The Singapore FinTech Association (SFA), in collaboration with Accenture, has recently launched the sixth edition of the Singapore Tech Talent Report 2024. The report highlighted how fintech companies and financial institutions (FIs) are navigating a new talent landscape amidst a volatile macroeconomic environment and a dampened market outlook for the tech sector.

It also addresses how the rising popularity of AI, specifically GenAI, significantly impacts the talent landscape in Singapore’s financial services industry.

According to the report, some key points to keep in mind:

GenAI is rapidly being adopted across the industry, transforming job functions and the skills required to thrive

According to SFA and Accenture, smaller, agile fintech companies lead the way in GenAI adoption. This rapid adoption redefines jobs and skills, with a shift towards behavioural and cross-functional skills becoming increasingly important.

A new talent profile is emerging: The “Techno-Functional Collaborator”

These professionals blend technical expertise with business acumen and strong interpersonal abilities. This profile is driven by the need to bridge the gap between technical solutions and business objectives, ensuring that AI solutions deliver practical value and meet ethical and compliance standards.

Also Read: Base Technology wants to revolutionise consumer engagement in SEA with its GenAI tool

Technical skills remain important, but behavioural and cross-functional skills are gaining prominence in a GenAI-driven world.

These skills include critical thinking, communication, AI literacy, data science, and adaptability. They are crucial for harnessing GenAI’s potential while ensuring the reliability and resilience of its application. Administrative tasks, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly automated, leading to a decline in their relevance.

There is a mismatch between what employees prioritise in an organisation and what financial institutions are currently focusing on

While employees value rewards and opportunities for growth and development, financial institutions prioritise flexible work arrangements and performance management. This disparity highlights the need to bridge the gap to attract and retain talent.

What fintech businesses can do to seize these opportunities

The sources offer several recommendations for businesses and government to address the impact of AI on the talent landscape in Singapore:

For businesses, what they can do:

Rethink the Employee Value Proposition (EVP) and listen to employees

Businesses must rethink their EVP to attract and retain technology talent in today’s competitive market.

In listening to their employees’ aspirations, businesses should utilise high-touch and low-touch methods, including tools such as Microsoft Teams Analytics and Chatbots, to gather real-time data on employee sentiment and engagement. This data-driven approach can provide insights into what employees truly value, enabling businesses to tailor their EVP accordingly.

Also Read: Half of Indonesia’s financial institutions plan to deploy GenAI for everyday tasks

Hyper-personalise the employee experience

Leading organisations go beyond traditional pulse checks and adjust their HR practices based on individual employee needs and aspirations. This includes focusing on the “signature moments” in the employee journey, such as onboarding, career growth, and well-being initiatives, to foster a positive and engaging work environment that enhances retention.

In addition to that, businesses should go beyond solely relying on the allure of startup culture or the promise of growth to attract and retain employees. Instead, they need to rethink the definition of what constitutes rewards by incorporating elements such as learning and development budgets, health benefits, flexible leave policies, and lifestyle discounts.

Unlock the skills passport and establish a skills taxonomy

Businesses must enhance internal talent development to keep up with the evolving skills landscape. They need to evaluate existing skillsets, identify skill gaps, and create a skills passport for their employees.

This passport will not only serve as a baseline for HR practices such as learning, recruiting, and job mapping but will also empower employees to take ownership of their career development.

Prioritise behavioural and cross-functional skills

While GenAI holds significant potential, organisations must enhance their human-centric training to ensure ethical and safe AI application within the organisation. This includes focusing on AI Literacy, Risk Management and Responsible AI, as well as critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Learning should not be confined to just formal classroom learning but expanded to include mediums for practical application of skills such as hackathons, communities of practice and peer mentoring. The concept of “work-learn fusion” emphasises integrating learning into the flow of daily work and projects to enable employees to continuously develop new skills through practical and hands-on experience.

Also Read: Half of Indonesia’s financial institutions plan to deploy GenAI for everyday tasks

Make risk everyone’s business, but build enterprise risk literacy

As GenAI becomes integrated into operations, risk responsibility must be a shared responsibility across the enterprise.

Given that most employees will be exposed to AI risk in some form, businesses need to enhance general risk literacy and bolster their second and third line of defence skills, including risk identification, risk mitigation, and ethical AI conduct.

A strong risk culture prioritises not only governance frameworks and processes but also fosters cross-functional collaboration, encouraging risk management practices and accountability in AI-related topics. This forward-thinking mindset, where business resilience and growth continuously learn and adapt, is key to navigating the evolving risk landscape.

—

Image Credit: © xixinxing, 123RF Free Images

The post Report: New fintech talents emerge as GenAI becomes increasingly popular in Singapore appeared first on e27.

Strategic Evolution: Growsari’s Scaling Towards Sustainable and Impactful Growth

At Echelon Philippines 2024, Lionel Belen, Executive Vice President of First Asia Venture Capital Inc., moderated a fireside chat with ER Rollan, CEO and Co-Founder of Growsari, focused on how Growsari is addressing last-mile distribution challenges across the Philippines. Growsari’s mission is to empower the country’s one million sari-sari stores, providing logistics, digital payment options, and credit access to bring growth opportunities to these small retailers.

Currently, Growsari serves 200,000 stores, with 100,000 active users weekly, moving half a billion dollars in products and facilitating US$700 million in payments and loans each year. Rollan highlighted the substantial 15-25 per cent profit margins these stores achieve, emphasising Growsari’s commitment to both execution excellence and financial inclusion. By building essential infrastructure, Growsari seeks to further expand its services and offerings, helping these stores become more resilient, competitive, and sustainable.

Also Read: Echelon Philippines 2024: Christina Cai of Lydia.ai on revolutionising insurance with AI

Through its continued focus on logistics and financial solutions, Growsari envisions a future where sari-sari stores play an even greater role in the Philippine economy, with enhanced capabilities to meet the needs of local communities. This ongoing support reflects Growsari’s commitment to transforming sari-sari stores into empowered hubs of economic activity.

Watch the session video above to learn more about these insights and the strategies shaping the future of entrepreneurship.

—

The post Echelon Philippines 2024: Growsari’s ER Rollan on transforming the Philippines’ retail landscape appeared first on e27.

Singapore-based WaveScan Technologies, an A*STAR spin-off, specializes in the R&D of disruptive beamforming electromagnetics (EM)-based smart sensor systems and advanced AI algorithms. The semiconductor startup provides an end-to-end AI-enabled asset inspection solution, addressing the specific needs of the built environment sector.

As part of our newly launched semiconductor series, we spoke with WaveScan founder and CEO Dr Kush Agarwal.

Excerpts from the interview are below:

What sets WaveScan’s smart sensor systems apart from traditional non-destructive testing (NDT) solutions like X-ray, ultrasonic, or eddy current technologies?

WaveScan’s scanner systems propagate EM waves, similar to our mobile phones or Wi-Fi, which do not need physical contact with the surface for inspections (unlike ultrasonics) and work more accurately for non-metallic materials (unlike eddy current) due to their underlying science.

Also Read: Silicon Box’s Business Head on how chiplet architecture transforms semiconductor scalability

This enables us to capture high-resolution 3D images that are representative of structural information needed to identify the condition of the assets and hence make data-driven decisions to repair and maintain accordingly.

EM waves are non-ionizing and, therefore, completely safe when radiated under approved limits, making them easily deployable in buildings (residential and commercial) around people (unlike X-rays).

WaveScan’s technology enables high-resolution 4D sensing. Could you explain what 4D sensing entails and how it enhances NDT applications for built environments?

In 3D imaging technology, 3D usually corresponds to the spatial x, y, and z coordinates against the time axis. For WaveScan scanners, we capture the fourth dimension, i.e., velocity at any time. This fourth dimension becomes critical for specific applications in built environments, where we can identify loose tiles or fixtures of delaminating facades that are not visible to human eyes yet.

4D sensing can also help us further analyze specific images for structural inaccuracies that might go unseen otherwise. This is also useful for green energy assets where internal cracks and fractures can lead to unseen failures, such as wind turbine fan blades.

Beamforming EM and advanced AI are core to your system. How do these technologies work together to detect, analyze, and predict infrastructure defects?

Our scanning systems achieve their acquisition speed, spatial resolution, and advanced data collection capabilities using robotics-based automation by utilizing beamforming techniques. In the NDT industry, these parameters define the capabilities that enable specific use cases requiring sub-cm or sub-mm accuracy and turnaround time (i.e., the overall time of asset inspection).

Also Read: Zero-Error Systems: Safeguarding space travel from satellite collisions and debris

When scanners capture raw data, we use advanced radar signal post-processing techniques to generate high-resolution images, which are filtered and tagged using AI algorithms. For certain applications, we can also enhance 3D images using our AI tools, making capturing very small-scale defects possible.

With all these technologies working together, we perform 100 per cent scans of entire assets like a 20+ story building or a 100+ meters tall chimney stack, capturing every inch of its structural data—something that was not possible before using traditional NDT technologies.

Can you explain how WaveScan’s autonomous sensors and AI-enabled analytics solution create a predictive maintenance ecosystem for infrastructure?

Today, most inspections are reactive, meaning that either a professional engineer (PE) is conducting an assessment because of telltale signs of visible defects or an accident has occurred due to infrastructure failure.

The root cause of such reactive behavior in asset management is the lack of easy-to-use scanners, which makes inspections tedious and time-consuming. This has led to spot testing, which means random sampling across the entire asset to make a well-informed guess about its health.

With robotics-enabled automated scanners, WaveScan has reduced the setup and inspection times and made the holistic scanning of entire assets viable. This is crucial for detecting defects and potential failures in our built infrastructure. When millions of data points are collected, the data needs to be analyzed and tagged, which can be time-consuming and costly if done primarily by humans.

Hence, AI-enabled analysis helps to filter and analyze the data, classifying defects and tagging them under various categories. With automated data collection and AI-driven analytics, we’ve created a predictive maintenance ecosystem for infrastructure, among other industries.

What other sectors or industries could benefit from WaveScan’s advanced NDT solutions, and do you foresee any upcoming expansions?

Our scanning technology is already utilized in the Oil and Gas (O&G) industry, in addition to the built environment sector. Concrete-related infrastructure and corrosion mapping (through fireproofing materials) are some critical use cases where existing NDT technologies are not very reliable.

Our scanning technique has been deployed to minimize destructive testing and identify early-stage defects with high precision. It is also being used to develop other advanced NDT applications in green energy assets, such as inspections of wind turbine fan blades and carbon fiber tanks.

Skilled inspectors are typically needed for traditional NDT, especially for interpreting data. How does WaveScan’s AI-enabled defect analytics help reduce this dependence on skilled field inspectors?

In today’s inspection ecosystem, field inspectors are still needed to make the final judgment on the inspection data and reports. However, this is a very repetitive and tedious task that becomes more difficult as the inspection area increases.

Also Read: Semiconductor manufacturing nations set for growth as AI takes center stage: Alpha Intelligence Capital CEO

With WaveScan’s AI-enabled image filtering, analysis, and tagging, the human analysis required by an expert is significantly reduced, and the NDT professional has to look mainly through the final tagged results and analysis reports. Hence, for a skilled inspector, our AI algorithms and automated report generation simplify their work, allowing them to focus on evaluating final reports and significantly save time, hence being cost-effective.

Finally, how do you see WaveScan’s work contributing to the broader goals of sustainable and predictive urban infrastructure management?

With our first-of-kind NDT scanners and a full suite of software solutions, we have been able to support our unique clientele, which consists of built environment stakeholders such as construction companies and asset owners, in scanning and diagnosing the holistic health of structures, restoring and upgrading landmarks, and conserving historical assets older than 100 years.

With a data-driven maintenance approach, the industry’s mindset is slowly evolving, and stakeholders want to make informed decisions about maintaining their assets. Our technology specs have also enabled building regulators to find solutions for NDT so that the industry can inspect and comply with various facade and structural inspection regulations. With technology, regulations, adoption, and awareness going hand-in-hand, the built environment industry would embrace our vision of predictive or preventive infrastructure management.

The post Transforming asset inspections: How WaveScan’s smart sensors and AI are shaping predictive maintenance appeared first on e27.

Crafting an effective scientific pitch deck is an art, especially when it involves communicating complex models and concepts. For nearly a decade, our design studio has been working on complex pitch deck designs from seed to IPO. Unlike software startups, scientists often find it harder to close capital raises. Why? This is partly due to the level of innovation, the associated risks, and often hard-to-prove commercialisation models.

I’ve noticed that, at times, scientists struggle to explain their solutions succinctly to non-scientific audiences. A hot take: VC funds and investment analysts often work within a narrow framework of “innovation,” which can lead them to overlook genuine breakthroughs outside of technology. So, super-smart science founders—it’s not entirely your fault, but here’s a set of design principles to help refine your story and commercial ask.

Your titles tell a story

The title of each slide in your deck is the anchor of your narrative. It shouldn’t be just a content header; it should tell a piece of the overall story. Every title should be a consistent, solution-oriented statement addressing the problem you’re solving, the market need, or a larger planetary concern. Think of it this way: if you were to place all the slide titles into one document, they should read like a coherent script. This approach helps your audience stay engaged and ensures that every part of your pitch is purposeful and connected.

Design the business model

Investors and partners need to quickly understand how your scientific innovation translates into commercial success. Since you’ll need time to explain what you’ve invented, rip the commercial bandaid off early. While your business model may be backed by a complex Excel sheet, the challenge is to simplify it. When scientists visualise their business models in a digestible, diagrammatic format, it becomes more believable.

This approach is rare in the science world, but highly effective. By simplifying and visually representing your business model, you create clarity around commercialisation and give yourself more time to explain the science and innovation. If you’re far from having a business model, do the same with a well-designed roadmap or timeline that visually represents your trajectory.

The 70:30 rule on density

The core of getting a science pitch right is making room for simplified “aha” moments. I suggest using the 70:30 rule for content density: around 70 per cent of your slides should contain substantial information—data, insights, diagrams—while 30 per cent should act as visual “breathers.” These lighter slides might contain a core statement or a single impactful metric. This balance gives your audience the mental space to absorb complex content while the key insights sink in. Avoid “chapter” pages—opt instead for key metrics or core statements that provide natural pauses in the narrative.

Also Read: Save yourselves and stop making these pitch deck mistakes

The back page is your last chance to sell

The last page of your deck shouldn’t be a generic “Any Questions?” slide. Use this opportunity to provide external validation and further resources. Include media coverage, industry articles, or video links that offer credibility. If you don’t yet have media coverage, try securing industry-specific press or articles before going out to raise capital. In case potential investors still don’t fully grasp the science by the end of the deck, providing extra content, such as simplified explainer videos, can help them understand and get them over the line.

Could it go in the appendix?

This is a great exercise for any entrepreneur crafting a pitch deck. Once you’ve created your slides, ask yourself for each one: Can it go in the appendix? Ideally, your deck should be concise—no more than 10 slides. Scientific projects are complex, but the key is to prioritise the content that directly supports why your project is worth investing in. Detailed technical data, case studies, or secondary information can go in the appendix, allowing those interested in a deeper dive to explore further while keeping the core deck streamlined.

Design the conversations around your deck

If I had a penny for every time I’ve overheard or read a founder’s opening line and had no idea what they do! Designing your pitch isn’t just about the slides—you need to have a clear idea of what you’ll say pre-pitch and how you position both yourself and the project.

Whether the pitch happens over email, via video call, or in person, take the time to design the impression you want to give. Want to show you have scale? Open by mentioning co-founders or your executive team. Want to show you have customers? Find a subtle way to weave them into the intro. Role-playing with a team member—or even practicing in front of a mirror—can help refine this approach.

A scientific pitch deck isn’t just about presenting your research—it’s about crafting a narrative that inspires confidence. By following these design principles, you’ll ensure that your deck is strategically designed to communicate the value and potential of your scientific project.

—

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.

Join us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn to stay connected.

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post The art behind scientific pitch decks: 6 design principles to sell your science appeared first on e27.

BANGKOK, THAILAND – November 11, 2024 – SCB 10X, the disruptive technology investment and innovation arm of SCBX Group, in collaboration with SCB, Innovest X, Fireblocks, Elliptic, Circle and Base, announced the launch of Rubie Wallet. This digital wallet showcases how purpose-bound money (PBM) can  facilitate a seamless closed-loop QR payments experience. These secure transactions use regulated USD Stablecoin and Thai Baht Stablecoin (THBX).

Foreign visitors attending Devcon 2024 in Bangkok will be able to use the Rubie Wallet from 5 to 25 November. Specifically, they can convert regulated USD Stablecoin into THBX in real-time. As a result, they will benefit from a faster, cost-effective alternative to traditional currency exchanges. Rubie Wallet is developed and operated under the regulatory sandbox framework and conditions prescribed by the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Also read: SCB and Lightnet to revolutionise cross-border payments and remittances with stablecoin, powered by Fireblocks

The Rubie Wallet: A purpose-bound money application

The Rubie Wallet demonstrates purpose-bound money’s practical use by streamlining payments for international attendees. Using THBX, Thailand’s first programmable stablecoin, it addresses issues like cash handling, foreign exchange (FX) kiosk lines, and credit card FX fees. The solution allows seamless regulated USD Stablecoin-to-THBX conversions and secure mobile closed-loop QR payments. Operating under the BOT and SEC regulatory sandbox, Rubie Wallet clearly provides a secure, efficient payment option.

Throughout most of November, the purpose-bound money initiative’s key activations will take place at Devcon and related side events. Rubie Wallet’s application is available for installation at https://rubie.io/ from November 5. Users must first complete Know Your Customer (KYC) verification to ensure security and compliance. Then, once users complete the onboarding process, they can convert regulated USD Stablecoin into THBX. Furthermore, they can make instant mobile payments via QR codes across approximately 100 participating merchants.

The ‘Scan-to-Pay’ system by SCB 10X’s Rubie Wallet

SCB 10X’s Rubie Wallet’s ‘Scan-to-Pay’ system was made in collaboration with SCB, the leading Thai commercial bank. Notably, it offers closed-loop QR codes payment for users, accelerating the adoption of digital payments in Thailand. The application is designed specifically for THBX transactions. This marks the first live demonstration of purpose-bound money using THBX via Rubie Wallet, with lower-fee transactions on the Base chain.

Rubie Wallet is powered through Fireblocks’ wallets-as-a-service infrastructure, with Elliptic providing blockchain analytics to monitor transactions for transparency. Using regulated USD Stablecoin and Base, a layer 2 blockchain, Rubie Wallet app integrated with InnovestX. The latter is the digital asset brokerage arm of SCBX Group. Together, they enable regulated USD Stablecoin-to-THBX conversions seamlessly.

“At SCB 10X, we believe that participating in BOT & SEC regulatory sandbox will be a significant move for financial innovation to global financial inclusion as well as the Thai digital asset ecosystem,” said Mukaya (Tai) Panich, CEO and CIO of SCB 10X. “THBX is designed to provide international visitors with a seamless payment experience. We are proud to be at the forefront of this transformation in Thailand’s digital economy.”

Also read: Thai bank SCB’s venture arm launches new US$50M VC fund for blockchain, DeFi, digital assets

A collaboration among industry leaders

“We are thrilled to collaborate with industry leaders like Fireblocks, Circle, and Base to bring the Rubie Wallet app to life. By integrating with Elliptic’s pioneering blockchain analytics, we are able to deliver a solution that balances innovation with integrity,” said Yvonne Ng, Regional Director of APAC of Elliptic.

“Elliptic’s proven capabilities in detecting illicit activities ensure our users experience the highest standards of security and transparency. This partnership underscores our commitment to leading the charge in seamless and secure digital transactions, setting a new benchmark in the digital asset landscape,” she continued.

“At Fireblocks, we are committed to providing secure and scalable infrastructure for use of digital assets, and our collaboration with SCB 10X on the Rubie Wallet is a testament to that mission,” said Michael Shaulov, Co-Founder and CEO of Fireblocks. “By leveraging our wallets-as-a-service technology, we’re ensuring that every transaction made with THBX is safeguarded, driving the next wave of innovation in programmable stablecoins.”

SCB 10X is setting the stage for future fintech innovations in Thailand and beyond. Evidently, THBX poised to revolutionize Thailand’s tourism and retail sectors by bridging traditional finance and digital currencies.

For more information about Rubie Wallet, please visit https://rubie.io/  

—

This article is sponsored by SCB 10X

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

Featured Image Credit: SCB 10X

—

About SCB 10X

SCB 10X, a subsidiary of the SCBX Group, was established in January 2020. Its “Moonshot Mission” is to achieve exponential growth through technology innovation and investment. It focuses on disruptive technologies such as Web 3 (Blockchain, Digital Assets, Metaverse), Deep Tech AI/ML, and Fintech. For more information, please visit https://scb10x.com/.

Website | X | Facebook | LinkedIn

About Elliptic

Elliptic is the global leader in crypto asset risk management for crypto businesses, governments, and financial institutions worldwide. It is recognized as a WEF Technology Pioneer and backed by investors including J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Strategic Capital, SBI Group, and Santander Innoventures. Elliptic has assessed risk on transactions worth several trillion dollars. It has uncovered activities related to money laundering, terrorist fundraising, fraud, and other financial crimes. Elliptic is headquartered in London with offices in New York, Singapore, UAE and Tokyo. To learn more, visit www.elliptic.co.

About Fireblocks

Fireblocks is an easy-to-use platform to create new blockchain-based products, and manage day-to-day digital asset operations. Exchanges, banks, PSPs, lending desks, custodians, trading desks, and hedge funds can securely scale their digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves thousands of organizations in the financial, payments, and web3 space. It has secured the transfer of over $6 trillion in digital assets.  It also has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. Find out why CISOs and Ops Teams love Fireblocks at www.fireblocks.com.

The post SCB 10X unveils Thailand’s first purpose-bound money initiative appeared first on e27.