“We believe the movement against plastic is now firmly entrenched worldwide, with many governments acting to reduce or ban the consumption of single-use plastics and businesses committing to reduce their plastic footprint,” says Zhaotan Xiao, President (Asia Pacific) at RWDC.

An increasing awareness about the dangers of single-use plastic and a ban/ restriction on its use in many countries has opened enormous opportunities for startups as well as venture capitalists to develop and promote environmentally-friendly alternatives.

Singapore- and US-based RWDC Industries is one such startup that has long been working on developing a biodegradable alternative. The company, which has secured nearly US$168 million over its six years of existence from renowned VCs such as Vickers Venture Partners as well as the ‘Iron Man’ star Robert Downey Jr., produces medium-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanoate (mcl-PHA) biopolymers that are designed for use across a broad range of applications.

In this interview, Xiao, discusses RWDC’s association with Downey, the company’s products and future plans.

Edited excerpts:

Since inception, RWDC has raised US$168 million from about seven investors. Why does the company need this much capital? How much of this capital is going into R&D?

There is no lack of investor interest and financial support for our mission to replace single-use plastics.

Almost all funding raised by us is going towards capacity construction, as there is no lack of demand for PHA. We need to build physical factories that are first of its kind in the world; we are not building apps.

Also Read: Biodegradable plastic startup RWDC Industries raises US$22M in fresh funding

We cannot disclose the exact amount going into R&D. RWDC firmly believes in the importance of investing to maintain our technological advantage, and we are constantly innovating both in our production processes and in the utilisation of PHA in novel end-product applications.

How much did you raise from Robert Downey’s fund FootPrint Coalition? How did this deal come in? How will this partnership mutually benefit?

We cannot disclose the amount raised from FootPrint Coalition (a US-based coalition of investors which invest in high-growth, sustainability-focused companies including in Asia).

We were introduced to FootPrint Coalition (FC) through one of our institutional investors. FC really intrigued and excited about our technology, and completely aligned with our vision of transitioning the world towards bio-based and natural materials that are in harmony with Nature’s regenerative cycles.

Aside from capital investment, FC will be an extremely helpful resource for educating the world about the benefits of PHA. They recently did an excellent short video on this topic, and the recent press coverage about their investment into RWDC has greatly elevated our profile.

You’ve been working on the biodegradable alternative since 2015. However, as per your site, your products haven’t hit the market yet. Why is it taking a long time for the commercialisation of the product?

PHA has been known to mankind for more than 100 years, but nobody had found a way to produce the material on an industrial scale. We have gotten to where we are due to the decades of work put in by our Founders. Again, we are not building an app.

The road to commercialising new materials is typically very long (think Goretex, Teflon etc.). The reason is because everything fails at the weakest link, and we need to have solved every single problem from our clients’ perspective for them to adopt the material.

We are very confident that we are now at the cusp of transitioning the world away from plastics towards this much more logical choice of material, as our clients are now able to successfully run our PHA material on their existing equipment as a “drop-in” replacement of the plastics they currently use.

The fruits of successfully commercialising new materials are also typically very big (think Goretex, Teflon etc).

As per your website, you will target the Singapore market in the first phase by introducing a drinking straw. How are you going to price the product? Will it be cheaper than traditional plastic straws?

RWDC is a B2B business. We do not make the end products (bottles, cutlery, straws, coated paper, etc.) ourselves. We provide PHA in the form of a resin or dispersion, and this would be used to produce the end-products on our clients’ existing machines. Our go-to-market strategy is therefore largely determined together with our clients.

Our straws will be more expensive than traditional plastic only if the negative externalities to the environment posed by plastic straws are not taken into account. We know that our pricing is acceptable to clients because we have already signed deals with large MNC clients.

Additionally, a ban on single-use plastic items including straws has been or will be imposed in many countries.

Even in places where plastic straws are not (yet) banned, businesses would like to show their environmental consciousness by replacing plastic straws with other environmentally friendly alternatives. Straws make up a tiny part of overall costs for businesses, so higher pricing is generally acceptable.

Our PHA straws are competitive to other alternatives, including paper and polylactic acid (PLA) straws. In addition, they have several advantages compared to other alternatives.

Also Read: This Indian startup makes cutlery using sugarcane waste

For example, our straws are more functional than paper straws (they don’t turn soggy after a while). They are also biodegradable in the truest sense (i.e., in nature), whereas PLA is only compostable (i.e., only degrades under certain conditions), and will take the same time as regular plastic to degrade if leaked into nature.

When will your other products (cutlery, cups, bags, etc.) will be available in the market? Which are your other key target markets?

We target to launch bottles, cutlery and straws in 2021. In addition, we have made great progress with clients on areas such as coated paper, PHA fibres, injection-moulded articles and so on. We have also demonstrated our ability to make PHA films and foam products.

Is there awareness among businesses, especially F&B ones, about the dangers of plastic in Singapore?

There is definitely increasing awareness about the dangers of plastic in Singapore. We believe the movement against plastic is now firmly entrenched worldwide, with many governments acting to reduce or ban consumption of single-use plastics and businesses committing to reduce their plastic footprint.

Do you also work with the Singapore government in its drive against single-use plastics?

We have had discussions with the Singapore government about the benefits of PHA and the limitations of the three ‘R’s to change the growth trajectory of plastic pollution.

Having said that, concerns about plastic pollution in the Singapore government appear to be less pressing due to the fact that the country incinerates our waste and leverages on the waste-to-energy conversion for power.

RWDC is actively engaged with the European Commission on their Single-Use Plastics Directive. As a natural polymer that is not chemically-modified, we believe PHA should not even be considered a plastic.

Singapore is much smaller than many other markets in the world. Why does RWDC want to introduce its first products in this country?

We are going to commercialise our first products globally, in collaboration with global brand owners.

How big is your total addressable market (TAM) in Southeast Asia?

PHA is a viable alternative to plastic (in terms of functionality, versatility and price), so our TAM is at least the market for single-use plastics.

In reality, adoption (especially in certain applications) will be slowed down by several factors, including the need for extensive product trials to ensure feasibility, our ability to increase production capacity to catch up with demand, and pricing.

We have very aggressive and ambitious plans for scaling up. This is a very long journey, and our partners are all fully aligned with us in terms of values and vision.

Do you have plans to secure additional investments soon?

We expect to raise a new round in the second half of 2021 or early 2022, to unlock funding for our next phase of growth — building the first wave of full-scale production modules in the US and Asia.

—

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

Image Credit: RWDC Industries

The post Why ‘Iron Man’ star Robert Downey Jr. placed a bet on Singapore’s biodegradable plastic startup RWDC Industries appeared first on e27.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital transformation globally and shaped our lifestyles around it.

While this disruption has adversely impacted traditional businesses like restaurants, retail stores and hotels, it has also created many new growth opportunities on similar fronts, with new innovations in food delivery, e-commerce, and even rethinking the way we deliver education to our next generations.

Against this background of ever-evolving needs and trends, there is no better time than now to harness the opportunities that have emerged.

This is what the Enhanced Startup SG Founder programme seeks to encourage: more of this entrepreneurial spirit; to be nimble, adaptable and unafraid to fail; a disposition that will help us to seize all growth opportunities available to chart a new path forward in a post-COVID-19 world.

Through the new Venture Building programmes, we hope to enable more aspiring entrepreneurs with the right tools, mentorship, and resources to help build their entrepreneurship journey and accelerate our collective transformation to an innovation-driven economy.

NTUitive recently concluded the first two cohorts of its Venture Building programme, ideasinc.veni, under the Enhanced Startup SG Founder scheme. The programme equips participants with practical life skills and soft skills that are valued by employers of the 21st century.

Being part of the programme provides them the opportunity to interact with our extensive network of investors, entrepreneurs, and corporations, helping them build their professional network and connect to people for business and job opportunities. ideasinc.veni also prepares participants for the Startup SG Founder grant, ensuring the business idea is differentiated, that there is a sizeable target market and potential, a sound business model, and a strong management team.

Also Read: NTUitive’s new programme VB18 will help Singaporeans get paid while building a business

To the mid-career professionals: it’s never too late to be an entrepreneur

The demographics of the first cohort of NTUitive’s venture building programme – ideasinc.veni – comprised a good mix of participants from various backgrounds and qualifications. More than half are individuals aged 30 and above, exploring a mid-career switch to entrepreneurship.

Chan Huiying, former investment analyst at Goldman Sachs, and a participant of NTUitive’s first Venture Building cohort, has been active in the startup scene where her idea won third place in the StartUp Weekend.

She shared that her corporate background in strategy and as an investment analyst enabled her to build strong fundamentals in structuring, presenting, and communicating her business ideas with multiple stakeholders, which are transferrable skills that give her an edge in succeeding as an entrepreneur.

Chan has since built on her experience to sell her vision to potential customers, co-founders, and angel investors, which helps to turn her business idea into reality.

Chan shared, “Being an entrepreneur is like getting a chance to work on a project that you are passionate about. You can have the freedom to choose what you want to work on, with whom you want to work, who you want to consult for advice, and how you want to realise a vision.

It is very exciting, and you will never stop learning and thinking about how to grow the business. You get to meet a lot of people in the process and learn facts about the world you never knew about.”

Dr Lua Eng Keong, another participant of NTUitive’s first cohort, received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge (UK) and was in the field of AI/ML Data Science & Analytics and Cybersecurity for Telecommunications-Media-Technology industry prior to participating in the ideasinc.veni programme.

Also Read: This app makes your SMS inbox organised and intuitive; sends you contextual offers based on the content

Dr Lua shared that working with a team of mid-career professionals of similar age, with significant experience and with deep expertise in their strides provides them with an edge in entrepreneurship, as the wealth of domain knowledge, industry insights and business development expertise they possess are built over the years from corporate experience, which their younger counterparts do not have.

“The real capacity and capability to understand deep technology application and market needs come with years of experience, especially international work experience across various regions and markets. This is something that mid-career professionals possess,” Dr Lua said.

According to Harvard Business Review, for the top 0.1 per cent of startups based on growth in their first five years, the founders of these startups had started their companies, on average, when they were 45 years old.

Mid-career professionals have the resilience and experience to weather the stress and variables arising from being an entrepreneur. Even if they do fail and wish to return to employment, the skillsets and networks built during the entrepreneurship journey will make them highly employable.

The experience of starting and running a startup will provide people with an understanding of management and the ability to have an overview of larger, wider business perspectives. Most importantly, it provides the ability to understand customers’ problems.

Experience is the best teacher

NDR Medical Technology, co-founded in 2014 by NTU alumnus Alan Goh, specialises in the development of surgical robotics driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and image processing capabilities.

Goh envisioned that robotic systems would significantly impact surgical procedures by making them less reliant on individual experience and skill, reducing mistakes from human fatigue or judgment.

Before the conception of NDR, Goh graduated with a specialisation in mechatronics and started his career developing automation systems in A*STAR, where he met his co-founder, Dr Jason Ng. The duo almost had the opportunity to spin off a company under the research institution, but the business model was not sound.

The duo caught the entrepreneurship bug and tried venturing into various industries before embarking on the development of medical robots, which best utilises their capabilities and experience.

Also Read: Personalisation is the new mantra: Snapdeal acquires TargetingMantra to help you shop in an intuitive manner

Being mid-career entrepreneurs allows the company to build on a solid foundation while maintaining prudence in development costs. “Entrepreneurship is not a chanced opportunity, but a conscious choice of perseverance,” said Goh.

Aspiring founders join us

With the conclusion of NTUitive’s first Venture Building cohort, as well as that of the other Venture Builders and Accredited Mentor Partners, top talent of promising startup teams formed through these Venture Building programmes will be pitching live at Founder Ignite, organised by Enterprise Singapore, which marks the finale of each cohort from the Enhanced Startup SG Founder’s Venture Building programme, and to promote local entrepreneurship.

Pre-selected top startup teams from each Venture Builder and Accredited Mentor Partner will be pitching their innovative business ideas to a panel of esteemed judges, who will assess the startups based on the uniqueness of business concept, feasibility of business model, strength of management team, and potential market value.

To find out more about the Startup SG Founder Venture Building programme and how you can fulfil your dreams as an aspiring entrepreneur, sign up to watch Founder Ignite.

–

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

Image credit: NeONBRAND on Unsplash

The post Why it is never too late for mid-career professionals to be an entrepreneur appeared first on e27.

AppMan, a Thailand-based insurtech startup, announced today it has raised US$4.6 million in a Series A funding round.

Investors include Siam Alpha Equity (SAE), Krungsri Finnovate, Casmatt, KTBST Group, and POEMS Ventures.

The startup will use the capital to expand its services across Asia Pacific and further develop its technology. 

AppMan was born in 2011 after Thanapoom Chareonsiri gathered co-founders Amarit Franssen, Pak Ratthidham and Nuttapon Kongkitimanon to build a software solution that would help digitise the insurance sector. 

Since all the co-founders were already working in the insurance sector, the opportunity to serve the market became even greater.

AppMan’s aim is to enable insurers to mobilise their sales agents digitally and shift from paper-based work to an automated process. Its flagship product is AgentMate, which seeks to provide seamless sales process solutions for insurance companies wanting to digitise their sale process.

Also Read: Singapore’s insurtech startup Axinan rebrands to Igloo; closes Series A-plus funding

The company has raised a total of US$5 million since its inception from undisclosed founders which went into creating new products.

Additionally, AppMan has also expanded its reach and established offices outside of Thailand in markets such as Vietnam and Indonesia. 

“AppMan has strong expertise in several technologies such as OCR (a technology to read words from documents) or chatbot, which allows seamless experience insurance transactions for clients. We believe that strategic investment in AppMan will not only grow our invested capital but also would raise digital adoption readiness and awareness to KTBST Group as well,” Kitiwat Akrangsi, a representative from KTBST Group said.

“The insurance space is ripe for digital disruption. As an insurtech SaaS solutions business that targets the B2B2C space, AppMan is well-positioned to capture this market. It has achieved strong traction and buy-in with the existing market players, and has a strong pipeline of new products which we expect will drive further traction,” said Luke Lim, a representative of PhillipCapital Group. 

As per a study, the insurance penetration rate in the ASEAN region remains low at approximately 3.6 per cent. According to Chareonsiri, there is a real opportunity for insurtech companies in SEA Markets as Thailand alone marks a market worth US$26 billion. 

Some notable startups in the insurtech sector in Southeast Asia are Igloo, PasarPolis, Sunday, and PolicyStreet.

—

Image Credit: AppMan

The post Thai startup AppMan raises US$4.6M to help insurers in APAC automate sales process appeared first on e27.

Transcelestial Technologies, a last-mile internet connectivity startup based out of Singapore, has announced its entry into the Philippines by raising a strategic funding of US$2 million from Kickstart Ventures.

This is the first publicly-announced investment by Kickstart Ventures from its recently-announced US$180-million ACTIVE Fund, which is backed by Ayala Corporation.

Several of Ayala’s subsidiaries — namely AC Energy, AC Industrials, AC Ventures, BPI, and Kickstart’s parent company Globe Telecom — also participated in the latest round.

“The team at Kickstart have been fully aligned with our goals of solving the last-mile and global bottlenecks in internet distribution. We could not have asked for a better partner to help us not only work with Globe in Philippines but also advise us on bringing our current and future products to solve some of the challenges in the archipelago nation,” said Rohit Jha, CEO of Transcelestial.

Also Read: Kickstart Ventures to manage Ayala’s US$150M Corporate VC fund in Philippines

“As more Filipinos become reliant on internet access for their livelihood and social connections, we’re hopeful that Transcelestial will help increase internet penetration and provide telcos and ISPs with an affordable option for 5G deployment,” said Minette Navarrete, President of Kickstart Ventures.

Founded in December 2016, Transcelestial is building what it claims to be a space laser network to “deliver a step-change in internet connectivity globally”.

The startup has developed Centauri, a mass-produced network device that leverages its proprietary Wireless Laser Communication Technology to create a wireless distribution network between buildings, traditional cell towers, street-level poles and other physical infrastructure.

It is the size of a shoe-box weighing less than 3kg and is capable of delivering fibre-like speeds to customers. It is a rapidly-deployable, low-cost and high-speed solution, which can be used in dense residential areas that require bandwidth upgrades.

Two versions of the device are available — 1 Gbps Full Duplex (4G & Enterprise ready) and 10 Gbps Full Duplex (5G-ready). Higher bandwidth capabilities will be unlocked and available for order shortly.

Centauri is aimed at providing a “rapidly deployable, affordable and high-speed last-mile connectivity solution”, especially for dense residential areas during COVID-19 period which require urgent bandwidth upgrades.

The Philippines is the top country in the world in terms of the number of hours spent on the internet with 67 per cent penetration. It is also the top country in the world for mobile use and in the top 3 for laptop, desktop and tablet use.

Also Read: How 5G will empower startups and SMEs in the new normal

Nearly 69 per cent of Philippines watches streaming TV content, 2 points higher than the worldwide average (beating Sweden, India and the UK).

The country is also amongst the top 2 countries in terms of time spent on game consoles (beating countries like China and India). It is the top country in the world using social media.

The archipelago is ahead of the world average on using digital banking and financial services (beating the US) and has the highest ownership of cryptocurrency. It had more new mobile connections activated last year than the next 10 countries combined.

“But the Philippines’s average download speed is only 50 per cent of the world average on mobile and only 34 per cent of world average on fixed connections to homes and offices. This is a major result of bottlenecks created by difficulty in bringing high speed internet backbone to dense population clusters. The sheer number of islands adds to the problem,” Jha pointed out.

“During COVID-19, it is absolutely critical that the people of Philippines continue to work remotely from their homes, continuing to make a livelihood. Transcelestial is here to help telecoms, ISPs, Enterprises and the Government help bridge this shortfall,” he shared.

As for telcos, the Centuari technology unlocks fibre-equivalent high bandwidth between 4G/5G cell towers and the telecom core network which connects back to their data centres. With the device in place, there are no delays caused by right of way issues and the built in automatic alignment technology makes the deployment happen within minutes, claimed Jha.

Also Read: Transcelestial aims to help telcos roll out 5G rapidly and cost effectively in SEA

In addition, there are no spectrum charges and no extra digging costs for laying fibre cables. As a result, one can get to 5G revenues faster by rolling out a transmission network with a reduced total cost and time of ownership as compared to fibre.

On the other hand, Centauri technology allows internet service providers to  bypass the expensive fibre optics costs to customer buildings and premises. They can create their wireless laser rings and mesh between their customers’ buildings and infrastructure to deliver low-latency and high-speed distribution to homes and offices.

As for enterprise, the Centauri technology when used in conjunction with their selected telecom or ISP partner will deliver the best experience to their business use case at a significantly more affordable cost to their business in the difficult COVID-19 period.

For government, its technology helps it bring low-cost ultra high-speed audiovisual and data capabilities to schools, hospitals, government offices and population centres far away from Tier 1 cities.

In July, Transcelestial secured a US$9.6 million in Series A round of investment, co-led by EDBI and Wavemaker Partners. The firm’s other investors are Airbus Ventures, Cap Vista, SEEDS Capital (Enterprise SG), Entrepreneur First, Partech Ventures, 500 Startups, AirTree Ventures, Tekton Ventures, SGInnovate, SparkLabs Global Ventures, Michael Seibel (CEO of Y-Combinator, Founder of Twitch.tv), and Charles Songhurst (Microsoft’s former Head of Corporate Strategy).

In 2018, Transcelestial raised US$1.8 million in seed funding.

—

Image Credit: Transcelestial Technologies.

The post Transcelestial raises US$2M from Ayala-backed Kickstart Ventures to offer last-mile internet connectivity to Filipinos appeared first on e27.

2020 was a year that will forever live in infamy. The COVID-19 pandemic put a hold on many aspects of life and business, but it also became a wake up call for digital innovators to improve and speed up their work.

This is especially true in the world of financial technology or fintech.

A 2020 study reported that fintech firms in digital asset exchanges, payments, savings, and wealth management saw a 13 per cent growth in transaction numbers and 11 per cent increase in transaction volumes in the previous year.

Around 831 of the 1,385 fintech companies surveyed launched new products and services in response to the pandemic. 

With many people opting to conduct their financial transactions online amidst the global crisis, it came to no surprise that demand for fintech offerings has grown as well.

There’s no doubt that new and existing fintech innovations will continue to rise in popularity in 2021 as technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain continuously mature and the pandemic slows down due to the rollout of vaccines worldwide.

Below are some of the top fintech trends that we’ll see happening in 2021.

Digital-only banking

While digital banking has been around long before the pandemic, it spiked in usage amidst the pandemic. Research shows that about 50 per cent of consumers are using digital banking products more since the pandemic, with 87 per cent of them planning to continue this increased usage after the pandemic.

This shows that digital banking has evolved from a “nice-to-have” to a “must-have” solution for consumers and businesses.

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

However, despite the convenience in use that digital banking offers, many consumers are still weary of the dangers that digital banking solutions bring.

For example, risks associated with cyber-attacks are expected to hinder the digital banking market growth in the coming future. So it’s critical for consumers to continuously practice caution and for financial institutions to improve their security measures.

Autonomous finance

Just as self-service solutions have become rampant during the pandemic to avoid possible infection, autonomous finance is expected to rise in 2021 as well.

Several fintech solutions today make it possible for people to manage their money, open accounts, apply for loans, and more with just a click of a button.

Thanks to AI and machine learning, these solutions are now more accessible than lining up in traditional banks and going through tedious processes. 

Not only will autonomous finance provide the flexibility that consumers want, but it can also repair the customer experience in finance and unlock new sources of value.

Crypto and blockchain

2020 became a banner year for blockchain and crypto. The price of Bitcoin, in particular, surpassed its first all-time high value of US$19,783 in 2017 and pushed to US$23,421 in December 2020. It even entered 2021 with a new record of US$33,000, its highest value in history.

Bitcoin’s rising price is due to various reasons, some of which include growing institutional interest, usage as a hedge against inflation, and PayPal’s official entrance in the crypto scene. 

With crypto entering the mainstream more and more, there’s no doubt that demand for blockchain and digital asset solutions will rise as well. Fortunately, several companies worldwide have already mobilised their distribution of such solutions.

Also Read: Philippine fintech startup Ayannah seeks Series B funding to fuel its expansion into Vietnam, India

Pundi X, for example, is continuously rolling out its XPOS point-of-sale system, which allows merchants and consumers alike to transact in digital assets as they would with fiat money.

Biometric security

As fintech solutions become more accessible to the common man, there is now a need for financial companies to boost their cybersecurity.

With this in mind, biometric security systems are beginning to gain a spotlight in the fintech industry. Biometric security assures fintech solution users that only they can access their accounts and data.

Facial recognition and fingerprint authentication systems are the most common iterations of biometric security. The pandemic has especially prompted people to shift towards the use of biometric smartcards to reduce the use of cash.

Once the global crisis dies down, fingerprint sensors are expected to continuously grow as they are also commonly present in many consumer devices today.

Regulatory technology (Regtech)

As fintech adoption grows, regulators are also continuously creating and amending rules to standardise the fintech industry.

Thus, more financial institutions are expected to adopt regtech solutions to comply with risk and compliance management, identity management, regulatory reporting, fraud management, and regulatory intelligence, among other things. They also expected to work more closely with regulators to improve the overall finance industry.

The infamous events that occurred in 2020 have become a learning point for everyone in the fintech space to make the ecosystem safer and more convenient.

Of course, with the advancements in technology, there’s no doubt that fintech will only get better from here on out.

–

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

Image credit: Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

The post 5 fintech trends to watch out for in 2021 appeared first on e27.

Meet Pieter VanIperen, who teaches companies how to FOCUS on what makes them profitable.

Today, he shares with you how to do it too!

We discuss:

• How to identify what is the most important part(s) of your business
• How to cut everything else out
• How to communicate these changes to customers
• How to identify new opportunities and cut them if they aren’t working
• And more!

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

—

This article was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: Michal Czyz on Unsplash

The post How minimalism will make your business successful with Pieter VanIperen appeared first on e27.

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.