Singapore-based Tazapay, which provides a digital payments platform for small and medium enterprises engaging in cross-border trade, announced today it has secured US$1.75 million on top of its original round of funding of US$3.2 million announced in early 2021.

Investors who participated in the latest round include Sequoia India’s Surge, Saison Capital, and new partners RTP Global and January Capital.

The fresh capital will go towards ramping up the startup’s customer acquisition resources and scaling its technology and growth teams.

Started in 2020 by the trio of Arul Kumaravel, Rahul Shinghal and Saroj Mishra, Tazapay provides secure digital escrow to help reduce risk and increase confidence for both parties in a transaction. It also provides SMEs with fast, simple background checks on potential business partners. Tazapay holds funds for its users securely until both parties have confirmed their obligations of the trade.

Also Read: Tazapay snags US$3.2M to expand cross-border SMB commerce platform in Southeast Asia

“The markets in which we initially operate are significant trading corridors within Asia Pacific, and with the support of our growing team and investment partners, we look forward to expanding our global footprint and offering more services in the future,” said Shinghal.

Most recently, Tazapay announced a partnership with Rapyd, a global fintech-as-a-service provider, to be its exclusive payments facilitator.

As of today, it operates across India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

According to a McKinsey report, global payments revenues went down by 7 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019, however, Juniper Research has found that the total value of payments will reach US$35 trillion in 2022.

“We project the market size of protected B2B payment solutions for cross-border trade will increase by 25 per cent per annum in the next five years. The current market size is estimated at US$500 billion across Southeast Asia and India — and we are well-positioned to bridge this gap and help businesses accelerate with ease,” Shinghal had said in a press statement last year.

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Image Credit: TazaPay

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In 2016, a Pakistan-based diploma mill was found to have made US$140 million from selling global customers bogus university degrees. The ramifications reached as far as the U.K., Malaysia and the Middle East, as many job applicants raced to soup up their resumes to match employers’ rising demand for degrees.

Years later, diploma mills have become a billion-dollar industry. Yet human resource managers and recruiters cannot keep up, with many still using old-school expensive and time-consuming ways to verify qualifications such as agencies that conduct background checks.

TuringChain, a Taiwanese startup, is looking to revolutionise the way certificate and authentication is done with TuringCerts, a blockchain-powered solution that creates an anti-counterfeit e-portfolio for individuals, with verification possible with a single click.

CEO and co-founder Jeff Hu said: “A quarter of all data on LinkedIn is fake or exaggerated, while 27% of university degrees can be bought online. Meanwhile, hiring managers are still using very traditional ways to verify qualifications.

“Usually it takes six weeks on average and US$150 to verify a single certification. Those who skip these steps and end up hiring people with fraudulent qualifications, years later the cost is even higher as it costs an estimated US$40,000 to replace a fraudulent employee,” he remarked.

Extrapolate this to the 3.38 billion working population worldwide and 1.7 billion students at every level of education, each having multiple qualifications and certificates, and TuringCerts’ market is astronomical.

Protecting data, privacy

“TuringCerts solution is sort of a global e-portfolio for students, powered by blockchain. We can onboard educational institutions within 15 minutes and give them a digital stamp, which they then use to issue tens of thousands of certifications right away. These certificates will be stored in the Turing Certs e-portfolio, matched with IDs unique to individual students.

“Students will be notified and can view these verified certificates, which are stored permanently in the IOTA blockchain. This also simplifies the job application process for graduates: instead of filling up a 10-15 page form about their awards, qualifications and certificates, they can simply share their unique TuringIDs with recruiters and employers,” Hu added.

TuringCerts uses Smart Identification that is globally accessible and uses the W3C DID, the identifier standard. This protects digital certificates from manipulation – a significant upgrade from PDFs, which can be forged easily.

Also read: Nongsa D-town: bridging the digital talents of Southeast Asia

It already has a provisional patent in the US and expects to receive its Taiwanese patent soon. TuringCerts’ contract with Italian institutions on volunteer certificates and National Tsing Hua University, a top-tier university in Taiwan, compelled it to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU standard for data protection and one of the world’s strictest privacy protection regulations.

In addition, TuringCerts utilises approval-based sharing of information and the development of zero-knowledge proof cryptography currently ongoing — meaning no one has knowledge about what is stored on their servers until approval from individuals. It also creates SmartLinks, a short and verifiable link, which can easily be integrated with large-scale HR platform such as LinkedIn.

“We are in the process of becoming compliant with ISO 27001 and additional commons, the international standard for information security. This is necessary, as a lot of our interactions are with governments and universities handling sensitive private data,” Hu said.

Tiered, targeted pricing

Turing Certs caters to three groups of users: educational institutions, students, and enterprises.

Hu said: “We use a multi-tier pricing model. In the first tier, we make it free for all students, universities, or colleges registered with governments to access and add certificates to our database, and are therefore welcome to contact and join us.

“The second tier involves education or examination institutions that issue certificates to generate revenue, like Coursera. These we charge an annual subscription fee that accounts for a quarter of our revenue. In this tier, TuringCerts’ digital solutions dovetail with the digitalised experiences these institutions offer their students.

“The majority of our revenue surprisingly comes from industries such as Real Estates, Agriculture, and Artworks. These traditional industries are obsessed with a strong motivation for digitalisation. TuringCerts serves as an important role to deal with long-term contract storage, e-signing and e-stamping, traceability records, originality proofs, and digital footprints,” Hu said.

Also read: Here are 5 reasons to expand your business to the Philippines

“We are excited to see there is much more opportunity to brings blockchain to many angles that are close to our daily life. Now we can see TuringCerts’ logo on soybean sauces, rice packages, and soaps made from crops,” he added.

Today, TuringCerts houses over 5,700 certificates from more than 40 schools across the globe, including executive education qualifications issued by Berkeley Law Executive. Half the schools are from Taiwan, including the country’s top two institutions: National Tsing Hua University and National Taiwan University.

In addition, Macao uses TuringCerts for its K-15 educational institutes and universities. Although the Taiwanese startup has yet to enter Southeast Asia, it already has a partner in Indonesia and Macau, which is trying to convince the Indonesian government to adopt e-verification for the country’s education sector.

Cross-industry demand for verification solutions

While TuringCerts’ end goal is to track students from kindergarten, to high school, college and even beyond through executive and postgraduate education, its solutions have been adopted by industries as varied as real estate and agriculture.

“We have a very large contract with a real estate company in Taiwan, which uses TuringCerts to store all their e-signed documents. Real estate contracts need to be stored for decades, and so this client views TuringCerts as a secure, confidential database that ensures key information cannot be manipulated,” Hu noted.

Also read: Making smart manufacturing a cost-efficient reality for SMEs

In agriculture, traceability has become a key component of tracking a crop’s lifecycle and journey from farm to fork, due to increasing customer awareness of food origination as well as rising health and environmental concerns.

“We work with a soybean sauces producer, who wants full traceability. The entire lifecycle of crops is recorded module-by-module on a digital record, which will be stored with blockchain on TuringCerts. These digital records are converted into QR codes, which customers can scan and immediately learn the entire story of the soybean,” Hu said.

Eyeing Southeast Asian debut

Fresh off a seed fundraising round that valued TuringCerts at US$3.4 million, Hu is considering a pre-A round either in the fourth quarter of 2021 or the first quarter of 2022 to fund the startup’s expansion into the Southeast Asian region via Malaysia and Indonesia.

“Our latest injection from a well-known capitalist investor can sustain us for 1.5 years so in the near future, our focus is on building partnerships with universities that are keen to digitalise their campuses in Southeast Asia.

“We will also reach out to traditional industries such as agriculture that need valid certifications for health and safety purposes or as a differentiator to their customers,” Hu said, noting that TuringCerts’ angel backers so far hail from the medical, music, and investment banking sectors.

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Dash Living, which provides serviced living and co-living spaces in Hong Kong and Singapore, said today it has raised over US$8.8 million in a Series A round of financing from a clutch of investors including Grosvenor Asia Pacific, an international property company.

Gobi Partners and Taronga Ventures, besides existing investors Clearmind Capital, Mindworks Ventures and a group of individual investors, also co-invested.

The capital will help Dash Living launch its serviced rental solutions in Japan and Australia. It also plans to expand in Southeast Asia beyond Singapore, focusing on countries and markets with a high density of hyper-mobile millennials and where accommodation is expensive.

Also Read: How Dash Living built a social media community of 13K+ members for its co-living platform across Singapore, HK

Dash Living will also use the cash for expansion of its asset-light management model for long-stay and software as a service for landlords, implement new features on its mobile app, improve existing AI tools, broaden the access of its global premium amenities and stimulate more user-generated content and events.

Founded in 2014 by Aaron Lee, Dash Living is a “new generation of rental solution” for urban professionals. Its mission is to create a global accommodation community through sharing economies, tech and Artificial Intelligence, empowering today’s hyper-mobile, tech-savvy millennials to live in the most expensive cities in the world.

Dash Living offers a collection of apartments, co-living homes and hotel rooms across prime areas of Hong Kong. It also has over 600 units in multiple prime locations across Singapore.

The firm claims to have grown to manage and operate over 1,300 units across serviced apartments, co-living homes and hotel rooms across Asia. It has more than 280,000 square feet under its management.

In addition to the above features, Dash Living also provides a series of perks to its tenants, including free access to a variety of co-working spaces, free professional fitness centre membership, and a multitude of wellness, dining and shopping options with discounts.

Apart from this, Dash Living invites its tenants to attend and host events to bring the “serviced living community” to life through yoga, fitness, and other leisure activities.

“Affordable housing is a huge problem in Hong Kong and other major cities in Asia that affects young professionals immensely. Dash Living addresses this problem directly by using technology and the sharing economy, while creating a lifestyle atmosphere and community around it that will open up future growth opportunities for the space,” said Lee.

Also Read: How gnomadic is making its mark on the crowded co-living space by focusing on expats

“The line between traditional residential and experience-centric accommodation is increasingly blurring. A rapidly emerging consumer segment seeks connected premium amenities, with the flexibility offered in a shared economy,” said Avi Naidu, Managing Partner at Taronga Ventures.

“For landlords to succeed in this space, location is simply not enough. It is essential to have the right mix of technologies to understand tenant needs and bring operational efficiencies to the landlord, balanced with a deep appreciation of customer-first hospitality,” Naidu added.

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Image Credit: Dash Living

 

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Nimbly Technologies, a Singapore-based company specialising in supply-chain risk management, has raised US$4.6 million in pre-Series A funding led by Insignia Ventures Partners.

Sovereign Capital and Saison Capital also participated in the investment.

The fresh funds will be used to accelerate Nimbly’s growth across markets within Southeast Asia.

The company also noted it recently sealed a partnership with Express Food Group as part of its regional expansion plans.

Founded in 2018 by Daniel Hazman and Jonathan Keith, Nimbly enables companies to monitor and verify the implementation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in multiple locations, uncover data-driven operational insights and track issues until resolution.

By improving efficiency, Nimbly claims it is unlocking cost savings for its customers by making their human resource allocation more efficient, minimising paper spending and reducing man-hours spent on reporting, compiling and analysing data.

It also aids companies in minimising fraudulent behaviour in frontline operations with validation methods leveraging computer vision and geo-fencing.

Also Read: Why it is imperative to invest in digitalising the supply chain

Nimbly’s clientele comprises food & beverage companies, including KFC and Kopi Kenangan; retailers like 7-Eleven and Under Armour; and global agriculture corporations such as Wilmar and Cargill.

“With the close of our recent round, we look forward to delivering even more value to our customers by expanding our product offering to include deeper analytics, mystery shopper and employee training,” said CEO Hazman.

“We will continue to invest heavily in our technology, developing a better experience and further automating routine tasks by leveraging computer vision and machine learning,” he revealed.

“SaaS enterprise is an emerging vertical in Southeast Asia with more businesses of all sizes and across industries seeking to transition and even upgrade their capabilities to software tools,” opined Yinglan Tan, Founding Managing Partner of Insignia Ventures Partners.

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Image Credit: Nimbly Technologies

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Much of the world’s healthcare concerns and funding have been diverted to battle the Covid-19 pandemic over the last year, understandably. However, with hospitals and existing healthcare resources overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases, people experiencing chronic health problems started putting off appointments and checkups for fear of contracting the coronavirus.

During the first lockdown in the U.K, daily admission for heart attacks or heart failure dropped by more than 50%, and only increased again when daily Covid-19 cases fell. This pattern was seen across the globe, raising major concerns for healthcare infrastructure and needs post-pandemic.

And while the rise in tech adoption due to the pandemic bodes well for telemedicine, medtech and other healthcare innovations, oftentimes these solutions are only able to address a single ailment at a time.

One solution to address them all

Taiwanese medtech startup Singular Wings Medical is hoping to change the game by reducing healthcare burdens and costs on hospitals for multiple chronic conditions using a single device. It aims to do this by combining its in-house hardware, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered algorithms and an ecosystem of connected devices.

General Manager David Lee believes better connectivity infrastructure will lead to faster broadband speeds, wider bandwidth, and more devices connected to the Internet.

“Pair this with AI prevalence, and we will soon see the change from IT to OT or operational technology. Today, we are used to technology processing information, but soon technology will also help carry out operations.

“Previously we would need to go to a hospital to take multiple tests like MRI and ECG or measurements and then wait a day or two to get the results due to hospital processes and slower connectivity. Now, with connected devices, high-speed networks and AI, we can see results instantly, with readings taken from the comfort of your home,” he said.

Singular Wings’ single medical device can take key readings and measurements, transmit them in real-time to its in-house AI-powered algorithm, and when necessary, alert assigned persons (family members, doctors, and emergency personnel). Its system allows doctors to view multiple patients around the world, tagged by location using Google Maps.

“Our innovation model is built on 5S – Semiconductor, Software, System, Solutions, Services. For Semiconductor, we have our own hardware and devices. The gap between Semiconductor and Solutions will be filled by our algorithm and Big Data i.e. System and Software.

“We have different solutions to different problems, using a single device. Our Services component is localised to local healthcare services, paramedics, doctors, and other professionals. Typically, one solution addresses one problem, and is powered by one type of hardware,” Lee added.

Changing the way we approach chronic diseases

Thus far, the startup is working in two trials (independent review boards or IRBs) across five Taiwanese hospitals to test its device in addressing three key chronic ailments: Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), and hemodialysis risk management.

SCA is a silent killer as there is barely any indication when, who, or where SCA will happen. Anyone can be a candidate — even athletes and youth — as it is asymptomatic prior to occurring. It even happens to athletes and young people.

Yearly, US$1 trillion is spent on addressing heart diseases, so this is no longer a health issue – it is an economic problem worldwide. The economic costs of these conditions are huge: only in the US, annually, Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) costs US$6 billion while stroke incidents cost US$34 billion.

Singular Wings’ device — which patients wear over their chest skin — live streams ECG readings and features true respiration detection, which can improve diagnosis and outcomes.

Another problem it addresses is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and Singular Wings is currently working on an IRB for this at Taipei Medical University.

“OSA is prevalent in intense, high-paced environments – cities like HK, Tokyo and Taipei. Around 30% of people suffer from sleep disorders, of which 90% are undiagnosed or untreated.

“If we extrapolate this 30% figure to the U.S. market alone, it would mean sleep disorders affect up to 70 million people. The majority of sleep tests can be done at home, so the total addressable market is US$11.2 billion yearly,” Lee said.

If untreated, obstructive sleep apnea can lead to hypoxia as well as chronic diseases like high blood pressure, cardio and kidney problems.

For this sleep disorder, the pain point lies in the diagnosis, where typically patients have to go to the hospital to undergo overnight sleep tests polysomnography that is often expensive, complex, and uncomfortable.

How the solution works

Singular Wings innovated the traditional polysomnography test into a single sticker attached to the same basic device used for our cardio solution, enabling OSA diagnosis at home. This has resulted in improvements in cost, convenience, and time spent.

The same device also aids in hemodialysis risk management, where Singular Wings has an ongoing IRB in partnership with a local medical center.

“During hemodialysis when the kidney is flushed, patients run the risk of both low and high blood pressure, muscle cramps, anemia and high potassium levels. Some of these can be fatal. Through this medical trial, we are testing our risk management system to raise early alarms before problems escalate,” Lee remarked.

Singular Wings has received the ISO13485 certification specific to medical devices and is currently working towards U.S. FDA, TFDA (Taiwan FDA) and European CE approval, with hopes of receiving these by the first quarter of 2022.

Moreover, the startup has received international recognition for its device, nabbing two iF Design Awards and six innovation patents – four in Taiwan and two in the U.S.

Singular Wings is eyeing entry into ASEAN markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, with Lee noting that CE certification is accepted in some ASEAN countries.

The future of Singular Wings

The startup is eyeing business development partners in the telecoms and insurance spaces due to their large user bases, steady income stream, and need for value-added services to be provided to their users as differentiators.

Thus far, it has fundraised US$3.5 million across seed, angel, and pre-A rounds. Singular Wings will remain in pre-A until it receives FDA approval.

“Taiwan has excellent engineers and doctors, but they don’t talk to each other. Our team has both, building a device from ICT engineers but adding value by integrating it with medical knowledge from doctors. Our real success is in getting these two groups to talk to each other to build something for the betterment of all,” Lee said.

To learn more about Singular Wings, check out their official website here.

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Ajaib Group, an Indonesian online investment platform targeting millennials and first-time investors, has raised an additional investment of US$65 million for its Series A round led by Silicon Valley-based fintech VC firm Ribbit Capital.

Participating investors include ICONIQ Capital, Bangkok Bank, and notable angels such as Nubank’s David Velez and Toss’s SG Lee.

This marks Ribbit’s inaugural investment into a Southeast Asia company.

Ajaib said that the proceeds from the round will go towards investing in its product development and engineering capabilities.

The latest tranche of funding comes after the investment platform raised US$25 million in a Series A round led by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s Horizons Ventures in January this year.

When combined, the mega US$90 million Series A round would be among the largest rounds at that stage within Southeast Asia.

Also Read: The lure of the orient: How retail investors are being drawn to Asian investment markets

“The market has witnessed an unprecedented revolution in retail investing around the world. Ajaib is at the forefront of the revolution and on their way to building the most trusted brand in the market,” opined Micky Malka, Managing Partner at Ribbit Capital.

Founded in 2019 by Anderson Sumarli (CEO) and Yada Piyajomkwan (COO), Ajaib claims it runs the fourth-largest stock brokerage in the archipelago by the number of trades. The firm claims it has processed over 10 million transactions in the last four months and has over a million monthly users on its platform.

Following the blueprint set out by Robinhood in the US, Ajaib leverages the high smartphone penetration rate in Indonesia by operating as a mobile-first stock trading platform. By incorporating a simple user interface and investment education features, Ajaib is able to appeal to novice investors and millennials with elementary financial literacy.

Furthermore, it requires no minimum sum to open a brokerage account — further attracting cash-strapped millennials into investing.

Despite its large population, Indonesia has a low penetration rate for stock investments. There are only 1.6 million capital market investors in the country, which is less than 1 per cent of its population of 273 million, making it an attractive market for investment platforms that target millennial and first-time investors.

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Image Credit: Ajaib

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SGProtein, a leading contract manufacturer of meat alternatives, has announced that it will be launching a production facility for plant-based meat companies in Singapore.

This development was first reported by Vegconomist.

With the new facility, SGProtein aims to support plant-based meat alternative companies to grow their business with R&D, pilot trials and commercialisation with full flexibility. It will support food startups, multinational food manufacturers and FMCG companies.

Also Read: Bringing home the bacon: How Burgreens aims to transform Jakarta’s vegan food market

The production in the facility will commence this year, with an initial capacity of over 3,000 tonnes per year, the report further said, citing sources.

“By manufacturing locally and at scale, brands can also significantly shorten supply chains, resulting in a much lower environmental impact and additional cost savings,” SGProtein told Vegconomist.

“We help innovative food startups bridge the gap between plant-based meat innovation and commercialisation. At the same time, we offer our multinational customers access to fast-growing Asian markets through a local production facility that ensures the highest standards of food safety, quality, and certification. Democratising access to the most advanced technology for meat alternatives manufacturing adds to Singapore’s attractiveness as a world-class regional hub and ecosystem,” said Riccarda Züllig, co-founder of SGProtein said.

SGProtein recently raised SGD$4 million (US$2.9 million) in a seed round, led by biscuit maker Khong Guan to further accelerate the sustainable food market in Singapore.

Conscious consumption or a more healthy way of diet has been the driving trend in the foodtech sector for the last five to ten years, according to White Star Capital study.

This is largely due to a shift in people’s values of food consumption, towards a healthier lifestyle.

According to Pitchbook, a company providing private market data, a significant chunk of the market share will be taken away from the US$350-billion annual meat market.

Food innovation and bio-engineered food have been predicted to continue growing annually by 10 per cent with the possibility of reaching US$104.6 billion by 2025,

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Sea to support NUS School’s research and education in AI, data science

The story: Sea Limited announced today that it has made a corporate gift of S$50 million (US$37 million) to support the advancement of research and education at National University of Singapore (NUS) School of Computing, one of the world’s leading computing schools.

Objective: The commitment will support NUS Computing in its efforts to substantially enhance and develop pivotal areas such as:

• Cutting-edge research and education in critical, fast-growing areas such as Artificial Intelligence and data science;

• Recruitment and development of academic and research talent through scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate students, research fellowships, visiting professorships, support for professional development and more;

• Strategic initiatives including seed grants for enterprising projects and outreach programmes.

Also Read: Sea Group’s venture fund to invest US$1B in tech startups

More on the deal: By combining the strengths of academia and industry, both parties plan to work closely together to nurture and grow Singapore’s research and education ecosystem by leveraging impactful technologies such as AI. This will help raise the profile of local talent, create many rewarding jobs, and position Singapore as an attractive global hub for innovation and technology investment.

To this end, Sea recently announced the establishment of Sea AI Labs (SAIL) in Singapore to push the frontiers of AI research and develop leading technologies in the field. Sea is committed to advancing technology to drive the development of the digital economy in Singapore and across the regions where it operates.

TurtleTree, JSBiosciences enter into a strategic partnership

The story: JSBiosciences has just announced a partnership with TurtleTree Scientific. Both parties have signed a letter of intent to collaborate in the development of cell culture media at a commercial scale.

What is the deal about?: JSBio will provide TTS’s customers with a supply of food grade basal media and media formulation services, also expanding to other services including large scale manufacturing.

JSBio will leverage its strong media development expertise and established local raw material supply chains in this partnership. The group company’s (Thousand Oaks Pharmaceuticals Group) unique “integrated cost control programme” in the field of biological products will help TTS to achieve high-efficiency, and low-cost production capabilities.

After low-cost upstream processes are established, JSBio will help TTS achieve pilot production capacity and subsequently, commercial production scale in Singapore.

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Image Credit: Sea Limited

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Vietnam has released its first autonomous vehicle.

Manufactured by local conglomerate Phenikaa Group, the self-driving vehicle boasts Artificial Intelligent (AI) features including 3D maps, Lidar sensors, SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping technology), and incorporates machine and deep learning within its software.

The vehicle also has nearly 40 level-4 self-driving features based on the standards of the Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE International). The electrical vehicle can be operated through a customised platform.

Despite the fanfare over its release, the vehicle is required to undertake additional safety tests and more research has to be carried out to reduce production costs before it can be commercially launched for the general public.

“We hope the introduction of Vietnam’s first level-4 smart autonomous vehicle will facilitate the development of the self-operating industry, localise technological products and meet the market demand for high-quality, internationally standardised products and services,” said Le Anh Son, Director of Phenikaa-X JSC.

Also Read: Singapore testing on-demand courier delivery by autonomous robots

“If self-driving vehicles are regulated by law like other vehicles in the future, they can solve all transportation issues. Self-driving vehicles could be our future,” he added.

Last week, Phenikaa Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Nippon Koei Vietnam, SICK Sensor Intelligence, Advantech Vietnam Technology Co Ltd, BAP Group, and VEDAX to partner in releasing products that would stimulate the development of the autonomous industry.

In an interview with e27, Kelvin Tay, Managing Director of the Future Mobility unit of Singapore-based transport and engineering group Goldbell Corporation noted that while autonomous vehicles could thrive in a controlled warehouse environment, there are challenges facing their application in an uncontrolled ‘open-world autonomy’ due to the presence of ‘edge cases’.

Edge cases refer to cases where autonomous vehicles don’t know how to react in situations with which they are not familiar.

“For instance, an autonomous car may consider a simple plastic blag lying on the road as an obstacle. If it comes close to this object, it may send an emergency alert and apply a sudden break. To stop it from doing so, you have to tell the vehicle/programme it in a way that it doesn’t stop at minor obstacles. Because when it applies a sudden break, the vehicle coming from behind is likely to collide with it, causing an accident,” Tay elaborated.

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Nongsa D-Town held a virtual grand launch on March 2nd, 2021. Opening statements for the event were officiated by Airlangga Hartarto, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, and Chan Chun Sing, Singapore’s Minister of Trade and Industry. The event was then subsequently split into three “fireside chats” — themed discussions, each featuring their own array of panellists and moderated by E27 co-founder Thaddeus Koh.

Speakers for each fireside chat hailed from all stakeholders involved with the development of D-Town, including government officials as well as current tenants at Nongsa, providing a glimpse of what Nongsa Digital Park (NDP), the initial tech office campus at Nongsa D-Town, has blossomed into so far since it started operation in 2018, and what the future may hold with the Nongsa D-Town masterplan to create a vibrant regional tech hub that represents a digital bridge between Singapore and Indonesia.

Introducing Nongsa D-Town

D-Town is a proposed digital hub built on the Indonesian island of Batam, situated a mere 40 minutes off the coast of Singapore. Nicknamed “The Digital Bridge between Singapore and Indonesia”, D-Town grew out of the existing tech ecosystem at NDP and the creative community that is spawned from Infinite Studio’s animation and film studio that has been in Nongsa for over a decade. Nongsa D-Town is designed with the tech and creative industries in mind with the intention to grow a digital ecosystem filled with regional talent between Indonesia and Singapore.

Also read: Here are 5 reasons to expand your business to the Philippines

Every element in D-Town was designed for the express purpose of building a vibrant community of digital talent who can work, live, and play, within 62-hectares of developed space.

The vision behind Nongsa D-Town

A common point of discussion throughout the webinar was the apparent tech talent gaps in Singapore. Being a small nation-state, Singapore’s small population alone is unable to meet the demands of its booming economy despite its technological and economic advantages, which larger populations like Indonesia are able to supplement.

Wilson Tan, the co-founder of the Webimp group, a bespoke IT solutions firm that set up shop at Nongsa three years ago, described the role businesses based in Nongsa have in bridging this talent gap during the event’s third fireside chat.

Also read: Making smart manufacturing a cost-efficient reality for SMEs

“In an entrepreneurship perspective, it doesn’t make sense for Singapore to keep treating Indonesia as a ‘factory,’ in the sense that local workers remain as programmers who only do work. At Webimp, we promote organically and train our local technical talent for the opportunity to become senior programmers and engineers so that they can fill the apparent gap.”

This kind of on-the-job training is exactly why the Indonesian government is so eager to support the project. An exchange of talent and technology between Singapore and Indonesia seems inevitable at a place like NDP, where tech talent from the two countries are able to collaborate with each other.

“Nongsa presents an opportunity to upskill our younger workforce for the digital economy,” said Tommy Suryopratomo, Indonesian ambassador to the Republic of Singapore, at the first fireside chat of the webinar.

How D-Town serves as a digital bridge between Singapore and Indonesia

Indonesia is a young country with a deep talent pool. Roughly 60% of the country’s 257 million people are within the productive age range of between 15-64 years old. It is not surprising, then, those hopes are high for Indonesian youth working for tech companies and startups at Nongsa to eventually bring back their newfound knowledge to their hometowns and villages across the archipelago.

This arrangement is a win-win situation for both employer and prospective employee as an operation in Nongsa also serves as a springboard for international, especially Singaporean, companies who want to expand into the Indonesian market.

Another overarching topic discussed during the grand launch is the geographical advantage of establishing a tech team in Nongsa for Singaporean companies or other multinational organizations. Batam’s close proximity to Singapore allows it to serve as a springboard for Singaporean companies, as the 40-minute commute between the two islands makes it possible for an executive or entrepreneur working in Singapore to visit the tech team in Nongsa and return home within a single day.

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Indonesia’s current tech capital in Indonesia is Jakarta, but NDP is an ideal bridge for Indonesian tech talent who desire to work for overseas companies due to said proximity to Singapore. Simultaneously, the increased flow of talent to Nongsa-based Singaporean companies solves Singapore’s finite tech talent gap.

NDP builds on Infinite Studio’s decade-long presence in Batam, which has been a success and a sort of “microcosm,” to quote Mike Wiluan, President Director of Nongsa D-Town, of what the settlement will look like in the future.

The future of D-Town

When asked about the estimated completion date, Marco Bardelli, Boardmember and Senior Director of NDP, and Andrew Wee, Director of Design at Surbana Jurong, predicted that the entire Nongsa D-Town would take 10 years to finish, with Phase 1 of development coming to a close in 2023. At that point, around 8000 tech and creative talents will be based in NDP in addition to the roughly 1000 currently living and working there.

As D-Town opens for business to the outside world, the incentives for companies on both sides of the Singapore strait to set up shop on Batam will continue to grow.

Interested in learning more? Watch the full Nongsa D-Town Virtual Grand Launch through this playlist on YouTube.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by 
Nongsa D-Town

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