For Daniel Shen, connecting with people is the key to happiness. And it applies to teaching and learning too.

Daniel, Founder and CEO of game-based learning platform Soqqle, began his career in banking and finance with impressive experience at JP Morgan and Standard Chartered – some of the world’s largest financial institutions that many would die to work for. At the heart of these experiences is a spirit that gave him a competitive edge when starting his own business: building relationships with people to challenge the status quo.

“School should be fun”

Coming from a culture where schooling can be packed with assessments, public exams and stress, Daniel believes that acquiring new knowledge can be much more enjoyable if carried out in arguably the most powerful space on earth today – social media.

What if students can do assignments by posting videos on social media, view each other’s progress on their news feed, and solve learning challenges together on the same platform, no matter where they are?

In March 2018, Soqqle was born as a mobile app in Singapore where teachers create social tasks for students to do, at home or during class. Though this would later prove to be a farsighted solution as COVID-19 forced everything online after less than 2 years, market reception was far from ideal at the time.

Hong Kong: real business begins

So there’s a noble vision, but bringing it to the real world is another thing. As Daniel began touching base with educators in Singapore, he was met with immense resistance: “People worried about the impact on teaching performance, student perception, ratings… concerns were all over the place.”

His quest to find “super users” was filled with barriers. Traction was slow. And resources were drying up.

Frustrated, Daniel had no choice but look beyond his home country: “The conditions were extremely challenging for our solution in Singapore, so I had to search for opportunities elsewhere.”

He finally landed in another Asian city – Hong Kong. “I am quite surprised how few startups in Southeast Asia are aware of the vast opportunities there.” Noting the vibrant culture, daily life efficiency and the transparency for available resources, Daniel soon settled into the world’s freest economy recognised by the Fraser Institute.

In search for last mile development for customer fit, Daniel first arrived at Hong Kong’s startup scene in 2020 when he pitched to hundreds of investors and corporate partners as a contestant of the city’s signature Elevator Pitch Competition (EPiC) held by Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), Hong Kong’s flagship startup cradle. Little did he know that he would later find the resources needed for accelerating growth of his startup company there one year later.

Going full-fledged

In 2021, to take his team further, he joined an incubation programme at Hong Kong Science Park, which brought Soqqle USD 150,000 in funding in addition to diverse tech resources, physical and digital infrastructure, and support for talent recruitment like fast-track visa application. Headquartering in the world’s 3^rd top financial centre also meant extensive exposure to a massive web of global investors and potential partners.

In that same year, Soqqle ran their first pilot in collaboration with teachers and students at Lingnan University. According to Daniel, professors there were very receptive to new ideas and open to try something new in class, successfully advancing peer-to-peer learning with tremendous results.

“This gave us the confidence to go full-fledged to turn this into a metaverse concept.”

What started as a straightforward video app was fast becoming an innovative learning platform that engages students and teachers like no other tools before: “In June this year, we’ve begun doing private trials for our flagship metaverse product, Classlet.”

“Our partnership with Soqqle has created new ways to use the metaverse to help students learn in more real-world settings,” said Professor Paulina Wong from Lingnan University.

This was echoed by high school educator Ka Tim Chu (Tim), chairman of the Hong Kong Association for Computer Education (HKACE) and vice principal of Hong Kong True Light College, whom Daniel knew through the HKSTP Mentorship programme. Tim designed a metaverse programme with Soqqle to create learning scenarios.

Dixon Fong, Vice Principal of Pope Paul VI College, joined the pilot to teach Computational Thinking. “Students can interact with characters and objects in the metaverse to obtain data and learn about abstraction to deconstruct problems,” he said.

Soqqle will be presented at Hong Kong’s Learning & Teaching Expo (LTE) 2022 at HKSTP’s booth. LTE is an annual expo for education buyers, governments, and academics to discover and source latest educational tech and resources.

Since settling in Hong Kong, team Soqqle grew from 2 people to 6 in less than 6 months to support the product growth.

“HKSTP has given me opportunities I never had before,” said Daniel.

Next stop? China

More ventures continued to stem, while Daniel also sensed the enormous potential of growing his business beyond Hong Kong into the wider Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (more commonly known as the Greater Bay Area or the Bay Area) – a fast-growing region in southern China consisting of 11 cities (including Hong Kong) in thirst of innovation.

While Hong Kong is long renowned as a springboard for the China market, it is more recently highlighted as a gateway towards the Bay Area, home to over 86 million people with a GDP of USD 1.67 trillion in 2020.

“I see Hong Kong as our primary starting point and runway. Not only with incubation support, but it’s also an amazing testing ground. Now we’re much more ready to expand and explore the whole regional market.”

Besides being a hub of professional services for the Bay Area, Hong Kong is also leading the regional value chains especially in FinTech, PropTech and Biotech, with an ever-growing pool of specialists who can travel to any city in the Bay Area within an hour.

“The ecosystem here in Hong Kong is amazing. I found talent, funding opportunities and quality infrastructure – all crucially important for us as an early-stage startup,” said Daniel.

The HKSTP Incubation Programme is currently open to application. Click here to apply.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by HKSTP

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