Starting yet another quarter on an exciting note, are we? We just wrapped our quarterly OKRs and we are increasingly going to focus on highlighting the unsung heroes of the tech and business ecosystem. While founders and investors receive their due media attention, startup employees and professionals are often forgotten.

We are expanding our Contributor Programme to include diverse voices from across the organisation hierarchy and to emerging markets like Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. This month we will also be supporting the Earth Day theme and run a number of clean tech and sustainability articles.

Share your opinion and earn a byline by submitting a post. And for some much-needed inspiration catch up on all the contributor community action from last week!

A better way to make impact: Why we decided to start a social impact network by Lucy Bennett Baggs, CEO and founder of Force For Good

“How many times have you made a donation this year? Yet I imagine you have no idea of your cumulative impact, where the money has gone or how you’ve helped to make the world a better place?

With an ever-growing spotlight on social media and its role and influence on the world, I’ve become increasingly driven to create a social network that is simply for good. No negativities, no bullying, no filters, no irrelevant adverts.

Based in Singapore, Force for Good is a soon-to-launch, angel-funded platform. We’re always looking for interesting advisors and investors to join us on the journey.

I — as the founder and CEO of Force for Good — and our Head of Impact Partnerships Christine Amour-Levar I, would like to share our motivations in creating the world’s first social impact network.”

Why women are better leaders

Two women entrepreneurs on why hard work and diversity are the keys to their companies’ success by Phung B, Febe Ventures

“The Founder on Founder Podcast series uncovers stories from outstanding entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia on their journey, insights and advice on running a tech company. The first one in the series is Hang Do, the COO of SCommerce, a Vietnamese logistics provider and Fanny Moizant, co-founder and president of Vestiaire Collective, a luxury retail platform startup founded in 2009.

They offer insights on what it’s like to be women in leadership positions within two different tech industries, by sharing their experiences and thoughts on how to create greater impact by empowering and leveraging women at all levels of the workplace.”

Levelling the playing field: How to build a home for women in tech by Jessie Xia, Managing Director, ThoughtWorks SEA

“While I have faced my fair share of challenges as a woman working in tech for two decades, it has been encouraging to see the rise of diversity and inclusion as boardroom priorities for many organisations, not just in technology, but also across various sectors in Southeast Asia.

This is indicative of real, positive change being driven by generations of female tech trailblazers who have ignited conversations and lobbied for equality. It is now up to us, the contemporaries in technology, to honour and build upon these efforts in creating an even more equitable and inclusive future for the sector.”

Why fintech sector is booming

From startup to scale-up: How fintech startups can get on the front foot by Tim Fu, of PayPal East Asia

“Recently I had the honour to become a judge of a fintech startup pitching competition. This was a good chance to reflect on where the emerging opportunities are and what are the traits of successful startups.

Let’s take the payments space as an example. The move to online shopping was already a trend prior to 2019 but the pandemic has accelerated this. This has created new challenges, and therefore new opportunities for startups to address.

One such challenge is the increasing complexity and choice in payment options. Hong Kong is unique in that it has a very diverse range of payment options, ranging from stored value card to digital wallets and QR payment codes.

With even more payment methods expected to come into the market, there remains a need for a solution to integrate these payment methods and manage the increasing complexity across the payment ecosystem to provide consumers an enhanced user experience.”

What is Open Finance and how can it help Indonesia’s unbanked? by Diego Rojas, founder and CEO at Finantier

“With over 360 registered fintech companies within Indonesia, the growth of the industry is well documented. However, the financial data of their customers is often stored in silos and not exchanged.

This creates a significant problem for both companies and consumers, as the former lack the necessary information to confidently offer loans and other financial products for the latter. As consumers are unable to access the right financial products to help improve their financial wellbeing, a financial divide is created.

With ‘Open Finance‘, such an issue could be easily solved.”

Notes for founders

Lesson learned: Conviction is most essential virtue while building a startup during a pandemic by Earl Martin Valencia, cofounder of Plentina

“As I write this article today, only one word comes to mind that probably exhibits the spirit of many of my peers who are starting or pushing through building companies that try to solve large difficult system problems during a time where their personal and professional job securities are at risk daily, it would be the word conviction.

For entrepreneurs, conviction is often seen as the will to move forward despite overwhelming odds. I am sure that most of us know the story of David vs. Goliath, or the battle of the 300 Spartans, or maybe Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.

Conviction for most startup entrepreneurs is deeply rooted in achieving a world-changing idea because we fundamentally believe that if we are successful, the world will be better with this technology being utilised.”

Dinner date with data: How F&B retailers can use retail data to drive sales in a post-pandemic world by Vernon Chua

“Going digital makes collecting data easier than ever — and the collection and use of consumer data is a key part to the success of the new trends we’ve seen emerge during the pandemic.

Besides food delivery services, another trend that has seen a surge amidst the pandemic are cloud and ghost kitchens: food production and delivery services that are entirely online, with no physical store presence whatsoever. An idea that is more than a decade old and originally conceived as a solution to increasing property rentals, the cloud kitchen’s catapult into prominence came amidst the pandemic, when social distancing norms and quarantines kept people out of physical restaurants.”

The post From our community: Paypal’s leader on fintech boom in Asia, women leaders on diversity at workplaces and more… appeared first on e27.

With recent investments from Google, Facebook, and Microsoft making headlines, Indonesia’s tech scene has exploded onto the world stage in 2020. Meanwhile, the country’s digital economy is taking off with 40 million new internet users last year alone, leading many — including us — to predict that international attraction to Southeast Asia’s largest economy is only just getting started.

Whether or not the rumours of an US$18B Gojek and Tokopedia merger become reality, we believe 2021 is the year that more US investors “discover” what is happening in Southeast Asia’s digital economy — and particularly in Indonesia.

Following in the footsteps of SEA Group — currently the only Southeast Asian tech company listed on a US exchange — we predict at least two to three Indonesian tech companies will seek to go public in the US within the next 12 months, including the first dual-listing IPOs between the US and Indonesia.

That “something big” is underway in Indonesia’s tech ecosystem is not surprising, but it is a remarkably different reality than only ten years ago.

One entrepreneur who has been there every step of Indonesia’s tech transformation is Aldi Haryopratomo, who was among the first Endeavor entrepreneurs in Indonesia.

Haryopratomo built his first startup Mapan in 2009. In 2017, Mapan was acquired by Gojek, where he became the CEO of GoPay, and built Indonesia’s leading fintech unicorn.

Aldi left GoPay earlier this year, and is now on sabbatical mentoring a new breed of entrepreneurs. We had a chance to talk to him about his experiences.

“Unlike today, venture capital was non-existent in Indonesia in 2009,” says Haryopratomo, founder and CEO of GoPay, and a serial entrepreneur in Indonesia. “Trying to get advice on how to build a startup was impossible.” It makes sense — only seven per cent of the population in Indonesia was online in 2009, compared to the 70 per cent internet penetration today. This 10 times growth has opened up a world of possibilities for hopeful entrepreneurs and technology investors alike.

Also Read: GOPAY becomes payment option in Google Play in Indonesia, reaching underserved market

Entrepreneur in the making

Despite Indonesia’s nascent entrepreneurship ecosystem at the time, Haryopratomo’s is a success story. His first venture, Mapan, focused on providing lower-income communities better access to valuable products and services through technology and the power of networks.

We first met Haryopratomo in 2009, the same year he founded Mapan when he cold-emailed Endeavor’s expansion team to inquire about opening an office in Indonesia — looking for support.

As a graduate student at Harvard, he had read a case study about Endeavor’s success in Latin America, where entrepreneurs such as Wences Casares, Marcos Galperin, and others had spurred the growth of an entrepreneurial ecosystem beginning to rival that of Silicon Valley.

“My curiosity spiked,” said Haryopratomo. “I was jealous of the startup support system my fellow founders had in San Francisco. I assumed that most founders in Nigeria, Argentina, or Brazil faced a similar problem.”

Haryopratomo graduated with a degree in computer engineering in 2004 from Purdue University, and worked two years as an IT security consultant for Ernst & Young in San Francisco before joining the star micro-finance organisation, Kiva. He left Kiva to work at BCG where he had an opportunity to create the initial design for a mobile banking system in Pakistan, ultimately realising the vast commercial potential of enabling a network of rural shopkeepers with the ability to accept mobile payments.

In late 2008, inspired by this revelation, Haryopratomo created the pilot project that would ultimately become Mapan. Mapan was founded on the belief that in any village or community, there is a natural community leader, who is best positioned to provide goods and services for his or her neighbours.

The company started by offering prepaid cell phone minutes and bill payment services. Since then, Mapan’s main product line has evolved to be Arisan Mapan (mapan means financially self-sufficient in Bahasa Indonesia), which utilises the traditional rotation-based savings and loan model at the village level to offer affordable goods — ranging from clothing to refrigerators — to its members. Mapan has helped over three million families finance goods using the arisan model.

Also Read: Morning News Roundup: Fulldive partners gojek’s digital payment arm GoPay, launching its browser in Indonesia

When asked about his greatest role models over the years, Haryopratomo mentioned his father, who built roads and bridges all through Indonesia and often took his children to work with him. This exposure motivated Haryopratomo to pursue building companies that gave access to basic services to those who need them the most.

As Mapan scaled, Haryopratomo looked for mentors in the ecosystem who could give him advice. He continued to email Endeavor, asking when an office in Indonesia might open. “I would call every month or so just to check-in,” Haryopratomo said.

In 2012, to his excitement, Endeavor Indonesia launched and began a proactive search for potential Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Haryopratomo immediately put his name in the ring and became the first Indonesian entrepreneur to go through Endeavor’s selection process.

“I stumbled through the local selection panel,” he recounted. “The panellists were people who I had only seen in magazines. They grilled me for hours about my revenue, team, and growth.”

But he passed unanimously and soon after boarded a plane to Dubai for an International Selection Panel (ISP), the final step in Endeavor’s selection process. The ISP was equally as challenging — and exhilarating. Stakes were high since, if selected, he would become Indonesia’s first Endeavor Entrepreneur.

“The grilling continued in Dubai. Panellists paired together to assault me with questions and shower me with wisdom. I walked out of the three sessions exhausted,” he said. But, when it came time for the decision, Haryopratomo was ultimately rejected. He was crushed.

The following year, Sati Rasuanto, the managing director of Endeavor Indonesia, invited him to go through the process again. This time, it was Rasuanto’s turn to be persistent. Despite initial hesitation, he agreed to attend another ISP, and this time he was selected.

A chance endeavour

Once in the Endeavor network, Haryopratomo had access to the mentorship and guidance he had only dreamed of years prior. One of his early mentors was Husodo, the founding Chairman of Endeavor Indonesia, and a well-respected entrepreneur in the country.

Husodo helped Haryopratomo navigate doing business in Jakarta, and became an early investor in Mapan. Another important mentor for Haryopratomo was the Argentinian serial entrepreneur Wences Casares, who was part of his first selection panel.

“I made a point to meet Wences every time I travelled to California,” said Haryopratomo. “I sought his counsel on every career-changing moment I had.”

Also Read: Why frictionless payments is the key to merchant success in the modern world

In addition to his cherished mentors, Haryopratomo forged strong relationships with Endeavor’s staff. Over the years, he felt immensely supported by Allen Taylor who oversaw Endeavor Catalyst, Endeavor’s investment fund. He recalls Taylor guiding him through the “obscure terms and pitfalls he had seen many entrepreneurs face.” In 2014, Endeavor Catalyst joined Mapan’s Series B financing round alongside Omidyar Network.

Two years later, Mapan, along with two other Indonesian fintech companies, was acquired by gojek, an Indonesian ride hailing unicorn. gojek was on its way to becoming a super app and wanted to build a payments and financial services arm. As part of the acquisition, Haryopratomo became CEO of GoPay.

“When we started, GoPay was mainly known as a payment method for gojek; there were only a few thousand transactions happening outside of Gojek each day. We launched our QR payments offline, and within less than a year, we were processing over a million transactions per day,” Haryopratomo shared.

Under Haryopratomo’s leadership, GoPay continued to grow exponentially. In 2019, GoPay was reported to have processed US$6.3 billion dollars of transactions and expanded from a purely domestic business to establishing a regional presence.

GoPay’s rise helped attract strategic investments from global tech companies into gojek including Paypal, Facebook, Google, and Tencent.

“I feel privileged to have had a team that, in such a short time, was able to change how millions of people accessed payments and financial services. We learned so many lessons along the way, and I wanted to find ways to share them with other entrepreneurs in the region,” Haryopratomo recalled.

He embodied the Endeavor spirit of “paying it forward” and began mentoring entrepreneurs himself, devoting much of his time to cultivating the ecosystem he didn’t have as an aspiring entrepreneur. For years, Haryopratomo has served as a mentor to Gibran Huzaifah, founder of eFishery, where he has recently been appointed to the board.

Haryopratomo recounts, “When it was about fish, Gibran was the teacher, and I was the student. Learning about fish, my favourite protein, was a reprieve from the world of fintech.” Aldi further noted, “Often, I learned more from mentoring other entrepreneurs than when I was a mentee. Gibran was one such example.”

After informally advising the company for six years, he also formally joined the board of HaloDoc, a fast-growing health technology company in Indonesia. Kitabisa, Indonesia’s largest donations app, also counts him as one of its board members.

As internet penetration grows, and capital and geography continue to decouple, the once nearly insurmountable barriers to entrepreneurship in places like Indonesia are beginning to come down.

Also Read: After Grab, gojek joins LinkAja’s US$100M+ Series B financing round

It has been over a decade since Haryopratomo first learned of Endeavor as a graduate student and aspiring entrepreneur in Indonesia. In many ways, his journey as an entrepreneur parallels that of the Indonesia ecosystem itself. What began as an aspiring entrepreneur in a fledgling entrepreneurial ecosystem, became an entrepreneur to aspire to in a thriving one. And we think Indonesia is a market to watch.

Organisations such as Endeavor are helping to establish the support systems globally that he craved back in 2009. Today, Haryopratomo encourages every entrepreneur he meets to join Endeavor — “if only for the friendships you will make along the journey,” he says.

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Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) are one of the most important developments in the digital currency space and the future of finance. As they are backed by the central banks of their respective countries, they will have much more credibility than existing stable coins, increasing the likelihood of digital currencies reaching mass adoption. Central banks around the world are now working on piloting and developing their CBDCs.

There are a number of reasons why CBDCs are being regarded as a top priority for central banks. Firstly, privately-issued currencies such Bitcoin, Doge, Tether have been capturing a large amount of market share over the past year, and so if central banks don’t keep up with digital currencies, they will be left behind in the race.

Secondly, carrying paper currency is becoming extremely inconvenient in this day and age, especially in view of the ongoing global pandemic, where cash can contribute to the spread of coronavirus. Cash is also slow to send via traditional borders, thus giving it limited interoperability. 

Thirdly, another huge benefit of digital currencies is that they can help banks propagate monetary policy, as well as mitigate money laundering and tax evasion.

However, several infrastructure systems will be required to prevent money laundering, such as the ability to track funds and identify users that perform these transactions (KYC infrastructure), privacy protection (a balance must be struck in terms of how much access governments have to citizen information). Only the most advanced countries have the data centres and processors to perform this at this current time.

China leads the pack

While more than 80 per cent of central banks are looking into CBDCs, China and Sweden are at the forefront of this movement as they have already launched their digital currency projects. China, without a doubt, is the major leading economy in the CBDC race.

It is clear that it wants to be a global blockchain superpower and is taking steps towards this. The People’s Bank of China has been leading the development of the digital yuan. It aims to be an effective way to digitise the cash in circulation, and it is currently operating as a retail CBDC.

Recently, a region in China, Shenzhen, launched the “iShenzhen” lottery, through which the government distributed 20 million digital yuans between 100,000 CBDC wallet holders. If the account holders don’t use their digital yuan within a few weeks, it disappears. A similar lottery was held in Suzhou, one of China’s major special economic zones (SEZs).

Also read: Tesla is now accepting bitcoin. Are crypto payments the future of business?

As a region, Suzhou has already been involved with various blockchain projects to enhance the local government’s understanding of decentralised technology, smart contracts, and the general education that citizens need to have about blockchain technology.

China has taken it a step further and even started engaging in trials with major e-commerce platforms within the country. It began with JD.com — the country’s second-largest online retailer — which distributed 20 million yuan in a lottery launched by its fintech arm. The users who receive digital yuan through this lottery can spend it on JD.com’s online e-commerce platform as a part of a real-world CBDC trial.

Additionally, it has been reported that there are now vending machines in the Shanghai subway that allow users to transact in the digital yuan for any products held in the machine.

Despite initial speculations that China is launching its CBDC project to disrupt the digital payment duopoly that AntGroup’s Alipay and Tencent’s WePay hold in China’s digital payment market, they have enlisted both of the banks owned by these companies in their CBDC project.

Together, both of these payment platforms have more than 93 per cent of China’s booming digital payment market. Ant Group’s MyBank and Tencent’s WeBank are enlisted to participate in the digital yuan trials. Upon enlisting, MyBank and WeBank customers will access their accounts to transact through a PBOC-run digital yuan wallet application.

Further, thePeople’s Bank of China (PBOC) is engaged in an ongoing initiative based in Hong Kong called ‘Project Inthanon-LionRock.’ This project takes forward the work done by the Bank of Thailand (BoT) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to research and study the operation of CBDCs for cross-border payments. This involvement is highly indicative of the fact that the PBOC understands how critical interoperability is for the success of their CBDC.

Interoperability is key to CBDC success

China’s surging digital currency adoption is an initiative that could make Chinese goods and services more accessible in the global marketplace. Even Citigroup is of the opinion that the digitisation of fiat currencies is inevitable and a natural consequence of distributed ledger technology.

Businesses and governments alike have been gearing up to indulge in this upcoming technology, ensuring that they have the first-mover advantage that is so invaluable in a space like this.

Smaller countries will have an easier time implementing CBDCs due to the lesser size of their economy and the higher degree of autonomy that their governments have, especially when compared to more populous countries like China and the United States.

The Bahamas has recently introduced their Bahaman Sand Dollar, making it the world’s first CBDC, although its currency operations and penetrations don’t seem to be as interjecting as China’s trials.

Cambodia recently launched its Bakong along with an inter-banking platform that runs on blockchain technology. Even the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) is now conducting tests for a CBDC with the results yet to be announced. In collaboration with legacy financial institutions, the Fed focuses on a wholesale CBDC rather than a retail one like the digital yuan.

Also Read: How bright is the future of cryptocurrency?

Meanwhile, the Fed is also working on improving its own systems and innovating in the payments space. Giving the Fed another reason to push their CBDC project, the US central bank’s system was down for hours on 24th February, highlighting the increasing need for the Fed to enhance its existing payment systems by implementing CBDCs.

Acting as a catalyst to all the global CBDC initiatives, the Bank of International Settlements’ Innovation Hub (BISIH) has stated that CBDC research is a top priority for 2021. The BISIH plans to evaluate the feasibility of faster, cheaper cross-border payments across the major economies.

It was also announced that the BISIH, in collaboration with G20, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank, will work together to “formalise” the use of CBDCs in the financial systems.

IMF research states that interoperability is key to the success of CBDCs as many politicians and economic experts feel as though they could be used as a form of economic weapon. Once countries like the United States and China launch their CBDCs, the tokens will begin to have an additional use apart from transacting within a nation’s borders.

Currencies from these countries will begin to show up in the digital wallets of consumers based in other countries like India or Sri Lanka, who can then use this currency to purchase products in the international market. This will open up international trade scenarios contributing to usage in the retail markets and increasing the adoption of currencies that allow users more liquidity and convenience. 

Along with the proliferation of certain currencies changing the global trade dynamics, it will be important for public and private players to work in a collaborative manner to facilitate the mass adoption of CBDCs. It is increasingly evident that for a CBDC to be successful, it must also be able to interoperate with other payment systems and digital assets, as well as other CBDCs.

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

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Otsaw Digital, a Singapore-based startup focusing on developing robotics technologies, has developed a robot to autonomously fulfil home deliveries, Reuters reported.

Named Camello, the robots are currently undergoing a one-year trial with their services offered to 700 households.

According to the report, users can book delivery slots for groceries including milk and eggs, and they will be notified through an app when the robot is near a pick-up point, such as the lobby of an apartment building.

Camello is installed with 3D sensors, a camera and two loading compartments which individually can carry up to 20kg of goods.

These robots are able to complete up to five deliveries daily on weekdays and remain on call for half a day on Saturdays.

The robots are currently accompanied by Otsaw’s staff to ensure no hiccups occur during deliveries.

Also Read: This made-in-Singapore robotic coffee barista will receive you at Japan’s train stations ahead of Olympics

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Dat Bike, a Vietnamese electric motorbike startup, has raised US$2.6 million in pre-Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures.

Wavemaker Partners, Hustle Fund and iSeed Ventures also participated.

The fresh funds will bankroll Dat Bike’s plans to scale its team, R&D and customer-facing operations.

These expansion plans come after what the company claims is a 35 per cent month-on-month (MoM) growth in demand for its bikes.

Launched in 2018 after founder Son Nguyen left a cushy job in Silicon Valley, Dat Bike provides electric motorbikes that are on par with their gasoline counterparts.

The company claims its flagship Weaver model (which retails at US$1,700) can rival gas bikes in power and range and is powered with a 5000W motor that helps the bike accelerate from 0 to 50kmph within three seconds.

Dat Bike added the charging time for its motorbikes is also the fastest in the industry at just under three hours and its brake mechanism is also tailored to the notoriously hectic traffic situation in Vietnam.

Also Read: How electric scooters will revolutionise Southeast Asia’s congested cities

The company claims it ships out hundreds of bikes monthly and launched its first physical store in Ho Chi Minh City last December.

“We want to transform the 250 million gasoline bikes in Southeast Asia to electric vehicles. We believe that if given a choice, everyone would pick electric over gas. It is just that the current electric motorbikes in the market lag behind in power and range, making it difficult for people to make the switch,” Son shared.

“There are three big motorcycle markets in the world: China, India and Southeast Asia. While both China and India already have dominant local bike manufacturers, Southeast Asia has no local motorcycle brand and the market is dominated by Japanese players. We want to change that, to become the motorcycle company of Southeast Asia. And electric is our way,” he added.

“This investment into Dat Bike marks our first investment in the mobility sector which is rapidly getting transformed by technology. The US$25 billion two-wheeler industry in Southeast Asia, in particular, is ripe for reaping benefits of new developments in electric vehicles and automation,” opined Amit Anand, founding partner of Jungle Ventures.

“We believe that Dat Bike will lead this charge and create a new benchmark not just in the region but potentially globally for what the next generation of 2-wheeler electric vehicles will look and perform like,” he further remarked.

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Image Credit: Dat Bike

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