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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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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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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Sea says it will add over 2,000 jobs in Malaysia
Accordingly, Sea plans to open a global cloud computing centre and a new warehouse for Shopee in Malaysia; It also looks to set up cloud services and data hosting and processing in the country.

Can Chinese VCs be a potential wild card for SEA during funding winter?
China’s matured economy and willingness to invest in the region could make it a major player in SEA startup funding in 2023, says a VC investor in SEA.

China’s JD.com to officially quit ID, TH
The moves mark JD’s retreat from the competitive e-commerce area in SEA, where the domination of regional champions, including Tokopedia and Shopee, has made it hard to expand its market share.

Indonesian agritech startup EdenFarm secures US$13.5M pre-Series B
The investors are TMI Ventures, AppWorks, AC Ventures, and Capria Ventures; EdenFarm claims it has over 5,500 farmer partners and 50,000 B2B customers and has seen almost 60X growth in the last 40 months.

Stripe may go public next year, allows exit for investors and employees
The plans come as restricted stock units of the payments major’s veteran employees are set to expire, which would see a major part of their compensation vanish if no action is taken.

Indonesian collectibe marketplace Kick Avenue scores US$2.39M Series A
The investors are Korean marketplace KREAM and Malaysia’s SneakersLAH; Kick Avenue offers a variety of mainly collectibe sneakers from international brands, such Adidas and Nike, as well as local brands.

Wavemaker, Seedstars invest in Thai SaaS insurtech startup Eazy Digital
Eazy Digital provides digital solutions to small and medium-sized insurance companies that lack the resources to digitise their processes and distribution.

Japan embraces Web3 as global regulators grow wary of crypto
With tight regulations already in place that helped insulate FTX Japan and its investors from heavy losses, Japan is working on policy and guidelines for stablecoins, NFTs and DAOs as it welcomes a crypto future.

Redefining metaverse: how to determine real utility in the Web3 world
Web3 has given us an incredible tool — the ability to create a ‘digital value economy’, whereby something can have value in and of itself online, without a trusted intermediary.

Amazon NFT initiative coming soon: Exclusive
Amazon has been shopping the digital collectibles effort to no shortage of power players in the industry, per multiple sources; There’s a focus on blockchain-based gaming and related NFT applications, as per sources.

Grab promotes Philipp Kandal to CPO
In his new role, Kandal will oversee the tech giant’s product, design, and analytics teams; He will also spearhead Grab’s product vision and strategy initiatives.

How to fortify yourself against the risky unknown
It’s important to have an experimental mindset in the digital age by exploring new tools, ways of doing, thinking and working.

Indonesia’s antivirus reliance: A cybersecurity blindspot
It’s crucial for individuals to understand that relying solely on antivirus software leaves them vulnerable to other types of cyber threats.

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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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Ten Series A startups are about to embark on the seventh edition of the Google for Startups (GFS) Accelerator for Southeast Asia and Pakistan.

Hailing from six countries, including Indonesia and Vietnam, and diverse sectors ranging from healthtech to edutech, these startups reflect the opportunities and challenges currently present in the region. 

All about edutech

In edutech, while we see investments in this sector starting to reduce due to the reopening of economies, there is still much headroom to reimagine the learning experience, particularly in the realms of levelling working professionals.

Since the start of the pandemic, there has been an approximately 30 per cent increase in jobs that require bilingual proficiency for business discussions, presentations and more.

This is why Bluente‘s approach is interesting. The Singapore-based company – one of the ten startups in this year’s GFS Accelerator for Southeast Asia and Pakistan – has developed a business language learning mobile app that delivers bite-size courses for working professionals. 

It is built for self-paced learning and offers personalised classes according to the user’s proficiency level. It uses attractive flashcards and real-life case studies in its lessons, allowing learners to retain words effectively.  

Also Read: How Noodle Factory addresses educator burnout with its AI-powered teaching assistants

Meanwhile, Wela School System, a startup headquartered in the Philippines, has built an end-to-end school system where students (and their parents) can easily view grades, announcements and billing statements through a mobile app.

OOOLAB from Vietnam, on the other hand, has developed an online e-learning platform to support education organisations by providing an all-in-one, low-code learning infrastructure for K-12s, universities, tutoring centres, corporates, and even fellow edutech startups.

Healthtech in all its glory

Healthtech is another nascent but growing sector in Southeast Asia, where startups are increasingly focused on addressing challenges like poor access to healthcare and rising healthcare costs, which are prevalent in many countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Opportunities in the well-being space also abound for HealthTech founders, with mental care becoming more top of mind among people in the region. 

Healthtech startups have their work cut out for them as they are working to transform an established, traditional sector that is healthcare. What they need most are partnerships and support from government agencies and policymakers to help drive the adoption of their solutions, which accelerator programs can help provide. Notably, the four healthtech startups in this year’s GFS Accelerator for Southeast Asia and Pakistan are working to improve access to quality medical attention in the region. 

Vietnam-based Docosan, for instance, is a platform that lets people book doctor appointments and tests online and order medication to be delivered to their doorsteps. HonestDocs from Thailand is a healthcare and surgery marketplace that works with over 1,000 healthcare providers, while Elfie, a Singapore startup, aims to reduce the burden of chronic diseases by rewarding patients for self-monitoring through a mobile app. In Indonesia, Mindtera supports companies by using data-driven insights to increase the performance, productivity and well-being of employees.

Over in Pakistan, logistic startup Rider is looking to level up the country’s burgeoning e-commerce sector, which includes solving problems like items getting lost or damaged in the delivery process, which is largely caused by a disjointed logistics infrastructure. Rider has built a modern logistics platform to support online sellers and, to date, is working with over 1,000 online sellers across 60 cities in Pakistan. 

Also Read: It is costly to develop and sell insurance products in Indonesia: PasarPolis CEO

Finally, we are seeing a lot of buzz and action in the startup scene in Indonesia. Noice, a local audio platform that offers podcasts, audio series, live audio and radio streaming services, is actively championing the local online audio creator community.

PasarMikro, which has built an agri-commodity trade platform, is tackling a bottleneck in the agricultural value chain by enabling existing traders, aggregators and farmers to easily access working capital and digitalisation services.

Come February, these ten startups will begin the GFS Accelerator program and receive mentorship from Googlers and industry experts in multiple areas, which include product development, engineering best practices, leadership and team development, and marketing.

We look forward to meeting the founders and mentors from across Southeast Asia and Pakistan and helping them build successful businesses.

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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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Secai Marche, a Japanese startup providing a B2B farm-to-table fulfilment platform in Malaysia, has announced a JPY210 million (US$1.6 million) Series A fundraising.

The investors, who participated in the round, are The Agribusiness Investment & Consultation, Spiral Ventures Asia Fund I, and existing backer Beyond Next Ventures.

This round takes the farm-tech company’s total funding raised to date to US$4.5 million.

The startup will use the new capital to develop its own demand forecast system and optimise truck routing.

Also Read: Can Chinese VCs be a potential wild card for SEA during funding winter?

Established by Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Ami Sugiyama and Shusaku Hayakawa, Secai Marche connects farmers with F&B businesses to purchase high-quality products at competitive prices from the farm directly. It sources over 4,000 items (fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs, and chilled seafood, among others) directly from farmers in Southeast Asia and Japan.

The online grocery platform claims to have partnered with over 500 retailers and HORECA customers.

Secai Marche has built a warehouse management and fulfilment system for perishables and established a cold chain. “The warehouse management and fulfilment system is designed to optimise the supply chain and maintain the lowest wastage rate of less than 1 per cent,” said Sugiyama. “Now, We are ready to accelerate our expansion in SEA to service more farmers and consumers.”

In May 2021, Secai Marche received ~US$1.5 million in a pre-Series A round from Rakuten Ventures and Beyond Next Ventures. A few months earlier, it secured US$1 million in a funding round from Beyond Next Ventures, Monex Ventures, and unnamed angels.

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The metaverse is a rapidly developing technology that has the potential to revolutionise how we live, interact, and work. It is a virtual world, an immersive environment shaping the digital world’s future in ways we never thought possible.

It is a digital universe that is expected to significantly impact various sectors of the economy, including entertainment and gaming.

One technology that intersects with the metaverse is blockchain technology. Together, blockchain and the metaverse have the potential to impact these sectors significantly. These impacts have ramifications across many other industries, not just entertainment and gaming.

Retail, e-commerce, supply chain and manufacturing processes can be radically transformed. Innovations in healthcare and education will not only create economic value, but they may also improve well-being and the human condition.

This article will explore the intersection of cutting-edge technologies shaping the digital world’s future — blockchain technology and the metaverse — and the potential Impact of the metaverse on these sectors.

Technologies involved in the metaverse

The metaverse is a virtual world, an immersive environment, and a rapidly developing technology with the potential to revolutionise how we live, interact and work. It allows for real-time interactions and experiences across large distances from social interactions, shared experience, trading, currency, tokenized assets, and property ownership. Users can interact and engage with each other and with virtual objects.

Also Read: Into the metaverse: When Web3 and virtual worlds collide

In a digital world, several technologies come into play in the metaverse development. The metaverse combined mixed reality—virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), 3D real-time rendering and modelling, and blockchain technology.

How does blockchain enhance the capability of the metaverse?

Blockchain technology serves as the foundation for the metaverse, as many applications within it run on blockchain systems.

This technology offers decentralisation, transparency, digital collectability, and value transfer, which are crucial for the metaverse to function correctly. Other functions of blockchain in the metaverse include verification of digital ownership, accessibility, and interoperability.

Decentralisation allows for the distribution of data and controls across a network of computers rather than being controlled by a single entity. This ensures that any organisation or group does not control the metaverse and that all users have equal access.

It provides a transparent and tamper-proof record of all transactions within the metaverse. This allows for greater trust and security within the metaverse.

In addition, it enables the transfer of value within the metaverse, allowing users to buy and sell goods and services using cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency is a crucial technology used in the metaverse. It enables users to convert their real-world currencies to digital form before using them to carry out any transaction in the metaverse.

It allows the user to transact within the metaverse and enable cross-border transactions. It is used to purchase resources such as NFTs, digital real estate, and in-game items. It is a vital aspect of the metaverse, allowing for secure, fast, and cost-effective transactions.

The potential impact of the metaverse on different sectors of the economy

In a report by the global provider of consulting and advisory services, Deloitte, the concept of a “metaverse,” once considered science fiction, is now a reality as millions of people are already using it on platforms like Roblox, Decentraland, Fortnite, Sandbox, and Zepeto for gaming, socialising, attending virtual events, and making purchases. At the same time, governments in Asian countries have included the metaverse in their economic plans.

According to the report, the potential Impact of the metaverse on GDP in Asia could be between US$0.8 trillion and US$1.4 trillion per year by 2035, or roughly 1.3–2.4 per cent of overall GDP.

In his report on how businesses can explore the metaverse, JP Morgan compared the hype with reality, saying, “The metaverse will likely infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues.”

Sectoral impact of the metaverse across industries (adapted from Deloitte)

Entertainment and gaming

The metaverse has the potential to revolutionise the entertainment and gaming industries by providing a more immersive and interactive experience for users. Virtual reality and blockchain technology can enhance the user experience by allowing players to interact with each other and with virtual objects more realistically and seamlessly.

For example, virtual reality games can provide players with a more realistic and immersive experience. At the same time, blockchain technology can create virtual marketplaces where players can buy and sell virtual goods, thus leading to a new revenue stream for the gaming industry.

Retail and e-commerce

Retail and e-commerce are also sectors poised to see a significant impact from the metaverse. The metaverse can change how we shop and purchase goods by providing a more immersive and interactive shopping experience. The use of AI can automate customer service experiences in the metaverse.

One example of virtual stores is virtual reality technology, which allows customers to walk through a virtual store and interact with products, while blockchain technology can create virtual marketplaces. This can significantly impact brick-and-mortar retail and online shopping and create new revenue streams for retailers.

Manufacturing and supply chain

The metaverse can be used in manufacturing processes to improve product design and testing. Virtual reality can be used to create prototypes of products and test them in virtual environments. This can lead to a more efficient and cost-effective product design process and improved product quality. Additionally, blockchain technology can create a more transparent and efficient supply chain by providing real-time tracking and traceability of products.

Metaverse technologies could lead to better real-time monitoring of supply chains, operational effectiveness, and collaboration between stakeholders.

Health care and education

The implementation of immersive technologies has the potential to improve the delivery and quality of education by creating more interactive educational content and curriculum and making it available to a larger audience, including those with disabilities.

Also Read: Singapore’s ageing population: Tech and new scientific discoveries may calm the silver tsunami

Virtual reality and blockchain technology are being used to create new ways of delivering healthcare services, such as virtual consultations and remote surgeries, to provide patients with more convenient and accessible healthcare services.

In addition, it creates new ways of delivering education, such as virtual classrooms and remote learning, as well as new opportunities in medical education and training to provide medical students and professionals with a more immersive and interactive learning experience.

This can significantly impact access to education and the democratisation of knowledge. It is significant not only in terms of monetary value but also in terms of improving well-being and the human condition.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, the metaverse and blockchain technology are shaping the digital world’s future in ways we never thought possible. The potential Impact of the metaverse on various sectors of the economy is significant, and it has ramifications across many sectors, not just entertainment and gaming.

Retail, e-commerce, and manufacturing processes can be radically transformed, and healthcare and education innovations will create economic value and improve well-being and the human condition.

Future developments and research in the field are necessary to understand the full potential and the challenges of implementing the metaverse and blockchain technology.

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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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Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group subsidiaries, MUFG Innovation Partners and MUFG Bank, have established a US$100 million fund in partnership with Indonesia’s commercial bank Danamon.

The fund, MUFG Innovation Partners Garuda No. 1 Limited Investment Partnership, will make strategic investments in Indonesian companies that are expected to have synergies with Danamon.

Danamon was acquired by MUFG and MUFG Bank as a consolidated subsidiary in April 2019.

With this partnership, Danamon aims to enhance its product competitiveness, promote digitalisation and attract new customers through the customer contacts of the investees.

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This is MUIP’s third fund, in which MUFG Bank will have an 89.9 per cent stake while Danamon will own 10 per cent. MUIP will have 0.1 per cent equity in the MUFG Innovation Partners Garuda No. 1 Limited Investment Partnership.

In January 2019, MUFG established MUIP, a fund management company, to strengthen open innovation through business alliances between the group companies and startups in Japan and overseas. MUIP has invested over JPY 40 billion (US$307 million) in companies globally.

Headquartered in Tokyo, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group is one of the world’s leading financial groups, with a presence in approximately 2,100 locations in more than 50 countries. The group offers commercial banking, trust banking, securities, credit cards, consumer finance, asset management, and leasing.

Danamon is the sixth-largest commercial bank in Indonesia in terms of assets. It provides consumer finance, investment, asset management, and other financial products and services to individual consumers, SMEs, and large corporations through 864 domestic branches.

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