

Noticing this challenge, Ashish Ambasta decided to launch HappyPlus, an app that measures the happiness index of employees. The platform provides AI/ML-enabled tools, techniques, and solutions to bring happiness to workplaces.

Based in India, HappyPlus focuses on creating and developing happy and healthy habits for working professionals.

The idea occurred to Ambasta during a book launch which was attended by Mahindra Singh Dhoni, former captain of India’s national cricket team. During the book tour, a journalist asked Dhoni if he would be happier playing the game with an older team or with a younger team.

Initially hesitant to answer, Dhoni — after a few nudges — replied that he didn’t know the answer since there was no meter in the market to measure happiness. But if somebody came up with such a tool, he said he would be happy to share his answer.

Measuring happiness with HappyPlus

So how does HappyPlus enable people to track their happiness?

Once users download the app, they land on a page, called the happiness meter, where they can pick what kind of mood they are feeling. This meter is similar to what is seen in most of Singapore’s airports where people can rate how happy they are with the service.

Also Read: How ThoughtFull aims to destigmatise mental health through daily chats with professionals

The app has six parameters across which people can rate their happiness —  timescale, our being, achievements, relationships, work-life, and meaningfulness.

‘Timescale’ refers to one’s ability to be more in the present moment while ‘our being’ refers to physical health, achievements refer to goals accomplished. ‘Relationships’ refers to how many deep connections are being formed, ‘work-life’ refers to the balance between a person’s job and home life and ‘meaningfulness’ refers to being a part of something bigger than himself/herself.

Ideally, all six parameters must be in harmony with each other.

Once a user identifies the aspect of their life that they need improvement in, they can use the habit builder option. The option will then suggest certain exercises to improve the specific aspect of their life.

For example, if someone is experiencing trouble building meaningful relationships, the app will encourage the user to send a gratitude letter to his/her spouse.

While these are just small exercises, Ambasta believes that they can help build a lot of positivity around the user and the people around him/her.

The app even recommends books and movies to people who are struggling within a particular aspect of their lives.

HappyPlus also makes it easy for people to track their overall improvement via its dashboard, which shows the change in the user’s happiness meter since using the app.

According to Ambasta, HappyPlus combines all the features of different well-being apps in one place and can be customised in accordance with the level of happiness the individual is going through.

As of now, the six-month-old startup has managed to onboard six large undisclosed companies on board. It will also be announcing its funding round soon.

The market

While the market around well-being and happiness remains highly competitive with apps like Headspace, Calm, and MindShift, Ambasta believes that there are hardly any well-being apps that focus on the B2B space.

In his view, more companies should take an active part in providing employees with tools that can help them get through the mental challenges they face.

Ambasta told e27 that companies are responsible for engagement and providing employees with well-being tools, whether the individual uses it or not is entirely his/her responsibility.

Also Read: Leaders, it’s time to talk about mental health

The global market for mental health apps is also poised to witness strong growth over the next few years owing to the awareness created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and various governments on the importance of mental health.

—

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image Credit: HappyPlus

 

 

The post How HappyPlus is helping corporates measure the happiness index of employees appeared first on e27.

A person who lives in the Asia Pacific region is five times more likely to suffer from disasters than anywhere else in the world. Indeed, the ruin from disaster events is catastrophic: over 500,000 lives have been lost and 1.4 billion people affected since 2005, causing $900 billion in economic losses.

Living in Singapore, I have fortunately been spared from the countless disasters that happen in increasing frequency and intensity to our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region, but it is a topic that I wish could be dealt with more urgently.

Funding gaps in the disaster-tech sector

Despite increasing sophistication in delivering response, relief, and recovery efforts, solutions on the ground are far from reaching their full potential. In assessing funding strategies into disaster assistance, the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) and Candid found that only a mere two per cent was allocated for building resilience and four per cent towards disaster preparedness in 2018. This is largely because the tangible benefits of supporting preparedness and preventive solutions are not as immediately evident as with relief or recovery efforts.

Also read: Empowering fintech and e-commerce through digital identity verification

To fill the funding gap in Asia, Prudence Foundation created and funded the SAFE STEPS D-Tech (Disaster Tech) Awards to find, fund and support innovative technology solutions that can save lives in natural disaster events. I have been working with Prudence Foundation over the last two years to catalyze a community of funders and accelerators to identify and grow disaster technology solutions, and create interest and awareness around this under-supported impact field. However, funding alone is not sufficient to tackle all of the systemic challenges that this nascent field faces.

Four challenges entrepreneurs face and how funders can better support them

In my conversations with entrepreneurs, I see four common challenges they face and identify a few areas of support needed.

1. Always be pitch-ready: As with any product or solution, it is important that entrepreneurs can clearly articulate how their product or solution addresses the problem at hand. I have seen entrepreneurs adapt or retrofit their existing technology to apply for the Awards, but have been unable to concretely demonstrate its theory of change and impact outcomes to investors.

To help the entrants of the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards articulate themselves better, the Award’s strategic partner Tech for Impact will be coaching the semi-finalists on story-telling and being media-ready.

2. Find opportunities to scale-up: Technology has the potential to create transformational change, but it needs to be delivered at scale to deliver impact.

Many corporates are now looking beyond ad-hoc corporate social responsibility programmes by providing long-term support to technology innovators. Through mentorship and technology consultancy, the Award’s technology partner Lenovo will provide finalists with hardware, services and consultancy to help them scale-up their technology. The Awards will also bring other appropriate partners to help finalists build scale where appropriate.

3. Reach the next level of leadership and performance: Behind every startup is a leader with a vision for good. However, while they do not lack passion, they may lack experience in running a business! Venture capital companies come in as excellent coaches given their breadth of experience and can well-advise entrepreneurs in building a sound business model, developing a compelling pitch, navigating client dynamics, and more. I am excited to have two venture capital partners Antler and Jubilee Capital Management to provide 1-on-1 coaching to the Award’s finalists to address the identified needs.

4. Forge meaningful partnerships: No single solution can address the complexities of today’s socio-environmental challenges alone. Even with a brilliant solution, an organisation needs to forge cross-sector partnerships to scale and sustain its impact.

This is where humanitarian partner IFRC will provide insight from working on disaster events on the ground while ecosystem builders – including networks, incubators, and accelerators – will help identify and navigate such partnerships. Finalists of the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards will also be featured on AVPN’s Deal Share Platform so that they can be showcased to grantmakers, investors, think-tanks, policymakers and more. Capital providers and resource providers who show interest in these solutions can then step forward to partner with them.

Also read: RevComm’s MiiTel, Cloud IP phone powered by artificial intelligence, is changing how businesses engage customers

Do you know of any entrepreneurs who are tackling natural disaster-related challenges in Asia, or have plans to expand to the region? The SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards is accepting applications from now until 19 February. Winners stand a chance to win grants from a pool of $200,000 and have opportunities to engage with experts and potential investors in the field. Go to safesteps.com/d-tech or write to dtech@avpn.asia to find out more.

– –

This article was first published in Alliance Magazine, sponsored by the Prudence Foundation

The post Why Disaster Tech in Asia holds great potential, and how to scale the field appeared first on e27.

In Asia Pacific, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam have the highest prospects in Asia for online banking (neobank) right after Australia, as per a new study.

The report released by UnaFinancial, a group of companies providing fintech services in eight markets in Asia and Europe, considered 12 countries from the region and analysed the results based on two main criteria: the country’s attractiveness for online banking and the levels of competitiveness within the segment. 

The market attractiveness was evaluated based on consumer factors (target audience, unsatisfied demand), market factors (potential volume of the sector, market regulation), and market tendencies (increase in digital financial services use, possible changes in consumer behavior, etc.)

The market strength was assessed based on the size of the digital services market, the level of demand for digital financial services, and the presence of online banks in the country.

Using these parameters, all countries were evaluated and placed either among the weak, medium, or strong categories. 

Also Read: V3, EZ-Link-led consortium, BEYOND joins Singapore’s digital banking license race

While the Southeast Asian countries hold the same degree of market attractiveness as India and Singapore, the lower levels of competition within these regions as compared to the rest place them as the winners. 

Other key highlights –

1. Australia is the most attractive country for online banking,

2. Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka are not promising for the development of online banking,

Southeast Asia has long been hailed as one of the largest markets for digitisation with high internet penetration rates coupled with a rising middle-class population, making it a ripe market of over 630 million inhabitants, half of whom are without a traditional bank account.

Noticing this issue, a lot of tech startups are turning towards offering solutions to the region’s unbanked population — a trend that has leapfrogged since the onset of COVID-19.

UnaFinancial is a group that has served more than 12 million customers and provided financing in the amount of US$900 million.

–

Image Credit: UnaFinancial

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community or like the e27 Facebook page

The post Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam have a huge potential in APAC for neobank growth: Study appeared first on e27.

Dole Asia Holdings, a unit of international agricultural giant Dole, has announced the launch of “Sunshine for All” fund.

With a corpus of US$2 million, the fund will seek to support global strategic partnerships and innovation in areas of sustainability, food access and waste.

e27 has reached out to Dole Asia for more information regarding the fund. This story will be updated as and when the company share the details.

The fund is part of the firm’s larger “Dole Promise” initiative launched in 2020. Through the initiative, it aims to accomplish goals including providing access to sustainable nutrition for one billion people by 2025, having zero fossil-based plastic packaging by 2025, and net-zero carbon emissions in operations by 2030, among others.

The company is seeking partners — from entrepreneurs, startups, strategic thinking to social impact enterprises and NGOs — to bring their expertise in food production, nutritional science, compostable packaging, supply chain, logistics, sustainable agriculture and fast-moving consumer goods, to bear.

By partnering with them, the fund will address these gaps of affordability and waste, as well as accessibility and acceptability.

Also Read: Sustainability: the new business reality

Dole’s drive to promote good nutrition could not come sooner. Nearly 25 per cent of the world’s population is experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity as one-third of the food produced globally for human consumption is lost or wasted.

“We have given ourselves five years to deliver on our ambitious goals and innovations that can move us quickly forward. Our ambition is to partner with innovators and to open up opportunities for immense evolution and tangible solutions. This will be a key enabler to continue to make our business a force for good.” said Christian Wiegele, President, Dole Asia Fresh.

“Our work to bring Sunshine for All during the pandemic reinforced our belief that people will join us when they believe in what we do. The fund is our signal to the world that we are open for business and that business is finding, fuelling and fostering innovation, actions and change,” said Barbara Guerpillon, Global Head of Ventures, Dole Packaged Foods and Asia Fresh.

The fund was launched in tandem with The Growing Distance, a short film that addresses the critical gaps the company sees as barriers to good nutrition for all.

—

Image Credit: Unsplash

The post Dole Asia launches US$2M fund to support startups in sustainability, food access and waste appeared first on e27.