Web4, also known as Web 4.0, is a term used to describe the next generation of the World Wide Web. It is a vision of an intelligent, decentralised web that is more secure, private, and equitable than the current web.

Web4 is built on the following key principles:

• Decentralisation: power and decision-making are distributed among multiple participants rather than being centralised with a few large tech companies.
• Interoperability: devices and services can work together seamlessly, regardless of their underlying technology.
• Self-sovereignty: users have control over their data and identities and are able to use them across different services without the need for a central authority.
• Privacy: users’ data is protected and kept private, rather than being collected and sold by companies.
• Transparency: users are aware of how their data is being used and have the ability to control it.

Web4 aims to provide a more secure and private web, where users have more control over their data and how it’s used. It also aims to create a more equitable web, where access to information and services is not limited by wealth or location.

Also Read: ‘The Axie hacking reminds us of the importance of a decentralisation network’

Web4 is still a concept, and many experts believe that it is still in the development stage. Some of the technologies that are being developed to make Web4 a reality include blockchain, peer-to-peer networks, and decentralised AI.

The Symbiotic Web

The Symbiotic Web is a concept that envisions a decentralised and distributed web where users have more control over their data and privacy. The idea is to create a web where users can share their data with other users or services in a secure and mutually beneficial way rather than having their data controlled by a central authority.

The Symbiotic Web is based on the idea of a web of relationships between users, devices, and services, where each participant has their own autonomy and agency. The goal of the Symbiotic Web is to create a web that is more resilient, secure, and fair for everyone by giving users more control over their data and how it is used.

The Symbiotic Web is built on several key principles, including:

• Decentralisation: power and decision-making are distributed among multiple participants
• Interoperability: devices and services can work together seamlessly
• Self-sovereignty: users have control over their data and identities
• Privacy: users’ data is protected and kept private
• Transparency: users are aware of how their data is being used

AI and the Symbiotic Web

To me, Web4 and the Symbiotic Web are relatively new concepts, and they are closely interlinked in many ways.

The Symbiotic Web is a concept that envisions a decentralised and distributed web where users have more control over their data and privacy. The idea is that users can share their data with other users or services on the web in a secure and mutually beneficial way.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can play a role in achieving decentralisation in the Symbiotic Web by allowing for more sophisticated and decentralised decision-making. For example, AI algorithms can be used to analyse and make decisions on data shared by multiple users in a decentralised network without the need for a central authority.

Also Read: Decentralised identities: Revolutionising access management practices

One way that AI and the Symbiotic Web can work together is through the use of decentralised AI models. These models are trained on decentralised data and can be shared and used by multiple users in the network. This allows for more accurate and personalised AI services while also maintaining user privacy and control over their data.

Another way is through the use of decentralised AI protocols. These protocols allow users to share and collaborate on AI models and data in a decentralised network without the need for a central authority. This can lead to more accurate and robust AI models, as well as more equitable access to AI services for all users.

Final thoughts

AI and the Symbiotic Web are considered to be key technologies that are driving the development of Web4, the next generation of the World Wide Web.

AI has the potential to enable more sophisticated and decentralised decision-making on the Symbiotic Web by allowing for the analysis of data shared by multiple users in a decentralised network without the need for a central authority. This can lead to more accurate and personalised services while also maintaining user privacy and control over their data.

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I am a firm believer in the power of personalisation in education. Education is not a one size fits all model, and there is extensive evidence to suggest that learning should be tailored to the needs of each individual.

According to a report, “over 80 per cent of teachers, parents, and students want exactly what personalised education – the holy grail of education can offer.” Specifically, this means getting a quality education where students can work at their own pace and be their own benchmark to maximise their potential. What makes this more possible now is technology.

Before 2020, online learning was still considered a niche offering more suited for adults pursuing higher education or professional training. Few parents saw it as a viable option for young children. Suddenly, global school closures at the height of the pandemic accelerated the adoption of edutech across all ages as everyone scrambled to seek solutions to overcome these unprecedented learning disruptions.

Even as pandemic restrictions loosened and students went back to school, the innovations in edutech created numerous opportunities for flexible learning; we observed that many families still want online options for education – especially for enrichment classes.

Expanding access to education

Advances in technology have made it possible to learn anything from anywhere. Language learning has been a game changer for students where world languages are not taught as part of the standard curriculum.

For example, American students typically do not start learning a second language until high school, and they are often only limited to Spanish and French. But now, kids as young as three years old can start learning Mandarin Chinese with a professional teacher in China and take that class anytime, anywhere. They are no longer limited to the resources available to them locally.

Personalising the process

Language learning, in particular, should be tailored to individual learning needs. For beginners, the focus lies in building the foundation of the language. But for younger students, the key is to make learning fun. This is why gamification, animated storytelling, and other interactive multimedia can make lessons so much more engaging and effective.

There are also two different levels of beginners to consider: heritage learners with some exposure to a language through their family and non-heritage learners who are starting as a blank slate. Though both beginners, their starting points are very different. For heritage learners, our programme is designed for kids who can already understand and speak. While we take an immersive approach for non-heritage students, we ease them into the language at a slower pace.

Also Read: In this age of digitalisation, is edutech a bane or boon for educators?

That said, both programmes apply the same principles. Games and animations are used to engage students to learn a rigorous curriculum that’s pegged to globally recognised syllabi. This seamless blend of content and instruction in a virtual classroom is what makes our language learning platform effective.

Flexible solutions with edutech

Similarly, hybrid learning allows students a different kind of flexibility. Students can develop cognitively, socially, and emotionally through in-classroom learning while complementing this with online coursework that’s tailored to suit their individual learning needs.

In Singapore, we offer a hybrid learning programme for learning Chinese called LingoAce Blended Learning. It allows students to learn at their own pace in a manner that best suits their learning style.

From our online interactive platform, they can access learning materials wherever they are and whenever they need them. On the weekend, students can join in-person classes where they can interact with a teacher and classmates in person, which helps reinforce what they’ve learned on their own.

For some students, the accessibility, personalisation, and flexibility of hybrid learning can be a more sustainable and efficient learning experience.

Personalisation is the future

The future is about personalising educational experiences, building instruction from student passions and capacities, helping to personalise their learning and assessment in ways that foster engagement and talents, and ultimately encouraging students to be ingenious.

To date, LingoAce has taught more than 100 countries and regions. Each of our students is on their own unique journey, where learning is tailored to individual learning styles and lifestyles, maximising learning outcomes.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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Sharina Khan is the Lead Consultant and Experience Designer at Thoughtworks, with six years of experience in this domain and over ten years in Product Design and Development as a practitioner and educator.

She is actively involved in the Design Community, conducting design, business and innovation workshops, classes and events with a focus on educating and sharing design methodologies to better engage both designers and non-designers in co-creation activities.

Khan continually updates her skills with industry-specific tools in a technology-driven and experience-based economy. She is a regular contributor of articles for e27 (you can read her thought leadership articles here).

In this candid interview, she talks about her personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

I help people do things better and faster with their phones and computers.

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

Switching careers and going back to school to sharpen my UX skills after being a lecturer. While losing financial freedom was initially tough, reskilling was a worthwhile investment.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

At the larger design community level, I do enjoy mentoring. I’m still teaching part-time to design students in a polytechnic, which allows me to keep engaged with our youths and work with them to ensure they’re equipped with industry-relevant skills.

Also Read: Being a first-class listener will serve you best: Jon Howard of Bud Communications

Professionally, I want to see myself playing more of an advisory role at work, where I can play a significant impact in shaping projects from a strategic level. I have a keen interest in the social sector to see how we can work on proactive actions. As Benjamin Franklin said, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Pen and paper — I know it’s very traditional, but I think faster, and it helps me mentally engage with the information better.

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

What might surprise most people is that I’m a proud mother of three who still loves the adrenaline of speed and fast cars! 

On top of that, taking the risk to switch careers and upskill while juggling motherhood is the most surprising thing about my job. It only speaks to the work-life balance at Thoughtworks and how nurturing and inspiring the culture is here through all the opportunities it has provided me.

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

I prefer hybrid work.

Where brainstorming and discussions are needed, I prefer having them face-to-face as it tends to be more productive and dynamic. You get things done much faster, reducing the need to go back and forth.

Also, I love the use of big whiteboards in the office for such discussions – for me, it sparks creativity through a more hands-on approach. I prefer working from home for work where I’m required to have a greater focus time.

Also Read: Chart your own path, for the future is what you make it: Rachel Lau of RHL Ventures

However, whenever I need to map out my thought process or complex business flows, I’ll still head to the office, book a room with a whiteboard and start mapping my thoughts visually. I need to see how things connect.

I approach work differently depending on the nature of my tasks, so I split my time between the office and home. Therefore, the hybrid working arrangement is my most productive and preferred working style.

What would you tell your younger self?

Be hungrier and bolder to explore a variety of industries.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Eager, passionate and a risk taker.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

Travelling the world, exploring various cultures and cuisines.

What are you currently reading/listening to/ watching?

I love binging on European investigative films, as I see a lot of relevance to my work. As designers, we are constantly trying to uncover underlying issues, connecting the dots through mapping out journeys and interviewing users, similar to the work of detectives and investigators.

In parallel, I have also been reading about the various milestones of my child. Four months ago, we welcomed a new addition to our family, so it helps to refresh my memory as I go through the different stages of motherhood all over again.

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The theme of social impact is taking over the centre stage in the Southeast Asian (SEA) tech startup ecosystem this year, with social enterprises being in the spotlight, but challenges remain for companies that are working in the sector.

While some of the challenges that they are facing are relevant to startups in any vertical, there are some specific problems that they face that require a tailored approach.

To uncover the issue and its possible solutions, e27 reaches out to some of the startups that have participated in the first cohort of Sustainable Impact Accelerator, a programme jointly organised by the Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise (raiSE) and venture capital firm Quest Ventures.

These three startups –SoundEye, The Posture Lab, and ACKTEC Technologies– reveal the challenges that they are going through and how taking part in the programme can help them tackle them.

The two most pressing issues

When asked by e27, the three companies agree that balancing social impact and generating revenue remains the top challenges they face as social impact startups.

Also Read: How are NFTs contributing in creating a social impact?

SoundEye –a social enterprise that provides a range of innovative and smart safety solutions that seek to protect, secure, and monitor– stresses that it is especially hard during the pandemic when the company must find ways to survive.

To address this, SoundEye finds ways to reduce the cost of goods sold. The easiest way is to innovate and use affordable components – and we are not referring to using an inferior product. For example, we use a single microprocessor to perform sound recognition and vision analytics instead of two. Doing so reduces the hardware cost and better organises how our back-end system works. We also removed the need for gateways, servers, expensive networks, and cloud computing that leads to cost reduction for our customers,” says Dr Tan Yeow Kee, Founder of SoundEye.

“By doing all these, we can keep our solution affordable and generate social impact without burning a big hole in our customers’ wallets. SoundEye is always finding ways how we can achieve more with less,” Dr Tan stresses.

A similar approach was done by ACKTEC Technologies, an edutech company focused on creating an immersive learning environment that is affordable and accessible to low-income students in Southeast Asia.

“Balancing impact creation while at the same time ensuring a profit is one of the greatest challenges. We believe in making quality education affordable and accessible to all, which is a key differentiating factor between our competitors and us,” says Rayvan Ho, Founder and CEO of ACKTEC Technologies.

“Hence, even though there are short-term costs involved in impact creation (i.e. keeping the product affordable to students from low-income backgrounds), we are here for the long term. As such, we are strategic in our spending decisions and social impact creation to create more value in the long run.”

Also Read: A better way to make impact: Why we decided to start a social impact network

For Posture Lab, which runs an in-studio and posture training for diverse users, including persons with disability, revenue and impact are something that is inseparable.

“Oftentimes, others place their focus on revenue and impact separately. However, in our case we want to create impact seamlessly together with revenue generation. Though it may sound impossible, technology makes it more accessible and easier to work with demographics that may not have access to these services,” explains Emile Dumont, Founder-CEO of Posture Lab.

“In today’s economic situation, we focus strongly on a B2B model and run initiatives where customers will be part of the impact loop. Apart from ensuring that our training and app offers are inclusive for people with diverse needs, we are also planning to provide subsidised services for persons from low-income backgrounds when we launch our app.”

What investors can do

Quest Ventures shares its insights on the biggest challenges faced by startups in the social impact sector.

“Startups will face the challenge of balancing impact creation and business growth, aligning expectations of stakeholders and business partners, and getting their investors to better understand how impact can translate into enterprise value,” says James Tan, Managing Partner at Quest Ventures.

“With sustainability coming into focus in these few years, the challenge may be slowly mitigating, but investors should put teeth in their commitment to sustainability and impact by actually investing in and supporting the growth of impact-driven startups … Together with our local and international partners in the startup investment ecosystems and social sectors, we are able to support the startups in expanding beyond the local market and pulling together resources to replicate and scale.”

Also Read: Startups should work with corporates to achieve balance between social impact, sustainability: Arcadis

Its collaboration with raiSE is an example of the initiative that it set up to support startups in the social impact sector.

Founded in 2015, raiSE aims to develop the social enterprise sector in Singapore by providing financing options, capacity building, and mentorship to startups in the relevant sector.

Since 2022, it has partnered with Quest Ventures to launch the Sustainable Impact Accelerator which is described as Asia’s first venture capital-backed accelerator programme for social enterprises.

Alfie Othman, CEO of Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise, raiSE, explains the challenges that social impact companies are facing: “According to a study on The State of Social Enterprise in Singapore that raiSE conducted in partnership with the British Council in 2021, the top three challenges faced by social enterprises are customer acquisition and market development, access to financial support, and building internal capabilities.”

The accelerator aims to help social impact companies by providing startups with funding of up to S$50,000, access to mentors from world-class partners and investors, and valuable insights on business and social topics from industry experts.

The ten-week programme has recently opened applications for the second cohort of its programme.

“We continue to partner with Quest Ventures to provide promising, socially impactful startups with the support they need to improve their competencies and access regional and global markets for the second cohort of the accelerator this year. The Sustainable Impact Accelerator’s first cohort has proven successful – with companies pitching to over 2,000 investors, corporates, and government organisations within the programme’s first three months. We are always heartened to see participants benefit from the programme, whether it be scaling their business, growing their impact, or gaining footholds in new markets,” says Othman.

Also Read: Startups should work with corporates to achieve balance between social impact, sustainability: Arcadis

“Together with our partners and the Quest ecosystem, we look to identify and support regional champions with purpose and profit as their core engines of growth. We invite international social impact startups looking to pilot in Singapore and leverage it as a launchpad to Southeast Asia to join us in their next phase of growth,” Tan closes.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

Image Credit: Quest Ventures

 

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WeMo Corp, an e-scooter rental company based in Taiwan, has completed its US$15 million Series A+ round of financing led by AppWorks.

Taiwan National Development Fund also joined the round.

WeMo will use the money to expand its service to Southeast Asia, mainly in Indonesia and Thailand. It is building partnerships with governments, investors, businesses, and transportation providers throughout the region to offer green transportation and fleet management services.

WeMo develops technology and services to decrease dependency on privately-owned vehicles, thus reducing pollution. It provides real-time smart e-scooter rental service.

Also Read: ‘The era of easy money is over’: VCs speak of funding winter and exit landscape in Southeast Asia

The firm claims it has amassed over a million users since its launch seven years ago. In 2022, WeMo launched WeMo RenTour (app-based rentals for electric cars, scooters, and bicycles) and WeMo PASS (offers free and discounted rides of e-scooters and other benefits on a subscription basis).

The company also offers a comprehensive mobility-as-a-service platform focusing on fleet and operations management under one integrated system.

“Sustainable green energy development is the predominant global trend for energy and transportation and is the core spirit of WeMo from inception. Building off the continuous and steady growth of WeMo, we will leverage our proven expertise in electric and shared vehicles to offer sustainable solutions for smart transportation throughout the Greater Southeast Asia region,” said Jeffrey Wu, Founder and Vice Chairman of WeMo.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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