Building strong communities based on shared values is essential for tackling urgent issues like disaster response, climate action, and access to water. It drives societal change by fostering accountability and active citizenship. Moreover, it boosts political involvement, strengthens social ties, stimulates economic development, expands educational prospects, provides family assistance, and enhances communal connections.

Active community participation offers numerous advantages. For example, engaging in initiatives like knowledge sharing and collaboration fosters belonging, enhancing mental well-being, empathy, and resilience. A survey found that 61% of respondents experiencing a strong sense of belonging through community engagement have excellent mental health. Additionally, involvement in the community cultivates skills, promoting personal and professional growth and empowerment for independent living. Entrepreneurs are more likely to succeed when actively participating in communities and networks that foster entrepreneurial learning and business opportunities.

SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub: A One-Stop Platform to Tackle Disaster Risk Reduction

SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub is a pioneering initiative poised to redefine Disaster Tech (D-Tech) through the fusion of technology, innovation, and community collaboration. At its essence, the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub transcends the conventional notion of a mere platform; it represents a ground-breaking endeavour. It stands as the world’s first universally accessible space where stakeholders in the disaster tech sphere converge. From emerging start-ups to established entities, from investors to policymakers, this hub serves as a centralised nexus for sharing expertise, pooling resources, and fostering concerted efforts toward a singular objective: building a more resilient world for the future.

Also read: Navigating In-Store Innovation: A Dive into Ingenico’s StartupIN Program

The SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub was among various initiatives initiated by the Prudence Foundation, in partnership with e27, the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Introducing SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub through the Virtual Launch

The virtual launch of the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub, taking place on March 26 via Zoom, was an enlightening event, uniting stakeholders dedicated to advancing disaster resilience. The event brought together individuals, start-ups, experts, and organisations to exchange ideas and forge partnerships for a safer world. Emphasising collaboration, the event showcased community-driven innovation in disaster response, featuring reputable speakers including Diana Guzman from Prudence Foundation, Sanjay Srivastava delivering the keynote address on behalf of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Jaron Lim from Wateroam, Josh Kao from LivingWater Systems, Anthony Chua from StratifiCare, among others.

Also read: Strategic outsourcing: How iScale Solutions helps you grow your team

Through knowledge-sharing and cooperation, the hub empowered stakeholders to leverage collective expertise and resources for sustainable solutions. A key feature of the event was the panel discussion “Leadership in Disaster Tech,” where speakers offered insights on how technology and partnerships can combat natural disasters effectively, urging start-ups, organisations, and investors to lead the charge in fostering resilience. 

Key Takeaways from the Virtual Launch

In the keynote presentation, Sanjay Srivastava highlighted that in an era characterised by escalating disaster emergencies, societies struggle with increasingly complex risks that pose multifaceted challenges to people, cities, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Moreover, risk amplifiers such as climate change, rapid urbanisation, and residual vulnerabilities exacerbate the severity of these threats. For instance, research pointed out that a 1.50C increase in average global temperature would place 85% of the global population at risk, and cause an annual loss of up to $953 billion.

However, amid these challenges, there exist significant opportunities to build resilience. “Technological innovations are rapidly transforming the landscape, offering new solutions and avenues for mitigating risks. Moreover, the convergence of technology and data ecosystems presents opportunities for harnessing vast amounts of data through cloud computing and big data. Furthermore, the democratisation of platforms allows for the scaling of technology and data platforms, facilitating policy reforms and empowering diverse stakeholders to contribute to resilience-building efforts,” expressed Sanjay Srivastava.  

In fact, participating speakers also shared their insights and innovative solutions to leverage the opportunities to mitigate rising obstacles. For example, Jaron Lim from Wateroam shared about how its easy-to-use and portable water filters help to provide safe drinking water in rural and disaster-stricken areas. Teaming up with humanitarian organisations like the Red Cross and World Vision, the company has supplied safe water to 100,000 people in 38 countries. “For our journey, collaboration, the generous financial support and networking opportunities offered by Prudence, e27, and more are critical, empowering us to reach our goals and serve the community. We are very grateful, and we would also want to invite everyone to join us in the Community Hub space to tackle the world’s water crises head-on together,” commented Jaron Lim.

Also read: How AppsFlyer helps brands navigate a rapidly evolving market

Similarly, Anthony Chua emphasised how Stratificare tackled a vital issue in Dengue disease management: predicting progression from mild to severe dengue. “Thanks to networking opportunities with leading physicians and industry advisors through initiatives such as the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub, Stratificare succeeded in inventing the world’s first patented dengue prognostic test to save more lives,“ shared Anthony Chua.

As announced during the virtual launch, participants joining the hub can also enjoy various perks such as networking opportunities for all stakeholders in the D-Tech space and providing access to valuable resources such as training, mentorship, funding, and the SAFE STEPS D-Tech Awards.

By joining the community, participants in the D-Tech space can help to create lasting solutions and partnerships that safeguard communities and contribute to a more resilient world for the people of the future.

After the virtual launch

Ever since the launch of the hub, the following startups joined the community as part of their commitment to help sustain our planet: Wateroam, LivingWaters Systems, StratifiCare, Solnovation Analytics Sdn Bhd Malaysia, DayZero Water, SI Analytics, Usher Technologies, H3 Dynamics, Kinetic Analysis Corporation, QUICKBLOCK, and Kacific Broadband Satellites among others.

A number of partners also became members of the community to contribute their work as well to global disaster resilience: International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC), Amazon Web Services (AWS), ALSiSAR IMPACT, Stimson Center, iCube Innovation, Ideaspace & QBO, Plan International, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), and Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF) among others.

If you’d like to know more and be part of the growing SAFE STEPS D-Tech Community Hub, be sure to visit www.safestepsdtech.com.

The post D-Tech Community Hub: Safeguarding communities through collaboration appeared first on e27.

Skills gap continues to become a problem in various markets, but an AI solution might be the answer that they are looking for. This is the exact premise of what Primeskills, an Indonesia-based startup, offers to its users.

“Our vision is to solve a well-known problem called the skills gap between industry and graduates. This gap is caused by the fact that graduates are not learning the practical soft skills that are necessary for today’s workforce. We use AI and immersive tech to help people learn these skills in a fun and engaging way. Gamification can be used to make learning more enjoyable and to motivate people to keep learning,” explains CEO William Irawan in an email to e27.

“Immersive tech can provide a more realistic and engaging learning experience than traditional methods. This can help people to learn more effectively and to retain the information that they learn. AI can be used to personalise the learning experience and to provide feedback to learners. This can help people to learn at their own pace and to get the most out of the learning experience.”

Primeskills offers three main solutions to tackle the problem of the skills gap: Immersive Module Library (Offered through licensing business models), LMS + VR Analytics (Offered through subscription), and Custom Module Creation (Offered through services and licensing).

These solutions work by placing people in a focused VR environment and analysing their interaction with AI-powered characters. It then analyses the user interaction data to provide personalised feedback and analysis that helps them upskill 4x faster than other alternatives, says the CEO.

Also Read: In the age of AI, which human skills increasingly stand out?

“Our users are currently enterprise employees and university students who are looking to improve their soft skills in order to land their dream jobs or climb the corporate ladder. We often acquire new users through word-of-mouth from our clients and portfolios being showcased, social media, and B2B events. We are always looking for new ways to reach our target audience and help them achieve their goals,” Irawan elaborates.

Primeskills says that it has implemented its solutions to over 10,000 people, distributed over 300 headsets to various sectors in Indonesia (including enterprises, government, and universities), and achieved over 90 per cent high satisfaction ratings from customers.

Behind the solutions

Primeskills was co-founded by Irawan, CTO Feraldo (who is a software engineer with a passion for AI and advanced technology that has a special focus on VR/AR development), commissioner Kiwi Aliwarga (a business advisor who is passionate about technopreneurship in Indonesia), and COO Windy Widjaya (who has a background in branding and analytics).

As one of the companies that participated in the EduSpaze accelerator programme, Primeskills sees the value in participating in the programme that has introduced them to mentors, trainers, and experts.

“Primeskills is committed to providing immersive and accessible soft skills solutions through various platforms. We are planning to integrate AI to help people identify their skills and personalise their learning experience,” Irawan closes.

“Generative AI technology also helps us produce modules faster and deliver solutions to our partners. We are always looking for ways to improve our business model and route-to-market strategy.”

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Image Credit: Primeskills

The article was first published on September 7, 2023.

The post Closing the skills gap: How Primeskills utilises AI to bridge the divide appeared first on e27.

As a junior partner at McKinsey, Ani Bhalekar used to travel between Singapore and Brisbane weekly. Frequent journeys resulted in his back pain, and he was advised to do full-time physiotherapy.

However, full-time therapy was not practical for a frequent traveller like him. Online physiotherapy was the only option, but scheduling was an issue. This motivated him to develop a virtual physiotherapist.

Also Read: Is AI the end of originality or a new dawn for creativity?

Based in Singapore, EliteFit.AI aims to democratise fitness by providing a personal trainer to everyone across physiotherapy, rehab, assessments, sports coaching, dance training, and yoga. Users can use this browser-based application on any device — smartphones, tablets, and laptops — and exercise anytime, anywhere. No additional devices or app downloads are required.

The user is given an accuracy score based on their performance. If the user makes a mistake, it provides prescriptive feedback in terms of audio cues and stickers.

“EliteFit.AI can work across 10,000+ micro-movements, and we have over 3000 full-length videos available on our platform,” Bhalekar said. “Initially, it was challenging to create the product because its model was limited by the number of movements it could recognise. Throughout multiple iterations of training on thousands of videos from the database, it is now a generalised AI model which can train on any video provided.”

Currently, most of its users come from its distributor partners — fitness companies, healthcare companies, insurance companies, the public sector, and sports organisations. The product can be integrated into healthcare, fitness, insurance, and sports apps/sites.

Since Elitefit.Ai is a SaaS tool, the startup sees a massive opportunity to expand into other parts of the world and scale across millions of users across different industries.

Bhalekar also claimed that EliteFit.AI is already profitable.

Also Read: Safeguarding your organisation in the age of increasing AI

The startup has so far received an SGD300,000 (US$220,000) SportSG cash grant. It now looks to raise US$5 million in venture capital to build and expand the team, foray into the US, and experiment with B2C value propositions.

Leveraging AI, EliteFit.AI offers a virtual personal trainer accessible on any device, providing personalised fitness training without appointments or downloads. This browser-based solution empowers users to exercise anytime, anywhere, with millions of users on the horizon and global expansion planned. EliteFit.AI plans to transform not just fitness accessibility, but also its bottom line, achieving profitability already.
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Singapore-based AI startup Mindverse has secured US$5 million in seed funding from Square Peg, according to a Business Times report.

The funding will be invested in R&D to advance its large personalisation model.

Founded by former Meta execs and top AI researchers in 2022, Mindverse has developed Artificial Diversified Intelligence (ADI) using the Large Personalisation Model (LPM). This technology aims to ensure human uniqueness and diversity remain at the centre of AI development.

Also Read: McKinsey alum’s EliteFit.AI aims to democratise fitness with virtual physiotherapy

Kisson Lin, co-founder and COO of Mindverse said in a LinkedIn post: “Since 2020, Dr Felix Tao (co-founder and CEO) has been pioneering a neuro-symbolic LLM framework at his lab, leading to our advanced Agent framework. By 2022, we introduced MindOS, envisioning AI agents as autonomous entities defining the next-gen operating system.”

“Early 2023 saw the launch of MindOS beta, outpacing competitors like GPTStore. We’ve pinpointed limitations in large models’ long-term memory affecting agent adoption and service quality. Discoveries led to two key applications: AI personal assistants and dynamic AI web experiences,” she added.

Mindverse offers two products: MindOS Studio, which helps businesses create AI-native websites with dynamic, personalised chat experiences, and Mebot, which offers individuals an individualised experience that matches their unique nature. It acts as a digital “second brain” to enhance productivity by learning and analysing user habits, ideas, and preferences.

Also Read: Unlocking efficiency: How Gen AI-powered email automation revolutionises customer service

“Mebot acts as a personal memory assistant, simplifying the management of thoughts and memories, which is ideal for creators and managers. It’s available on the web now and will be on iOS this month. MindOS Studio offers businesses a no-code solution to deploy dynamic, interactive web agents, boosting user engagement and conversion rates,” Lin noted.

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Each year, Bain & Company identifies “insurgent brands” in America’s consumer goods sector, known for their independence from large corporations and for challenging market leaders or creating new categories. 

Indonesia is predicted to become the fourth-largest economy by 2045, with GDP per capita reaching US$7,500 to US$10,000 by 2030, presenting a growing market for sectors like wellness and luxury goods due to rising disposable incomes.

Melina Anlin is VP of Investment at AC Ventures and a former Senior Manager at Bain. She recently joined an episode of the Indonesia Digital Deconstructed podcast to discuss the market dynamics of the local consumer sector and the rise of insurgent brands. 

Cultivating bargaining power

Zooming in on the F&B sector, Anlin pointed out that insurgent brands tend to challenge norms by offering unique product narratives and leveraging digital marketing and social media to authentically connect with modern consumers.

She highlighted that early traction online will often lead to increased ease of entry to more traditional, offline retail channels.  

Anlin said, “Not just in Indonesia, but globally, e-commerce marketplaces and social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are fundamentally changing how brands emerge and evolve, offering a cost-effective test bed for product and brand refinement with minimal initial capital.”

Also Read: Late-stage investments in Indonesia plummet to US$5.2M in Q1

“The digital-first strategy allows new brands to quickly adjust based on feedback, enhancing their online presence and customer loyalty. This may often allow them to more easily move to offline channels and attract inbound attention from traditional retailers, thereby cultivating bargaining power.”

The cost of agility

“The cost of establishing and maintaining an online presence has surged significantly,” said Anlin. “Notably, platform take rates have escalated from nominal fees to, in some cases, 10-15 per cent of each transaction, marking a steep increase in operational costs for brands. Gone are the days when the platforms absorbed shipping costs. These days, the decision of who bears the shipping costs – whether the brand or the consumer – adds another layer to how brands plan their online sales.”

She went on to highlight the growing competition on e-commerce platforms, noting the increasing need for strategic advertising and algorithm mastery to ensure ROI, a significant change from when gaining visibility was simpler.

Anlin said, “Around 20 new local beauty brands are launching every month in Indonesia alone. This proliferation of insurgent beauty brands is making competition much more intense if a brand wants to be featured on TikTok’s For You Page, for example.”

A silver lining

TikTok Shop’s entrance in Indonesia, with initially lower fees, offered cost relief and better advertising deals to brands. However, as competition increases, these advantages are diminishing with promotional costs stabilising across platforms.

Despite these challenges, Anlin still sees a silver lining in the form of digital platforms’ intrinsic agility and capacity for innovation. She said, “What remains unchanged is the dynamic nature of e-commerce and social platforms, allowing brands to test, learn, and pivot strategies in real-time. This agility allows insurgent brands to make smaller, calculated bets, refine their approach based on direct consumer feedback, and progressively solidify their market position.”

She contrasted this with the rigidity of offline expansion, “Once you’re locked into a contract in the offline world, that’s it. The flexibility instantly disappears.”

Digital natives and domestic value-adds

Discussing the direct-to-consumer (D2C) business model, Anlin sought to clarify a common misconception. 

“To be honest, I’m a bit allergic to the term D2C here in Indonesia. It’s something that gets thrown around loosely. True D2C involves selling directly to consumers without intermediaries, a model that’s most prevalent in the US. In Indonesia, however, many insurgent brands sell primarily through third-party e-commerce platforms, thereby not selling directly in the pure sense. If, at the end of the day, the customer still belongs to Shopee or TikTok, you cannot say a brand is D2C, especially if it does not own the customer data.”

Also Read: How Skor empowers Indonesians to take control of their financial well-being

That said, she also discussed how insurgent brands don’t necessarily need to win online to be successful. She pointed to a case study in the form of local granola and healthy snacks company Yava. 

“Indonesia’s local brands often export raw materials for processing and then re-import them for sale, which is costly. However, brands like Bali’s Yava are changing this by sourcing and processing everything locally. This strategy leverages Indonesia’s abundant resources, supports local communities, leads to premium local products in supermarkets, and offers consumers better prices while enhancing brand profit margins.”

Family-owned brands pass the torch

In the context of Indonesia’s longer-running, family-owned brands, Anlin explained that we are currently witnessing the “passing of the torch” from one generation to the next, which is important from an investment perspective. 

She explained, “Many of these businesses are capital efficient and financially stable, and with next-generation leaders open to external capital, there’s a significant opportunity. Investors like AC Ventures can offer growth capital and strategic support, aiding brands in scaling and improving operational efficiencies.”

AC Ventures already has multiple insurgent brands in its portfolio. For example, small home appliances brand Simplus has emerged as a top brand on TikTok, Shopee, and Lazada, tripling its sales in 2023, achieving profitability, and witnessing a record-breaking US$1 million in sales on a single day. Industry insiders are calling it the next “Philips of Southeast Asia.” 

Meanwhile, profitable brand Rosé All Day Cosmetics saw a 4x revenue growth in 2022 and more than 6x growth in 2023. The company went to market in 2017 on a bootstrapped budget of US$10,000. Due to strong performance against incumbents in the market, the startup recently raised a US$5.41 million funding round led by SWC Global.

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Image courtesy: AC Ventures

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