The lack of gender diversity is more pronounced in the real estate industry compared to other sectors. Real estate as an industry is stuck in the past, from a manual collection of data and analogue systems to poor female representation.

With digital transformation, progress towards gender equality and the growing relevance of sustainability to respond to the current climate emergency, we are witnessing the smartest companies across the real estate sector identifying now as the time to transition the way they operate. 

The real estate industry on its own is broad and can be categorised into corporate, financial, and property management, as well as operations and service groups. Currently, less than five per cent of senior positions are held by women in the real estate industry.

When it comes to tech and real estate, the outlook is bleak. The ‘proptech’ industry sits at the intersection of real estate and technology, with very low female representation. Still, for an “in-between” industry that is a niche in an emerging area, there are not enough female founders, and there is a lack of funding to kickstart their businesses. 

The bleak female representation in the industry

Historically, women tend to succumb to the lack of self-actualisation and are saddled with impostor syndrome when looking for careers, missing out on their full potential. Being a woman in proptech is a triple whammy, making it tougher to enter than other tech industries. 

Additionally, the property industry is deeply traditional, and core leadership teams tend to be sexist, with women having a reduced chance to be hired at higher hierarchical levels due to their ‘old school’ ways, all evidenced by the pay gap, lack of female founders, low percentage of women in the sector and hiring women at lower-skilled roles. 

Also Read: Why your next tech startup should be in the real estate industry

The main issue starts with entry barriers as many leaders in the industry worked their way up from skilled trades and other careers that are traditionally male-orientated, such as electrical, mechanical and facilities management. 

With the need to be more data-driven than ever before, the real estate industry is opening up to people who have not come through these traditional routes. There are more opportunities for university-educated professionals from fields such as sustainability, mathematics and data science.

This provides a huge opportunity to level the playing field and increase visibility to new and accelerated careers, particularly for young people and female talent. 

The underlying solution

As a smart building software company focused on evolving the way the built environment is being utilised for people and organisations, there is an urgent need to turn the tide and play a critical role in banishing hierarchical structures and creating a gender-equal workplace.

It starts with setting diversity metrics, and this also requires hiring managers to understand the difference between men and women in the application process and end bias-driven recruitment cycles.

Women often apply for professional jobs based on role descriptions they are fully qualified for. Men tend to be more aspirational, where a 30 per cent skill gap would not deter them from applying for the role. 

We believe one of the ways to reform or improve the industry for proper female representation is to have quotas on senior management and down. Some countries have soft and binding quotas that have performed better in terms of board gender diversity than those that have not adopted any quotas.

In Asia-Pacific, while some improvements are being made, up to 30 per cent on average for women on the board, there are still improvements to be had for specific industries, such as the real-estate sector. 

More women are entering who are interested in sustainability, engineering, and data science that can greatly change the way the real estate and proptech industry is operated.

Also, Read: Why Singapore becoming a tech hub is a great boost for the proptech sector

This proves a need for a broad range of technical and digital skills, as the industry is rapidly creating new, high-growth, lucrative and forward-facing careers.

The future is golden

There is a new generation of women who are facility managers and operators, asset managers and property managers, who are all skilled and technical. They are not going to stand for business as usual. 

Currently, the digitalisation of smart cities will be accelerated as more women become involved. Could female representation change the way buildings are operated at the macro level? Would new buildings and blocks feel different if women were in charge of design and construction plans? 

The fact that today’s smart buildings already follow an ‘a la carte’ data-driven approach that is aligned with what the owner, operator and contractor need. There’s no reason why women with their capital efficiency traits and listening skills cannot radically change the way buildings are operated. 

What’s needed is for the real estate industry to better show the variety of roles needed. This undoubtedly needs to start with education in schools and universities, followed by hiring women who may not have had direct exposure to the built environment or not know about the opportunities that exist in property, tech and other overlapping areas. 

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In 2021, a JPG file was auctioned for US$69 million by a digital artist, Mike Winkleman (Beeple). This record-breaking sale for purely digital artwork became a major catalyst for the recent trends around NFT arts.

The NFT arts market has continued to maintain its upward trend as artists and content creators are capturing this new wave of a Web3-based digital arts movement. However, amidst the growing market, there’s also a rising number of crimes and detractors that could hamper further industry growth.

Asia in the frontlines of NFT arts growth

NFT arts have become the most popular use case for NFTs as they provide artists with the opportunity to sell their creative pieces directly to buyers and earn income. In yet another record-breaking sale, digital artist, Pak, sold his NFT art for a whopping US$91.8 million.

Last year, the NFT market hit US$25 billion with sales of NFT arts being a major contributor. Also, earlier in January this year, OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace for NFT arts and other collectibles hit US$5 billion in monthly trading volume. It is also noteworthy to mention that Asia is currently the frontrunner in this global sensation. According to Chainalysis, Central and Southern Asia accounted for 35 per cent of the global NFTs traded last year.

CoinUnited, the largest NFT collector in Asia, has contributed to the region’s lead in the NFT space by purchasing over 10,000 NFT artworks to date, valued at over US$200 million. The worldwide surge behind NFTs reflects in the ability to create digital content such as memorabilia, algorithmically-generated artwork and even memes. Examples include high-valued NFTs such as Shocked Doge and The Legacy, a compilation of Floyd Mayweather’s rise to glory, owned by CoinUnited. Other top NFTs in their collection include BoredApe, Meebit, RTFKT Punk, Cool Cat, Pudgy Penguin, CloneX and a host of others.

Also Read: Demystifying NFTs and DeFi

“Our passion for NFT arts, among many reasons, is that we believe in NFT technology and how it is boldly redefining the future of arts. Content creators are increasingly crafting and sharing more value through digital mediums, where NFTs offer the right technology and ownership models that are opening more doors for innovation,” says Angus Lo, CoinUnited Co-Founder.

Skeptics may call it a fad, but it’s clear, NFTs are here to stay. In the coming years, industry pioneers expect to witness more incorporation of NFTs among individuals as well as corporate sectors. However, there are critical factors to consider before this becomes a reality.

Rising crime amidst a surge in popularity

As with all new tech developments, detractors find various ways to facilitate crimes and malpractices. The NFT art marketplace is certainly not left out. There have been incessant calls made recently about counterfeit NFTs that have resulted in marketplace suspensions. And it’s only getting worse with fakes in the market.

In recent months, the NFT space has also come under fire for aiding criminals in laundering money through minting and selling NFTs, as well as enabling malicious parties to counterfeit NFTs and rob artists of their respective earnings.

NFTs, leveraging decentralised blockchain technology, empowers users with autonomy over their work that wasn’t otherwise available in the legacy art world. Although a number of artists have benefited from NFTs, there is a growing number of creators concerned with these challenges.

Artists have made complaints that scammers have stolen their creative works and minted them on NFT marketplaces. As an open-source technology, anyone can mint an NFT. A user could take an image from a creator’s page, mint it as their own product, and make significant profits from the sale long before the original creator is made aware of what’s taken place. The problem can quickly stack up when NFT marketplaces go on to rack up billions of dollars from counterfeit sales.

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

Combating counterfeits and art frauds

DeviantArt, a long-standing community for digital artists, has sent 90,000 alerts about possible fraud to thousands of their users since taking the decision to monitor the blockchain for copied assets of creators in their community, company executives said. The company has increased its efforts in monitoring over four million NFTs that have been sold to see how many more counterfeits are in circulation. The number of alerts doubled from October to November 2021 and grew by 300 per cent from November to mid-December.

Relevant steps need to be taken to combat this major challenge in the industry. Steps that would provide lasting solutions and facilitate proper growth and positive innovation in the NFT space.

An initiative taken by Numbers Protocol, a decentralised photo network, is providing verification and tracking history for NFTs. Having acknowledged the loopholes in the NFT space, namely the lack of control over what assets are minted, the refusal to observe copyright laws, and the lack of overall transparency and verifiability in the space, Numbers Protocol has made it a priority to solve these issues.

Numbers Protocol has created the world’s first Web3 search engine for NFTs. With the search engine, users can upload an NFT image or video and proceed to view its verifiable history. This includes specific details like when it was first sold or how many pieces were created. This allows anyone to cross-check whether the NFTs sold in the marketplace are authentic, and can help prospective buyers to verify if the NFTs they own are truly unique.

Numbers Protocol’s search engine for NFTs has two key components: content-based and Web 3.0-based. As a content-based search engine, a user can upload a file without knowing its NFT identifier, and the result shows the history and other details associated with the file. The search engine uses the unique address generated to find key information associated with the content. The results provide verifiable information about the NFT, all provably secure through battle-tested encryption technologies.

“The centralisation of Web 2.0 has led to copyright issues, data manipulation and algorithm-based search results based on data profiles that continue to hinder what users search for. With information provided by the NFT search engine, users can better understand just how “unique” an NFT is and easily identify potential violations, such as multiple creator addresses,” says Sofia Yan, Co-founder and Chief of Growth Officer at Numbers Protocol.

Also Read: You’re not really diversifying your investments by buying altcoins

Where is the future of NFT arts headed?

China’s NFT market is predicted to reach US$4.64 billion by 2026 and this is expected to influence the global NFT marketplace in a positive direction. However, for the NFT market to continue its transition to the mainstream reality, it is important that clear rules are enforced to ensure that artists’ creative works are rightfully protected.

With the right solutions to combat ongoing challenges, artists and creators can be optimistic about capturing the opportunity to have true autonomy over their works and fairly monetise their creativity. These solutions, coupled with Asia’s bullish approach towards NFT arts could lead to a complete redefinition of the creator economy as we know it.

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The content was first published by The Human & Machine.

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Fitch Ratings estimates more than 290 million unbanked individuals in Southeast Asia (SEA). This is larger than the population of Indonesia, the fourth-largest country in the world.

The term ‘unbanked’ or ‘underbanked’ refers to those who do not use banks or banking institutions in any capacity. These individuals would also likely not subscribe to insurance, pensions, or any other types of professional money-related services. 

The more straightforward banking solution for all

This is where digital banks (or neobanks) come into the picture. They seek to improve digital literacy and lessen financial inequality amongst the underbanked population.

The unbanked problem has long been a critical issue for which economists, organisations, and governments have yet to find a viable solution. That said, while fintech players have prioritised financial inclusion, interest in digital banking is predominantly focused on middle-income families and youths under 30. 

Apart from improved access to financial services and more personalised services for specific needs, this segment of society will also access cheaper and safer transactions. This can then help boost economic participation and empowerment among the masses. 

In Malaysia, only 29 per cent of low-income families expressed an interest in virtual and digital banking, according to a report by PwC.

Conversely, only those earning more than MYR10,000 a month would seriously consider opening a virtual bank account. This contrast is mirrored in other countries worldwide, including Singapore and Hong Kong.

Digital banks have flourished, and intense competition within the space has been heating up with mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships springing up across the region.

Also Read: E-commerce for the future: How open banking enables greater security and trust

For example, Indonesia’s Bank Jago sought to integrate cashless payment systems on its app and got Gojek to invest. Meanwhile, in Singapore, the Singtel-Grab consortium nabbed one of the four digital banking licences on offer late last year.

The tale of caution

That said, digital banks face a set of challenges specific to their own. For one, there are significant cybersecurity and data protection issues associated with running an online-only bank.

According to a PwC commissioned survey, 36 per cent of Malaysians and 34 per cent of Singaporeans did not trust digital banks to store their information safely. This distrust runs deeper in neighbouring Indonesia, which has yet to introduce data protection legislation for consumers.

The nation’s less than impressive track record is also of little consolation, having had several large tech companies compromised in recent years. 

Tokopedia and Bukalapak were big names involved and saw over 100 million users’ personal information illegally accessed last year. Distrust and suspicion pose significant hurdles for fintech players to overcome with such incidents. 

While this space holds a lot of potential, the issue of profitability is pertinent to how this industry moves forward. To date, only three digital banks have achieved profitability, namely KakaoBank, WeBank, and MyBank.

It takes an average of between seven and ten years for a digital bank to return to the black, a significant investment in terms of both time and cost. Thus, for the digital banking sector to truly take off, a re-evaluation of the company’s current business model and finding ways to crack the code to profitability will become key. 

The future is bright

Nevertheless, the future of digital banks remains bright. There has been positive government and regulatory support, underscored by public interest and an eagerness to experiment with digital bank offerings.

Malaysia and Singapore lead the pack offering digital banking licences to non-financial entities. Meanwhile, whilst boasting a bustling fintech bubble, Indonesia has yet to grant licences to digital-only banks. Licencing is reserved for those with a physical presence.

In the Philippines, regulators have announced that it will stop accepting applications after issuing six digital banking licences. 

Digital banks are likely to stay as it offers innovative new services that appeal to their target demographic. While incumbents largely adhered to their product-focused, hard-selling mindset, fintech companies utilise new technology to tackle customers’ specific pain points.

Also Read: Deconstructing digital banking: How it can cater to the underserved in Malaysia

Grab-Singtel, for instance, focuses its lending services on SMEs and MSMEs who lack access to credit. Similarly, Filipino fintech company Tonik has emerged as a solution to the country’s underbanked and unbanked population offering a more extensive reach to those previously ignored. 

Due to a lack of physical branches, digital banks can offer services at a much more competitive rate. Gojek-backed Bank Jago allows users 25 free transactions before charging a fee of IDR3,000 (US$0.21) per transfer, a significantly lower amount when compared to traditional banks’ fees of IDR6,500 rupiahs (US$0.45). There are also no administrative or hidden fees for the opening or closing of accounts. 

Accelerated digitalisation prompted by the pandemic has also prompted an increased public usage of digital banking offerings. Singapore’s DBS Bank reported a 15 per cent year-on-year increase in sign-ups between February and March last year. 

Lower costs, improved customer service, and innovative technology on offer have seen customers move away from traditional banks in favour of their digital counterparts. These are likely reasons for the rise and development of digital banks. 

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Their journey started in 2014.

During a Techstars Startup Weekend event in Bali, Febriadi Pratama, a geek, and Olivier Pouillon, who worked in the waste recycling sector for 20+ years, joined hands to build a startup community to help local schools with waste recycling. The community was known as CashForTrash back then.

As the ideas and concepts evolved, in 2015, the duo decided to bring in digital technology to improve the existing waste management system — not just in Bali but across the archipelago. They then rebranded the organisation to Gringgo, a wordplay of Green and Go.

“The motivation was to create a fun and rewarding way so that people pay more attention to the issue of waste management — one of the most pressing problems, but was largely ignored by people. There’s not enough data to better understand what’s happening on the ground. We realised digital technology could be a better way to get people involved and create awareness,” Pratama tells e27.

Pratama, who is also a startup mentor, describes Gringgo as a ‘tech for sustainable development”. A company dedicated to tackling sustainable development issues.

Also Read: Climate tech is in a chicken-and-egg situation in Southeast Asia

Since 2015, Gringgo has leveraged digital technologies to solve the waste management issues in the archipelago with support from different organisations such as Google, USAID, and Coca-Cola Foundation.

The startup has developed an online platform and a mobile app for waste collectors.

It’s currently building an AI-powered platform to create a better system to help categorise different types of waste and their value. “This platform will allow households to understand better the value of their waste and, at the same time, contribute to improving the waste management system by making a behavioural change in separating the different types of garbage at the household level,” explains Pratama.

The company offers three products: Envi, SWAI app, and Gringgo Collect.

Envi is a B2B product. In partnership with various waste collection services, Envi increases waste management efficiency by digitising the process to ensure less waste ends up in landfills. Envi provides a web dashboard and mobile app for administrators and waste collectors. Through this, garbage collectors can track the human resources available, schedule them, choose the most efficient routes, monitor check-ins, and also track the collected waste.

SWAI app — an abbreviation of ‘solve waste with AI’– is the result of its collaboration with Google.org in San Francisco. The app urges users to collect different necessary data through the utilisation of missions (gamification) and the token economy concept (users can collect points and redeem attractive incentives). It also provides users with educational content regarding waste segregation. Data collected includes types of recyclables, how much and where waste is produced. This data will then be included in the startup’s cloud database, used to train its AI model, and analysed to measure the impact and identify potential problem areas to create solutions for waste reduction and consumer distribution and behaviour.

Also Read: One man’s trash is another’s gold: How Tridi Oasis plans to transform plastic waste management

Gringgo Collect is a data-collecting platform. The app helps users digitise and analyse data collection activity.

Gringgo primary relies on a SaaS model, with various subscription options. It also seeks like-minded individuals and companies willing to support and believe in its quest towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) through grants, CSR, and projects.

Pratama admits that human resources and funding have been a challenge for the company since its founding. “We are always looking for grants, programmes and VC funding. We’re currently funded by grants and bootstrap money and haven’t raised any VC money yet,” he shared.

For human resources, Gringgo looks to collaborate with other organisations.

“There is not enough awareness about climate change in Indonesia, but it is growing rapidly. We hope to bring a transformation and help mitigate the catastrophe,” Pratama concluded.

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The new normal, a word that for long was limited to textbooks and history, is now something that’s part of our everyday lives.

Guess none of us had envisioned what happened in this past couple of years. But here we are, having been through it all. A special tribute to the people having heavenly abode in the pandemic before starting my speech.

When the pandemic swept through our societies, our critical structures, communities, and everyday life suffered. It also seriously dented our economy.

Being a business leader, it was a tough period, waiting for the situation to normalise, seeking ways to emerge from the said pandemic. Did we all learn something from it? I speak for all here that we all learned something from it.

Key takeaways

• The way pandemic swept through our lives critical structures was a devastating blow.
• It severely dented our economy causing businesses to think differently and out of the box to resolve that. That led to the new normal.
• The entire journey of ‘surfing through the new normal’ started with Anurag, my dear colleague and founder of Expoodle and me intending to touch on companies’ pain points and help them market better.
• Our basis started with understanding the market enablers and validating the prominent issues faced by brands across the world.
• Our core findings led us to understand the changes in consumer behaviour in the new normal. This gives us a ground-level understanding of the reality and allows us to find key drivers for the rapid growth of the brands.
• That rapid growth part is where immersive reality can come forth. Innovative and immersive experiences are at the heart of modern-day customer behaviour, and improving your brand practices by the same is much warranted.
• Immersive reality is the abode that ushers the experience economy, providing transparency and creating a deeper connection with prospects. It’s in line with the needs of the modern-day user who focuses not just on being the end-user but being part of the entire journey.

The build-up

Businesses and organisations have had to do with the precarious time and lean on innovative ways. It’s how the business landscape and even humankind have operated over the years, i.e. evolve.

This very instinct helped businesses find a way, capitalise on the scenario, and test new wayfinding systems transforming the moment of crisis and business peril into an opportunity to improve.

The willingness to embrace experimentation didn’t just happen overnight. My colleague and esteemed leader, Anurag, had been in the exhibition industry for over two and half decades, wherein he had experienced how the business world has evolved.

Also Read: How can female founders become the new normal in Asia?

For years, Anurag had seen how technology had penetrated the brand’s marketing with hybrid and digital aspects becoming a mainstream stay. The next step was immersive technology. Pioneering the ideology of incorporating new-age experience into existing solutions.

And that’s where I came in, with my years of experience in the tech field and the idea of solving clientele issues via the cloud, cognitive and creative solutions.

Understanding the market enablers

The first time we came together, we discussed the who’s and how’s of immersive technology. We identified four key opportunities for understanding the market enablers and providing customised solutions to mitigate them.

• Challenges and changing consumer patterns

The pandemic has impacted virtually every aspect of our lives, and thinking that business would allude to it is a mere misconception. The changes in consumer behaviour have become more complex with all the restrictions and limits.

People and consumers alike have been forced to remodel their traditional behavioural conscience. Count in the exposure to the newer realities and environment, you can understand the challenges faced by the brands.

“Customers’ digital experiences across industries create expectations that brands must meet to gain engagement.”

• Finding key drivers for rapid brand growth and awareness

As businesses look for new ways to streamline their processes and create safer and more productive business models, immersive tech has become a new flagbearer for brands to indulge in.

The potential impact of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality is vastly immense, allowing you to increase your brand growth and awareness rapidly.

Brands these days need to cater to generating awareness and attention, which will lead to understanding the buyer’s persona correctly.

Also Read: What can we do about mass unemployment amidst the pandemic?

When a brand understands the buyer personas and prioritises delivering the experience coupled with the optimum service, this is where brands can get the most out of their campaign.

• Creative, flexible marketing solutions to react to market dynamics

Underlying the issues and developing intricate solutions to mitigate the same is extremely important for marketers to create improved conversions and higher engagements. Where previous marketing techniques had sufficed to provide brands with enough leverage, with time, they are dwindling.

Over 58 per cent of the CMOs have identified modern technology as a key factor in building a differentiated customer experience. Innovative and immersive experiences are at the heart of modern-day customer behaviour, and improving your brand practises by the same is much warranted.

Immersive reality solutions are a customisable marketing medium rather than a standalone tool. It can be easily integrated with the existing marketing campaigns of the brand to increase conversions and scale the reach.

Immersive-based marketing is more about increasing the immersive experience, improving the digital quotient of the user, and providing the trendsetting experience for a personalised brand approach.

• Ushering the experience economy 

Immersive marketing solutions aim to provide transparency and connect deeper with prospects. It’s in line with the needs of the modern-day user who focuses not just on being the end-user but being part of the entire journey.

Users these days are streamlined to follow brands that can provide a calling and experience. This is where immersive reality can help provide that final boost in generating awareness and accelerating understanding.

With the user’s attention span declining with time, brands need to capitalise on the first impression, and AR/VR/MR marketing solutions are best placed to handle it.

This can also pave the way for brands to tap into the broader spectrum of the user base and generate marketable opportunities among Gen Z and the new age population. They are well versed in digital technology transformation.

Immersive Tech here can act that bridge to bring forth the new normal for the brands and make it customer-centric whilst also keeping them in good stead.

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