In this episode we are excited to welcome Elius Hussain, co-founder and former CEO of Pathao, a Bangladeshi super app that offers ride-sharing, food delivery, and content streaming, among other services.

In our conversation Elius shares more about the Bangladeshi market, the importance of building a solid local team that knows the market better than HQ do, and empowering them to make important decisions, and how to think global day one, purposely building the company to work in multiple markets and transcend borders.

This episode is sponsored by our partner, ZEDRA. Learn more about how the ZEDRA team can support you in expanding to new markets.

Find our entire podcast episode library here and learn more about our forthcoming book on global business growth here.

Also Read: Today’s top tech news: Bangladesh’s Pathao is said to merge with SureCash

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The article was first published on Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

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The pandemic has pushed many beyond their limits from social isolation, resulting in potential long-term mental health issues. This could be a result of, fears over job security, the challenges of working from home or the tragic consequences of the pandemic taking a loved one.

This is a global issue, as we are seeing a rise in mental health conditions. This is further exacerbated by the need for remote work, which is often accompanied by higher risks of poor work-life balance, burnout, and isolation from colleagues at the workplace.

This has sparked a new phenomenon coined as ‘Coronastress’, stress occurring due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Malaysia is seeing similar trends as one in three Malaysians suffer from a mental health condition. Despite the high prevalence, more than 80 per cent of workers with a mental health condition choose not to seek professional help, owing to a lack of resources and the fear of potentially being seen as “unprofessional” in a work environment. 

This has an adverse effect on both their personal and professional lives. More than 60 per cent of respondents surveyed globally, said they were losing at least one to two hours a day in productivity due to  COVID-19—related stress.

Employers are beginning to notice and are starting to emphasise a healthier work environment while ensuring that the support for their employees’ mental health goes beyond acknowledging the issues or allowing a ‘mental health day’. 

However, is enough being done and can Malaysian businesses keep up with the issues caused by the MCOs and “coronastress”?

Also Read: How to foster mental wellness in the workplace and boost performance

Understanding the impact and addressing the real issues

Identifying the actual issue is critical before developing any potential solutions. While not everything will be within your purview to manage from an organisational standpoint, knowing the various struggles of your employees would enable you to create better processes and ideas that are more empathetic. 

As with most crises or significant challenges, it weighs down our mental defences. For employees in Malaysia, it is likely that many are feeling the pinch from battling feelings of loneliness exacerbated by lockdown regulations and social isolation, financial stress, to poor work-life balance.

While not all these struggles can be deemed purely ‘work-related’, employers and leaders can help mitigate potential stressors. 

During the multiple MCOs, many employees complained about back-to-back virtual meetings and the pressure to continue working or responding to messages past their work hours.

As 63 per cent of Malaysians struggle with work-life balance while working from home, boundaries need to be introduced and respected by both parties. 

Additionally, the problem lies with communication and feeling supported by management. Too often, employees feel burnt out due to unclear requirements from their bosses and managers.

There’s a level of frustration as instructions change with little notice and ambiguous explanations while they’re expected to comply with the changes without knowing the actual expectation. This uncertainty with their work performance often breeds worry and stress about their work performance. 

Dealing with mental health needs to be normalised in Malaysia’s workplace

According to the World Health Organisation, mental health refers to a state of well-being in which individuals realize their abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life,  work productively, and contribute to their community. 

With the mental health conversation gaining ground, some leaders have already started implementing various measures and policies to aid and support their employees.

Also Read: Why Khailee Ng puts mental healthcare support as key to successful founders-investors relationship

These may be small changes such as implementing simple boundaries such as “no work correspondences after 5pm on weekdays” or providing access and compensation to seek professional help.

However, these initiatives, while a step in the right direction, are not enough. Employers need to step up to enact real cultural change. This can be achieved through a multitude of several ways though most would include the act of changing some processes within your existing workflow. 

This can be in the form of establishing clarity on job expectations, by improving the communication between managers and their individual team members. This can help manage or remove stress factors caused by WFH or uncertainty in your evolving job role.

By implementing practices such as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) into your team’s workflow, it helps to align everyone and ensures that clear expectations are set so that employees don’t have to stress about what they’re working towards. 

Additionally, OKRs are better able to boost their productivity and develop positive habits and a growth mindset which helps in alleviating negative self-talk, thus improving their mental health. 

When businesses and their employees have clear shared goals they have set together, it allows them to distinguish and prioritise their work tasks easily and helps employees alleviate their stress as they’re better able to manage their time and tasks.

Adding to this,  it is also essential to have frequent check-ins amongst team members to keep everyone on track. Develop and encourage meaningful conversations and understand employee needs, you will be able to identify any potential issues early on and implement solutions before they escalate.

Also Read: What you can learn from Carsome about championing mental health for employees

By improving the working conditions and putting practices in place to drive better employee wellbeing, organisations are better able to achieve a high-performance culture that’s able to successfully attract and retain their talents.

In fact, one of the key reasons why companies such as Google and Netflix are deemed as such great places to work is because they understand employee wellbeing and are able to effectively engage them. 

Coronastress doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. As offices begin to open up again, it’s important to ensure that your employees are feeling great physically and mentally.

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As the pandemic crisis persists, “Zoom fatigue” continues to pose challenges to the online learning/education industry (Zoom fatigue” is a sense of exhaustion and boredom caused by attending too many meetings, classes, or seminars). As a result, teachers keep facing overworking problems and students increasingly drop out from classes (online, offline or hybrid), adding to the “retention crisis” of the industry.

The pandemic has also widened the inequality and digital divide across different income segments, with those with limited household income/savings dropping out of school altogether. As attested by ErudiFi CEO Naga Tan, many of the edutech firm’s school partners saw a corresponding drop in enrollment rates and an increase in student attrition during the pandemic.

Even before the emergence of the pandemic, online courses consistently recorded higher dropout rates (5 per cent to 35 per cent) than physical classes, research showed. 

To address this, edutech startups, which consider Zoom fatigue a short-term symptom, strive to make the e-learning experience a fun and more engaging journey for educators and learners.

Over the past years, many edutech startups came up with different innovative solutions — such as continuous assessment of individual performance, improved learning management systems, tailored courses to strengthen the knowledge absorption capacity, and gamified interactive learning design. 

Among them, two approaches stood out — data analytics and study-to-earn — evincing interests among educators with their capabilities to cope with the looming “retention crisis”.

Data analytics 

Singapore-based ErudiFi aims to address the 10-15 per cent annual school dropout rates by providing its partner educators with data-driven financing solutions that support student recruitment and retention. The firm helps track tuition fee disbursements and offers real-time analytics for dropped students.

But the approach that mushroomed in the recent past is personalised/adaptive learning, which stands alone as the most buzzworthy data-based method to raise engagement and secure desirable retention rates.

With the support of technology, human intervention, curriculum design, or pathway, and most likely a mixture of these, personalised learning tailors instruction to the skills, understanding, progress, and preferences of an individual learner for the better.

A typical model is to leverage analytics and technology to identify areas where students or teachers are weak and recommend the necessary lessons. 

For example, Singapore-based LingoAce employs multimedia, gamification features and AI-powered tools to assess the teaching quality and finetune the curriculum and learning experience after a lesson is conducted. It later leverages live one-on-one and small-group classes with teachers to provide real-time feedback and interaction.

Noodle Factory, another startup, takes a step ahead and utilises natural language processing (NLP) to automate the creation, preparation, and grading of exams and assessments. It uses AI to provide human-like lessons, creating a personalised learning experience that provides direct instruction and feedback to learners.

While human teachers only teach one way of solving a problem, Noodle Factory’s AI tutors claim to learn and develop different methods and remember new approaches that students may have.

However, industry insiders have questioned these technologies’ true ability to raise the retention rate as they believe human interaction should be the core of a personalised engagement. For instance, Learner Net conducts small group courses with a smaller teacher-student ratio. It enables teachers to use different techniques and methodologies to work on students’ weaknesses in a targeted manner that is supposed to engage students more efficiently. 

In response, Noodle Factory CEO Yvonne Soh still believes that technology helps free up valuable time so that students and educators can spend more time on meaningful interactions instead of being replaced by machines. 

“Technology is great for facts and memorisation,” said Soh. “[With the help of technology], we are actually solving workload challenges for educators.”

Study-to-earn

With cryptocurrencies and blockchain becoming popular, the edutech industry, too, has started adopting the technology. The initial discussions of blockchain in education focus primarily on verifying certifications and accepting crypto for tuition fee payment. 

Another exciting development is happening — a reward system to encourage learning on online platforms and simultaneously raise the retention rate.

“Educators are willing to pay five to ten per cent of revenue for loyalty,” added Quang Mai, Director of Vietnam-based edutech accelerator Topica Founder Institute, adding that most profits in the education come from repeat transactions of loyal users/students.

By giving points for every course purchased or learning activity performed, educators allow students to use these reward points to buy more courses or unlock specific functions. Learner Net, for instance, is working with third-party merchants with whom students can use these reward points.

“We have also looked at NFTs [non-fungible tokens] to reward users,” Learner Net Founder Joe Ngoi told e27. “‘Study-to-earn’ concept is a blockchain take on the traditional gamified learning experience, with open-loop rewards instead of closed-loop rewards.”

However, the first-movers have the disadvantage: they have to invest money in educating the incumbents as blockchain, and its associated technologies are relatively new in the education space.

To break these barriers, Mai and his team are on track to launch MetaStudy; it is a central playground operated as a private blockchain for all educators to do loyalty driven by “study-to-earn” (a concept evolving from the “play-to-earn” frenzy). The mechanism, which Binance founder Changpeng Zhao mentioned in a tweet, helps increase students’ engagement and drive the retention rate up dramatically.

In essence, Meta Study network has a common token named MTS, which is used with all educators and allows them to issue their rewarding tokens backed by MTS to reward users/students. Their students can redeem, swap, exchange tokens in Meta Study’s exchange and a common marketplace for NFTs, products/services, or join Meta Study’s events and challenges to earn more.

“In traditional reward systems, those rewarding points are only usable in that specific education institution and could not be added together from a group of people such as family members who study in different places and levels, not to mention the burden of inventory management of gifts,” said Mai.

Though it is similar to loyalty platforms, such as what Urbox or Society Pass provide, with Meta Study network, educators can keep their brands with their rewarding tokens in the network and incentivise learners for better engagement and flexible learning options throughout their lives.

“Study-to-earn can be an appropriate incentive for learners, with the right tokenomics and as a part of a larger ecosystem,” Ngoi commented.

However, Alex Ng, Managing Director of EduSpaze, a Singapore-based edutech accelerator, is doubtful about the sustainability and long-term effects of “study-to-earn”, especially for younger learners.

“My view is that this can be useful if it’s well designed to encourage and motivate learners and not excessively used,” said Ng.

Students stay longer, but do they learn more effectively? 

Insiders say that current technologies’ data for personalised learning still tend to group students into generic categories. This may impact students’ learning efficiency as it cannot include their unique characters, personalities and traits.

“As competition stiffens, we are likely to see consolidation in this market as the bigger players aim to acquire more data,” said Ngoi.

That is why a sector-specific accelerator like EduSpaze aims to dive a lot deeper into creating the right community and ecosystem, maximising the leverage for these edutech startups.

“If more learning organisations and schools can share relevant, anonymised learning data, that will help the ecosystem move forward faster,” noted Ng.

Fortunately, the ecosystem stakeholders agree on the value of human interaction as the core of any intention to retain students and improve learning quality. For online learning to succeed, it requires not only a reliable platform but also a willing learner and a dedicated teacher.

Technology should help to improve learning outcomes and support teachers’ role as a form of reinforcement and not a replacement. It can help motivate learners with money or rewards, but only students who have an inner passion can do more and make a difference.

“Incentives can have benefits, especially when used to drive certain behaviours, but incentives alone will not help students to learn,” said Soh of Noddle Factory. “I do believe there needs to be intrinsic motivation for a student to perform well truly.” 

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With the growing need for more pioneering solutions to modern-day problems, a few startups are stepping up to fill the niche. Plusman LLC, a Japanese engineering company specialising in medical imaging AI, teams up with the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) to expand its services in Southeast Asia.

JETRO’s goal as an organisation is to help link Japan and the rest of the world through mutual trade and investment. Through its partnership with JETRO, Plusman is looking to explore what other opportunities are in store in the rest of Asia. With a successful expansion, Plusman’s latest technology, the Plus.Lung.Nodule could be one of the biggest developments to hit the region in terms of medical advancement.

About Plusman LLC and its developments

 Though fairly new, Plusman’s work in the industry is certainly formidable. Apart from medical imaging, the company aims to develop solutions in pharmaceuticals, artificial intelligence, and cryptography research. While Plus.Lung.Nodule is the company’s biggest product to date, Plusman LLC has also done extensive research on deep learning and real-world data analysis, further setting the bar for the company’s credibility.

In 2020, Plusman LLC presented in the Radiology Society of North America (RSNA), highlighting its work on computer-aided detection (CAD) for pulmonary nodules and lymph nodes. Part of this underlies Plus.Lung.Nodule’s technology, a medical device that could be beneficial for those working in radiology and lung cancer research, among other lung-related diseases.

Also read: Online threats? Protect yourself with these tools

The Plus.Lung.Nodule analyses CT images to detect lung nodules and lymph nodes, the process of which Plusman LLC calls CT AI. It also examines chest photographs to detect black and white shadows, which is called CXR AI. What makes Plusman’s technology so ground-breaking is that it can be done with a simple smartphone.

In an interview with e27, Plusman LLC Managing Partner Yusuke Nakamura explains that CXR AI can read a chest radiograph image taken with a phone and allow hospitals or clinics without proper infrastructure to work with what they have without sacrificing the quality of their service to patients. At present, Plus.Lung.Nodule is available for clinical use only in Japan, though this may soon change with JETRO’s intervention. At the same time, Plusman’s expansion into Southeast Asia brings much-needed innovation into the region.

A profile of the Southeast Asian market

According to a report published by the Global Cancer Observatory (Globocan) lung cancer is among the most prevalent cancers in the Southeast Asian region, next to breast and cervix cancers. The same report notes that there were about 7.6% new cases of lung cancer among the population in Southeast Asia in 2020. More recent studies also note that pneumonia, tuberculosis, illnesses caused by air pollution, and the more recent coronavirus disease, are also among the top respiratory diseases in the region. These numbers, along with the emergence of other serious illnesses, could impede the progress of one of the most digitally connected and fastest-growing economies in the world.

Nielsen notes that Southeast Asia as a region is particularly lucrative because it is home to more than 8% of the world’s population. Southeast Asia’s young demographic and increasing spending power contribute to this outlook. The region’s GDP growth has remained stable for the past years, indicating a level of steadiness and maturity that is coveted in other more unpredictable economies.

Also read: Putting the Tech in Textile: D-Plus Trading reinvents the textile scene

From 2016 to 2018, consumer confidence among the Southeast Asian nations also unanimously increased, even among the developing countries in the region. Despite the region’s diverse social and cultural landscape, it is quite predictable and undivided in its economic growth. This makes the region a worthwhile investment, and a profitable market to penetrate.

At the same time, the region is not without its challenges. In terms of healthcare, many countries in Southeast Asia still grapple with inequitable health systems and poor infrastructure. As such, this aggravates any pre-existing conditions among the Southeast Asian population. This is where technologies such as Plusman’s could act as a game changer in an otherwise struggling health system.

Plusman’s contribution to medical advancement through tech

Nakamura tells e27 that Plusman’s Plus.Lung.Nodule as a medical device aims to help the increasing number of lung cancer patients in Southeast Asia. On Plusman’s end, the Southeast Asian market is also attractive because of its growth and stability. The strategy the company seeks to employ is the use of CT AI in the more developed nations in the region. On the other hand, CXR AI appears more plausible for developing nations whose medical infrastructure may not be up-to-date or able to support the equipment required for the use of more advanced technologies. The idea is that for its Southeast Asian consumers, Plus.Lung.Nodule will be deployed in the cloud. However, Nakamura clarifies that the same concept of convenience in using something like a smartphone to use the device still applies.

Also read: The most successful AI-Voice B2B SAAS from Japan is now expanding to build a unicorn in Southeast Asia

Nakamura hopes that through JETRO, Plusman will be able to gain a deeper understanding of the Southeast Asian market and successfully launch Plus.Lung.Nodule in the region.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by JETRO

We can share your story at e27, too. Engage the Southeast Asian tech ecosystem by bringing your story to the world. Visit us at e27.co/advertise to get started.

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Gajiku, an on-demand payroll and people management solution startup in Indonesia, has bagged a US$1.1 million seed financing round led by AC Ventures.

Agung Ventures, Monk’s Hill Ventures, Sampoerna, and other unnamed Indonesian entrepreneurs and angels also co-invested.

Gaijku will use the funds for product development, expanding the team, and accelerating sales and business development focusing on large enterprises in the Indonesian market.

Also read: Human capital is the biggest enabler of digital transformation. Here’s how to enhance it

Gajiku was established in January 2021 by CEO Sherman Tanuwidjaja and CTO Herry Gunawan, who served as Head of Engineering at Ruangguru and Lead Engineer at Tokopedia.

The startup offers workers earned wage access (EWA) and other financial services. On the other hand, for employers, it assists in digitising their human resource and accounting operations by offering a full suite of employee management processes for attendance, payroll disbursal, and KPI tracking.

These businesses can also utilise Gajiku’s on-demand payroll services to provide their employees with a lifeline, helping them relieve financial pressure and reduce employee turnover.

Gajiku stated that its platform is most commonly used by labour-intensive businesses that employ thousands of blue-collar workers, most of whom are unbanked and may work in shady situations.

“Indonesia’s blue-collar workforce is filled with immense potential, given the right tools and opportunity to thrive. With more businesses looking to Indonesia as part of the global supply chain, we are working with employers to improve employee management, while also ensuring that their employees are in the best financial position for success,” said Gajiku Co-Founder and CEO Sherman Tanuwidjaja.

Gajiku counts Indonesian retail and manufacturing companies among its clients, with an average of more than 1,500 employees per client.

As per a press statement, through collaborations with Indonesian conglomerates and companies, 90 per cent of Gajiku’s registered employees trade at least once a month.

Over the past year, the archipelago has witnessed several fintech startups tapping into EWA solutions, including Paywatch,  wagely, and GajiGesa.

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So yes, it is true that there is a lot of room for improvement concerning UI/UX and native use cases. Additionally, crypto is still a relatively small portion of the global economy, even in some of the most popular use cases like “store of value,” i.e., Bitcoin.

Despite all that, we need to give web3 credit for the incredible growth it has achieved in just a decade.

“I’m sick of feeling like we have to apologise for our early-stage and walk on eggshells around politicians and regulators. We built a US$2 trillion financial market from scratch in less than a decade with absolutely no institutional help and active encumbrances from the government,” said Ryan Selkis, founder of Messari.

Web3 funding

Intelligent people and explosive traction typically attract a lot of capital. That’s precisely what we experienced in 2021. As a result, dedicated crypto funds are reaching new records of assets under management (AUM).

OpenSea

The increasing venture capital has fueled incredible growth in web3 startups, especially NFT marketplaces. For example, in just a few years, OpenSea has achieved astonishing growth. From a seed-stage startup to a ~US$13B valuations. Just look at OpenSea’s annual transaction volume:

• 2018: US$474k
• 2019: US$8 million
• 2020: US$24 million
• 2021: US$15 billion

For comparison, OpenSea did 80 per cent of eBay’s volume in Q4. All that while having less than a million users…

Helium

Web3 has touched even the world of atoms (i.e., hardware). Helium uses blockchain to create a scalable incentive and payment model for a public wireless network.

As per their official website: “Mining HNT is done by installing a simple device on your office window.

That’s it. Seriously.

Hotspots provide miles of wireless network coverage for millions of devices around you using Helium LongFi, and you are rewarded in HNT for doing this.

And because of an innovative proof-of-work model (we call it “Proof-of-Coverage”), your Hotspot only uses 5W of energy.”

Often referred to as the People’s Network, Helium has reached more than 150,000 hotspots globally. In about two years! Meaning, Helium is the largest wireless network owned by its participants. Not any third-party company.

That’s quite a meaningful milestone. Moreover, it demonstrates how hardware businesses could be bootstrapped with the right incentives.

Decentralised finance (DeFi)

Moving away from single-use cases, let’s consider web3 verticals and DeFi in particular. The most popular protocols for exchanging tokens (i.e., Uniswap, PancakeSwap, and SushiSwap) make more than US$100M in annualised revenue.

Non-fungible-tokens (NFTs)

NFT sales across platforms have seen exponential growth too. Q3 of last year alone resulted in US$10.7B in sales. Thus, it is no surprise that crowdfunding solutions like PartyBid have started popping up.

Also Read: The great rebranding of crypto to Web3

Such products enable groups of friends to bid on an NFT collectively. Pooling funds together is a smart way to trade high-value NFTs. In many cases, such NFTs can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Play-to-earn

Perhaps, the most popular use case of NFTs today is collectibles. Collectibles are a set of assets. Some successful examples include CryptoPunks (lowest price US$292K) and Bored Ape Yacht Club (lowest price US$115K).

Yet, another use case is getting more popular by the day: play-to-earn. Examples of play-to-earn are Axie Infinity, Sandbox, CryptoBlades, and FarmersWorld.

In August last year, Axie generated more than US$342M, about 3000x year-over-year growth. The monster battling game has become the second most successful web3 project after Ethereum (revenue-wise). Ahead of OpenSea and Metamask wallet.

Decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs)

Last but not least, I would like to highlight the fascinating growth in DAOs. While I have not written on the topic yet, it has been on my mind for a long time. This is because DAOs are such a simple yet important use case. Hence, some would argue, the most exciting innovation enabled by crypto.

A DAO is a community of people united by a mission. The governance of the community is handled entirely on the blockchain.

Members of the DAO need to own a token issued by the community. That token is then used for voting rights. Meaning the community decides what and how to be built.

It’s still too early to speculate how things will develop in the DAO space. Yet, DAOs are a lot more transparent than traditional companies. As a result, risks of corruption or censorship are considerably reduced.

“Whereas most technologies tend to automate workers on the periphery doing menial tasks, blockchains automate away the centre. Instead of putting the taxi driver out of a job, blockchain puts Uber out of a job and lets the taxi drivers work with the customer directly,” said Vitalik Buterin.

Crypto Twitter argues that 2020 was all about DeFi, followed by NFTs in 2021, and now 2022 will be the year of DAOs.

After all, more than 100 DAOs launched in the last year or so, collectively managing +US$10B in assets.

A hundred DAOs may not seem like a lot, but that’s because we lack the regulations to legalise them. Over time I expect all that to change. But, additionally, think about all the unique cases that will come out of that. We now have a special type of entity. An entity designed to enable communities to invest, buy businesses, support artists, develop new tools, and so much more.

WAGMI

I dislike making robust predictions because my experience has taught me better. Yet, I cannot imagine a future web3 is not part of.

There will probably be several market crashes— an inevitable outcome given what has happened in the past and the pace of innovation.

It will take time to transition from exploration and sophistication to mainstream adoption. But in the long run, crypto is most likely an unstoppable force. Tailwinds remain strong.

Capital is abundant. Talent is pivoting careers, and we have started seeing more successful use cases. I will end today’s essay with Ryan Selkis’s predictions on what may happen next in web3:

“1) most likely, we experience a blow off top before the end of Q1 2022, followed by a shallower, but still painful multi-year bear market; 2) we rocket to a $20 trillion bubble that lasts all year, and sits on par with the dotcom boom in real dollars – unlikely, but possible given accommodative monetary policies worldwide, neverending government spending, and crypto’s accelerating narrative momentum; 3) we march slowly and steadily higher into perpetuity (the “supercycle” thesis). Ironically, the most bearish case here (Q1 blow-off top) may be the most bullish long-term and vice versa.”

– Ryan Selkis, Founder of Messari

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As the pandemic swept across Asia Pacific and businesses rallied against the impacts of safety restrictions on their operations, small and medium businesses (SMBs) and how they are managing the disruption, has come under the spotlight.

Many have been recognised for their resilience and ability to pivot to gain a competitive advantage, and governments across the region have offered support to help them manage in this challenging business environment.

Midsize businesses are an important subset of SMBs and indeed a crucial part of the economy. In my experience working with SMBs over the past decade, I have found that this segment, sandwiched between small businesses and large enterprises, is in a sweet spot when it comes to business and digital transformation.

They have the resources and operating systems in place to invest in technology and support effective onboarding of new processes while remaining agile and nimble to make changes efficiently.

As we approach the start of a new year, I would like to highlight three trends that midsize businesses should leverage to take their transformation to new heights and seize opportunities ahead.

Hybrid everything to power agile, resilient organisations of the future

As businesses continue to adapt to changing restrictions, a key question is being raised – what does the future of work look like? Employees today are putting a higher value on flexibility and want more control over their hours and where they are working from.

Also Read: How Warung Pintar builds tech solutions to help warung owners embrace the future

In enabling such hybrid working arrangements, it is critical for companies to invest in effective technology solutions to allow employees to stay productive and engaged while working apart from their colleagues and ensure companies can remain agile when facing unforeseen disruptions.

Against this backdrop, we are seeing an accelerated shift to the cloud in the past year due to hybrid work arrangements. The demand and adoption of cloud in the Asia Pacific are forecasted to exceed that of the rest of the world, with overall cloud spending in the region expected to reach USD200 billion by 2024, according to Gartner.

The business of tomorrow will operate in a “hybrid everything” ecosystem, with hybrid work being the norm, and cloud being a driving force for success and expansion

Cloud serves as both a technology and business transformation strategy. It offers a host of benefits including cost savings, more flexibility for employees to collaborate with others, and simplified management. However, what makes the future of cloud unique is that every organisation starts from a different base, and midsize companies will not follow a singular, pre-defined route to cloudification.

They have the opportunity to become the chief architect in their digitalization journey, mapping out an infrastructure that truly fits their requirements across aspects like employee needs, customer needs, and resources available.

This is why we are seeing increasing adoption of the hybrid cloud model, in which organisations use a mix of public and private cloud services to leverage their respective advantages.

A strong cybersecurity posture will become even more important in this hybrid and distributed environment. This is key for midsize businesses especially, as over three in five companies in the region have suffered a cyber incident (63 per cent) in the past year, according to Cisco’s recent research.

Even for those who are aware of cyber threats, bolstering cybersecurity resilience is no easy task. Challenges companies face range from staying abreast of continually evolving technologies and security requirements, to keeping up with constantly evolving cyber threats, and the ability to recruit cybersecurity talent.

Also Read: How SMBs can use conversational commerce to boost year-end sales

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) are emerging as effective architectures that support the demands of hybrid cloud and hybrid workplaces.  As a cloud-based, as-a-service model, SASE provides strong, secure edge-to-edge access covering everything from datacenter to remote offices, and individual employees, to support the hybrid workplace.

XDR is an integrated security approach that brings security solutions for different parts of a company’s IT infrastructure under one roof, enabling faster incident response as well as greater visibility of cyber threats across the private network and public clouds.

Leveraging AI, ML and fostering strong IT governance

2022 is the year businesses will contemplate how they can keep pace with the acceleration of technology. Be it interacting with customers, or collaborating with colleagues or partners, companies are using multiple applications every day.

They are also leveraging technologies like AI and ML to enhance the customer experience or improve their operational performance by making sense of the vast amount of data that they are generating through digital touchpoints.

Yet, the accelerated pace of digitalisation has also exposed a myriad of gaps and vulnerabilities companies might face, especially as departments risk working in silos, as they rapidly innovate and evolve their strategies and priorities before the right infrastructure is put in place in tandem with the IT department.

Contrary to popular belief that IT processes will slow down innovation; the right IT governance can accelerate innovation and ensure smooth and seamless operations amid rapid change.

In addition, IT departments also face the issue of shadow IT, where employees use IT systems, applications, and devices without the IT team’s visibility. Continued hybrid working arrangements and the shift to the cloud have given rise to shadow IT especially as users become increasingly comfortable downloading and using apps and services from the cloud.

This has introduced a host of new issues, from security gaps and collaboration inefficiencies to wasted time and money. Issues like these can be addressed with a formal IT governance framework that sets out policies for the deployment of IT and monitoring of usage.

Also Read: SMBs need to prioritise their digital strategies. This is how Facebook plans to help them

To this end, Full-Stack Observability, which provides real-time observability across the modern technology stack, including applications, software-defined compute, storage services, network, and more, is a crucial capability for companies to gain visibility of their entire IT infrastructure.

This enables them to easily access, explore and search a plethora of data and correlate application performance to business outcomes.

Armed with such visibility, companies can better understand the usage of applications and address issues in real-time to improve end-user experience and enhance business outcomes or mitigate potential issues and vulnerabilities.

Skills and mindset change will drive the culture of growth and resilience

As the adoption of technology accelerates and new business models emerge, midsize companies need to ensure employees stay relevant and knowledgeable in a highly competitive and complex market.

Notably, the region is also facing a talent crunch, with management consulting company Korn Ferry estimating a shortage of 47 million tech talent by 2030 within the Asia Pacific, which could threaten the recovery and growth of different economies and sectors.

Against this backdrop, companies should actively implement measures to address this deficit especially as the demand for technological skills is only set to grow. Continuous upskilling and retraining of talent are key ways to enhance the digital skillsets of current employees and bridge the talent gap.

In fact, over half (54 per cent) of APJC Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and IT Decision Makers are upskilling talent within the next 12 months, higher than the global average of 46 per cent, according to Cisco’s Accelerating Digital Agility Research.

Making sure employees keep pace with the evolution of skills required in their roles enables them to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Moreover, every IT organisation, and in fact, every department, has a set of skills and roles that are in decline, and a set that is in demand.

Employers should aim to align those with declining roles against open or potential positions that are poised for the future and prepare them to transition to new roles with higher value-add and support the company’s sustainable development.

As hybrid working continues to be the mainstay, a cultural shift is needed and this begins with fostering a high-performance culture in which employees achieve a greater sense of job satisfaction and are empowered to be their best selves through continuous learning and upgrading.

Also Read: How TikTok co-creation strategy is supercharging Southeast Asian SMBs

Change is never easy, but one thing the pandemic has taught us is that change is sometimes thrust upon us. Whether we are talking about adopting a hybrid work or IT model, strengthening IT governance, or embracing a new culture, the companies and people who emerge stronger through crises are those who are ready to proactively evolve with the times and stay ahead of the competition.

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As 2022 continues in the development of decentralised apps, or popularly known as DApps, more ideas are coming to fruition. To date, there are over 3,901 DApps, both in use and under development.

Among the players leading the blockchain revolution is Avalanche, having contributed to the success of over 400 projects in the past 15 months alone. Some of the major factors behind this growth are the Avalanche subnets, or sub-networks with unlimited scalability. They can be configured for specific needs such as gaming and metaverse apps that require very fast and low cost transactions. Avalanche has also successfully launched their cross-platform Ethereum to Avalanche bridge in 2021.

Fast forward to this year, Avalanche just announced the biggest online blockchain hackathon for global developers interested in Asian markets and resources. The hackathon, aimed at gathering top developers globally and attracting quality partners in Asia, is flagged by household names in the industry, including AVATAR, DoraHacks, Blizzard, Elevate Ventures, among others. This hackathon aims to take the blockchain ecosystem to a whole new level as it makes major strides to bring meaningful apps to mainstream users.

An opportunity for global developers to tap into Asian blockchain resources

The hackathon is for the entire blockchain community, including developers, investors, and community DAO members, who play a critical role as voting members. All developers, as well as early-stage projects built on Avalanche, are eligible to apply and submit their projects.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

Central and Southeast Asia are among the top regions globally, leading in blockchain adoption and applications, just after Europe and Northern America. In 2021, the region experienced a 701 per cent growth in raw value.

“This hackathon comes at a time when we realise an enormous pool of valuable blockchain resources in Asia and talented developers all over the world. With the industry’s rapid innovations, we are driving serious incentives for developers and projects to utilise,” says Wilson Wu, Founder at AVATAR and Head of Asia at Avalanche.

The prosperity of the ecosystem is inseparable from the growth of native DApps, therefore this Hackathon hopes to discover and encourage talented developers to develop Avalanche native DApps. At the same time, developers who are building early stage projects on EVM-compatible chains, such as Ethereum, are welcome to join the hackathon and bring their apps to Avalanche. Developers don’t need to build projects from scratch when porting from EVM-compatible chains to Avalanche thanks to the availability of developer-friendly tools.

Top projects to win from the US$5 million + prize pool

The hackathon attracts a total prize pool of more than US$5 million, where the top 10 projects will win 90 per cent of the pool. Ten per cent of the fund will be rewarded to projects voted by the community DAO. Avalanche invites global community members to echo their views by voting for quality projects via the DAO.

“We invite contenders to share their ideas, ask pertinent questions, and ignite conversations with our ecosystem, who represent a global community of blockchain innovators,” says Wilson.

Projects delivering real-life solutions for popular blockchain verticals will stand a chance to emerge among the top winners. The multi-million dollar rewards are set to transform ideas into business models that will enrich the broader blockchain ecosystem. The hackathon invites participants to compete in various categories including Web3, DeFi, Metaverse, Infrastructure and Tooling, GameFi, and NFT.

The Avalanche Asia Hackathon comes at the opportune time

The Avalanche hackathon comes at a time when the blockchain industry requires fresh innovation to take it to the next level. In addition to capital resources, contenders can tap into technical support provided by the hackathon contributors. This support includes technical workshops, online office hours contact, media resources, alongside business networking.

Also Read: NFTs provide new ways to handle IP management, empower content creators: Inmagine CEO Warren Leow

This hackathon brings major opportunities for Asian-based investors, global developers and the worldwide community to join the ecosystem shaping the foundations of Web3.

“We have witnessed hundreds of projects leading the way for DeFi, GameFi and enterprise blockchain solutions. It’s that time for a new wave of Web3 to take on greater adoption as more people are realizing the benefits of smart contracts. AVATAR is here to support this growth by connecting worldwide talents, especially to the Asian market. In addition, Avalanche has demonstrated to be a hot ecosystem for blockchain development,” says Wilson.

The fastest smart contracts platform in terms of time-to-finality is bringing one of the biggest blockchain hackathons to date —a rare opportunity that life-changing projects shouldn’t miss.

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The content was first published by The Human & Machine.

Image Credit: The Human & Machine

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Singapore-based Cialfo, which provides access to international higher education options for students globally, has secured US$40 million in a Series B round of financing, led by global investor Square Peg and Australia-based SEEK Investments.

SIG Global, Vulcan Capital, DLF Venture, January Capital, and Lim Teck Lee participated in the round.

This capital will enable the edutech company to grow its user base and develop new features for high school students, counsellors, families and universities.

This latest round brings Cialfo’s total funds raised to date to US$57 million, including a US$15 million in Series A funding in February 2021.

Started in 2017 by Rohan Pasari, Stanley Chia, and William Hund, Cialfo is a platform that aims to transform the higher education landscape by simplifying the college application process and making education accessible to all.

Cialfo aims to empower students and schools — from K12 to university — throughout the career exploration and college search and selection process.

Also Read: College admission platform Cialfo raises US$3M Series A funding

With over 170 employees across Singapore, India, the US and China, Cialfo connects high school students, their counsellors, and families with over 1,000 colleges. Its university partners include Imperial College London in the UK, The University of Chicago in the United States, and IE University in Spain.

The company is currently working on a new tool called Direct Apply that allows students and counsellors to seamlessly apply, track, and send documents to hundreds of programs globally using a single application form.

According to Education Data, the international higher education sector is expected to rise to more than 7 million students by 2030 and increase in total market value from US$280 billion to US$400 billion.

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Image Credit: Cialfo

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Starting a company is hard enough, but hiring and retaining talent is much harder.

Our guest today is Michael Podolsky, the founder and CEO of Wiser Brand, which helps brands with their marketing efforts. His company has over 80 employees, and today we learn how he has built his team to last.

Specifically, we talk about:

– What were the most important first hires?
– The importance of hiring in-house?
– When should you recruit an HR Manager?
– How does your company change after hiring an HR Manager?
– How does having an HR Manager help with the recruitment process?
– How often should you communicate with your department heads?
– What can you do to retain your employees?
– How have you changed over this entire process?

Also Read: How to simplify the overcomplicated hiring process

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

Acast
Apple
Spotify
Stitcher

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The article was first published on We Live To Build.

Image Credit: rawpixel

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