A Southeast Asian fintech founder recently counted seventeen significant regulatory changes her company had navigated in three years. That’s roughly one per quarter. When asked if she believed the mental model most founders operate under—”the regulatory landscape we launch into is stable for three to five years”—she laughed. “No founder truly believes it. We just operate as if we do, because the alternative seems too complex, too expensive, too uncertain.”

That assumption cost the industry billions in 2025. Companies treating regulatory stability as a baseline learned too late that it wasn’t. Enforcement letters arrived. Compliance gaps surfaced in third-party reviews. Single regulator reinterpretations forced multi-month platform re-architectures. By then, reactive remediation costs were 5–50 times higher than proactive design would have been.

The 2026 question isn’t whether to prepare for regulatory change. It’s whether to prepare now—in architecture and organisation—or later, in crisis mode.

Regulatory velocity has shifted

Regulatory frameworks once evolved on three- to five-year cycles. That era has ended in Asia. Regulation now moves quarterly.

India’s RBI published eight major guideline revisions in eighteen months. Vietnam reinterpreted data localisation rules twice in two years. Singapore, South Korea, and the Philippines are finalising divergent AI governance frameworks. Southeast Asia’s real-time payments platform has Q3 2025 deadlines with monthly requirement shifts.

The cross-border variance matters equally. A single data classification is “personal data requiring local storage” in Vietnam, “non-essential data allowing transfer” in Indonesia, “encrypted data acceptable elsewhere” in Thailand, and “metadata exempt from localisation” in Singapore. Founders building regional products cannot assume harmonisation—they must assume divergence.

The implication: Betting that regulatory environments will remain stable through your product roadmap has <20% odds in fintech/payments/lending/AI verticals.

Also Read: Building smart: A tech founder’s guide to the semiconductor supply chain revolution

The cost of miscalculation has exploded

Regulatory fines hit record highs in 2025. Non-compliance carries existential risk, not just financial penalties. Paytm’s RBI enforcement didn’t merely fine the company—it froze operations and demolished investor confidence. Indonesia’s startup winter exposed governance weaknesses at eFishery, Investree, and TaniHub; venture-backed growth metrics couldn’t compensate. TikTok Shop’s Philippines refund dispute fine was ₱1.6 million; the reputational damage was far steeper.

The math is stark: companies embedding regulatory resilience upfront—modular architecture, continuous monitoring, cross-functional governance—spend 5–10% of their engineering budget. Companies waiting until enforcement hits pay 5–50 times that in emergency re-architecture, fines, and churn. Proactive design overwhelmingly wins.

Yet most founders operate as if regulatory stability is the default. The question worth asking: why?

Two operating models

Static regulatory design treats compliance as periodic obligations managed by legal/finance. Requirements surface at audits, are embedded as hard constraints in product logic, and are updated when enforcement pressure arrives. This worked when regulatory cycles were long. It collapsed repeatedly in 2025.

Dynamic regulatory design embeds resilience into architecture and culture from day one. Compliance is a real-time dashboard, not an annual surprise. Regulatory functions are independent microservices—rule changes, update configuration, not core products. Product teams include regulatory engineers. Organisations scan quarterly horizons and stress-test scenarios. This assumes quarterly rule changes and designs for rapid adaptation.

The difference is architectural, not attitudinal. Static design locks compliance logic into monolithic systems; every rule change is expensive, risky re-architecture. Dynamic design compartmentalises so changes affect narrow surfaces—one microservice, API gateway rule, configuration parameter—rather than entire platforms.

Three architectural moves

• First: Modular compliance services. Separate AML screening, KYC, data localisation, and refund logic into independent microservices rather than embedding throughout the platform. India mandates T+1 auto-refunds? Update refund service configuration. Vietnam reinterprets data localisation? Adjust API gateway routing rules. Core product untouched; deployment in days, not months.

Baseella, Stripe, and leading APAC payment platforms use this pattern. Upfront cost is 15–20% higher; downstream savings are orders of magnitude.

• Second: Continuous compliance monitoring. Shift from annual audits revealing surprise gaps to real-time dashboards showing compliance status across jurisdictions. Automated systems track announcements, parse changes, and flag business impact. Gaps surface within 24 hours, not audit-time (months later).

This requires operational discipline, not novel technology.

• Third: Quarterly regulatory horizon scanning. Every quarter, the CEO, legal, product, and operations review a 6–12 month forward regulatory outlook in each market. What rules are likely to change? What constraints? What contingencies? This intelligence gathering is inexpensive but requires sustained commitment.

Also Read: Starting a business in 2026: What Founders should consider before chasing capital

The organisational piece

Dynamic design cannot live in legal silos. It requires compliance engineers embedded in product teams, regulatory risk reporting to the CEO level, and incentive structures rewarding governance alongside growth.

When legal and product don’t communicate, regulatory surprises become existential. When boards learn of regulatory risk only after enforcement, there’s only crisis management, no strategy.

The 2025 survivors had one thing in common: organising around regulatory resilience as a strategic capability, not a compliance obligation.

The self-assessment

If a major market reinterpreted one core regulatory assumption tomorrow, how long to adapt?

• Months = monolithic architecture, static organisation
• Weeks = progress, but architectural debt remains
• Days = designed for regulatory change

Which markets/products depend on regulatory assumptions plausibly shifting in twelve months? If that list is long and you’re in months-to-adapt mode, your risk surface is expanding faster than your resilience.

The paradox

Regulatory resilience appears to trade off against speed. The data shows the opposite. Companies embedding resilience upfront demonstrate faster cycles (changes affect fewer surfaces), fewer surprise fines (dashboards catch problems), higher investor confidence (seen as operationally sophisticated), and lower total compliance cost (prevention beats remediation).

The paradox is real: spending more on resilience makes you faster, not slower. It transforms compliance from a growth headwind into a competitive advantage.

For 2026

Founders thriving in Asian tech over 3–5 years won’t bet on regulatory stability. They’ll have already rebuilt assumptions. Asked “What if the rules change in six months?”, they’ll have architectures and organisations answering without panic.

That requires now: auditing whether your architecture is modular or monolithic, whether your organisation scans regulatory horizons, whether incentives reward governance, and whether your board discusses regulatory risk as intensely as product risk.

Most importantly: drop the assumption that regulatory environments are stable. In Asia in 2026, they are not. The question isn’t whether regulations change. It’s whether you’ll be prepared when they do.

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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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When Cheryl Goh joined Grab in its early days, the company was still a young startup navigating the messy realities of Southeast Asia’s fragmented markets. Over the years, she helped shape it into one of the region’s most recognisable consumer brands, and now that journey has earned her global recognition.

Grab’s founding Chief Marketing Officer and Group Vice-President (Marketing, Loyalty, Sustainability and Support) has been named the 2025 WFA Global Marketer of the Year, an award judged by an expert jury of client-side peers and partners including Kantar and The Drum. The honour recognises marketers who can prove that brand building translates into measurable business outcomes.

Goh was one of six finalists and notably became the first winner from an Asia-based brand in the award’s nine-year history.

Also Read: Marketing’s next big challenge? Making AI feel human

But the significance extends beyond personal achievement. It signals that Southeast Asia’s brand-building playbook — often shaped by constrained budgets, intense competition, and diverse consumer behaviours — is now being taken seriously on the global stage.

The marketing role that went far beyond marketing

Goh’s remit at Grab has never been limited to campaigns and messaging. Over time, she has overseen the company’s broader marketing engine across markets, spanning product marketing, communications, growth, loyalty, customer support operations, and sustainability.

That mix matters because it reveals how Grab has treated marketing not as a standalone creative department, but as a commercial function tied directly to the business.

One of the clearest examples is her responsibility for the P&L of Grab’s loyalty programmes. This role forces brand decisions to be measured against revenue, retention, and long-term customer value. In many companies, loyalty sits somewhere between product and marketing. At Grab, it became a key lever of growth economics — and Goh was placed in the middle of it.

The award jury highlighted her “grit, agility and pragmatism” in demonstrating that marketing can be a driver of growth in an “ethical and sustainable way”.

Why this matters for Southeast Asia’s startup ecosystem

In Southeast Asia, startup success stories are often told through product, funding rounds, and expansion maps. Marketing is sometimes treated as secondary — something you scale after the business model is proven. Goh’s recognition challenges that assumption.

Her win reinforces that marketing leadership can be a competitive advantage, particularly in consumer markets where trust, habit, and brand familiarity often decide winners. For founders across the region, it also strengthens the case for investing earlier in strategic marketing talent –not just growth hacking or performance spend.

It is also likely to influence how investors interpret consumer startup potential. In a market where distribution advantages are increasingly expensive to buy, brand equity becomes a defensible asset. Goh’s award is a reminder that strong marketing is not about spending more — it is about building systems that turn attention into repeat behaviour.

Grab’s brand as a blueprint for scaling across diversity

Grab’s rise was not simply a story of product-market fit. It was also a story of building trust across multiple markets that do not behave like a single region.

Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines each come with their own languages, pricing sensitivities, consumer expectations, and regulatory environments. Scaling across them requires more than localisation; it requires a brand identity that feels consistent while still being culturally adaptable.

Also Read: 3 stages of marketing for your startup that can drive effective results

Over time, Grab became shorthand for convenience in many of these markets, building a mass consumer relationship that extended beyond ride-hailing into delivery, payments and financial services. That kind of category-building is difficult to replicate because it relies on habit formation and trust — the two most expensive things to acquire in consumer tech.

Kantar’s Mark Visser has noted that Grab’s marketing in Indonesia has improved both salience and meaningfulness, suggesting that the brand is not just widely recognised but also emotionally and functionally relevant. That combination is what gives platforms staying power.

The ‘commercial marketing’ playbook behind the recognition

Goh’s approach reflects a disciplined marketing model that many high-growth startups struggle to execute.

Rather than treating marketing as awareness-building alone, she appears to have operated with a tight link between brand activity and measurable business performance. Grab’s growth has depended heavily on repeat usage and ecosystem behaviour — the exact areas where loyalty mechanics, customer experience, and product marketing intersect.

Several patterns stand out: fast experimentation, rapid iteration across markets, and a willingness to align marketing decisions with operational realities rather than creative ambition alone.

In other words, it is marketing as infrastructure — not marketing as theatre.

Goh herself captured this mindset in her remarks, describing marketing as “often far more logical than it looks”, shaped by learning, iteration, and continuous adjustment.

A milestone beyond one award

Cheryl Goh’s WFA win lands as more than an industry headline. It reflects a deeper maturity in Southeast Asia’s tech ecosystem — one where global-standard leadership is emerging not only in engineering and finance, but also in brand strategy and commercial execution.

For founders, the lesson is straightforward: a product may get you started, but a brand is what keeps you in the game. And in a region as diverse as Southeast Asia, building trust at scale is not a soft skill; it is a serious competitive weapon.

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The image was generated using AI.

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The market landscape paints a stark picture of unravelling risk appetite, where optimism has given way to caution across nearly every asset class.

Equity markets led the retreat, with the Nasdaq falling 1.59 per cent, the S&P 500 down 1.23 per cent, and the Dow shedding 1.2 per cent. This was not merely a correction. It was a targeted unwinding of the very trades that had powered the post-2024 surge. Two members of the Magnificent 7 announced capital expenditure plans for AI infrastructure that far exceeded analyst projections, sparking fears that the much-touted AI profitability narrative may be overshadowed by unsustainable spending. Investors are beginning to question whether today’s AI investments will yield tomorrow’s returns or simply inflate balance sheets without corresponding earnings growth. The VIX’s 16.8 per cent jump to 21.77 confirms rising anxiety, signalling that volatility is no longer dormant but actively pricing in uncertainty.

This shift in sentiment spilt over into fixed income, where US Treasury yields fell sharply. Two-year yields dropped 10.3 basis points to 3.450 per cent, and the 10-year yield closed at 4.180 per cent, down 9.3 basis points, as traders sought safety amid equity turmoil. The move reflects growing conviction that the Federal Reserve will indeed pivot toward easing, especially as labour market data have become increasingly weak. Weekly jobless claims came in at 231,000, well above the expected 212,000, while December JOLTS data revealed job openings had slumped to 6.45 million, the lowest since 2020. These figures challenge the narrative of a resilient economy and bolster the case for rate cuts in the second and third quarters of 2026, as previously anticipated. The timing remains delicate, with Jerome Powell set to step down as Fed Chair in May, which will push markets into a period of heightened policy ambiguity.

Currency markets mirrored this flight to safety. The US dollar strengthened broadly, pushing the DXY up to 97.824, even as central banks elsewhere signalled a dovish stance. The Bank of England’s hold, interpreted as dovish, sent GBP/USD plunging 0.93 per cent to 1.3525, while the ECB’s decision left EUR/USD modestly lower at 1.1777. Despite the dollar’s short-term strength, the underlying trend still points toward depreciation later in the year, driven by expected Fed easing. Similarly, USD/JPY edged higher to 157.04, but sustained yen weakness appears increasingly untenable if U.S. rates begin their descent.

Also Read: Cheryl Goh’s global win signals Southeast Asia’s marketing maturity

Commodities suffered one of the sharpest reversals. Gold plummeted 3.7 per cent to 4,779 dollars per ounce, and silver collapsed nearly 20 per cent to 71 dollars, an extraordinary move that suggests forced liquidations rather than a fundamental reassessment. Brent crude also retreated 2.7 per cent to 67 dollars per barrel after Iran confirmed nuclear negotiations with the US would resume on Friday, temporarily defusing fears of Middle East conflict. This calm may prove fleeting. Any breakdown in talks could reignite supply concerns and push oil back toward last June’s 80-dollar peak. Gold’s long-term thesis remains intact, but its near-term path is hostage to macro liquidity conditions and risk sentiment.

Nowhere was the fragility of speculative positioning more evident than in crypto. The total market cap plunged 8.71 per cent to 2.22 trillion dollars, driven by a brutal deleveraging event in Bitcoin. A break below 70,000 dollars triggered over 1.01 billion dollars in BTC liquidations within 24 hours, a 213 per cent surge, creating a self-reinforcing spiral of margin calls and panic selling. Ethereum fared even worse, dropping more than 15 per cent as large holders reportedly moved tokens to exchanges, likely to meet collateral requirements or exit underwater positions. Critically, crypto’s 92 per cent correlation with the S&P 500 confirms it is no longer operating as a separate asset class but as a high-beta extension of tech-driven risk sentiment.

From my point of view, this moment reveals a structural truth about the current market regime. Despite narratives of decentralisation and digital scarcity, crypto remains deeply embedded in the macro financial ecosystem. When liquidity tightens or risk aversion spikes, leverage gets flushed out indiscriminately, and crypto, with its thin order books and high open interest, becomes a lightning rod for volatility. The extreme fear reflected in the Fear & Greed Index, now at 5, suggests capitulation may be nearing completion, but recovery hinges on two variables: price action and geopolitics.

If Bitcoin holds the 60,000 to 62,500 dollar support zone, a technical bounce toward 70,000 dollars is plausible, especially if spot ETF inflows resume or US-Iran talks yield de-escalation. A decisive break below 60,000 dollars could trigger another leg down, potentially dragging the total market cap toward 2.4 trillion dollars. The key signal to watch is a daily close above 67,000 dollars, which would invalidate near-term bearish momentum and invite short-covering.

Also Read: Cybersecurity and data governance in the boardroom: A strategic imperative for Asian boards

In conclusion, yesterday’s selloff was not just a correction. It was a stress test. It exposed over-leverage, over-optimism, and over-concentration in a handful of AI-linked equities and digital assets. The path forward depends less on narratives and more on hard labour trends, Fed communication, and geopolitical stability. Until those stabilise, markets will remain in a defensive crouch, waiting for either a catalyst for relief or confirmation of deeper economic cracks.

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The lead image of this article was generated by AI.

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APAC’s cybersecurity sector slowed noticeably in 2025 as investors shifted from broad dealmaking to fewer, higher-conviction bets, according to Tracxn.

While the region has raised US$8.35 billion to date over the years, annual inflows have declined sharply since peaking in 2021. In 2025, APAC startups attracted just US$185.2 million, down 27.7 per cent year-on-year, with deal volume falling to 43 rounds, reflecting stricter investor scrutiny and higher expectations for proven go-to-market traction.

This pullback contrasts with global momentum, where cybersecurity funding rose 41 per cent to US$14.6 billion despite fewer rounds overall. Within APAC, early-stage activity remained resilient, with US$138.8 million deployed, up 15 per cent year-on-year.

However, seed funding declined 34 per cent to US$25.1 million, and late-stage funding collapsed 78 per cent to US$21 million, highlighting a growing shortage of scaling capital.

Funding remained concentrated in a few markets, led by India (US$116 million), followed by Australia (US$32.1 million) and Singapore (US$24 million). Application security and data security emerged as key growth segments, while Kasada, FireCompass, and CloudSEK led the year’s biggest rounds.

Looking ahead, Tracxn expects 2026 to favour mature, enterprise-ready cybersecurity firms focused on integration, resilience and measurable ROI.

REGIONAL

DayOne’s US$2B round supercharges SEA’s January funding: Southeast Asia’s startups raised US$2.04B in January, marking a sharp rebound from the end of last year. According to Tracxn, the figure represents a 315.29% jump from December 2025 and a 152.11% increase YoY.

Singapore’s next payments chapter will be written by AI and tokenised money: Several trends shaping the next phase of payments innovation are embedded finance and super apps and AI-powered payments and tokenised deposits and regulated stablecoins.

Indonesia urges ASEAN action on AI deepfakes, disinformation: Authorities highlighted the importance of cross-border mechanisms to combat malicious AI use, citing fragmented regulations as a challenge. AI’s potential benefits should be balanced with safeguards to protect public interest and social equity.

Indonesian plant-based meat startup Green Rebel raises US$12.5M: Its current investors include Unovis NCAP Fund II, Teja Ventures, and Agfunder. The company aims to develop plant-based alternatives tailored to Asian tastes and is part of the growing foodtech sector in Southeast Asia.

FEATURES & INTERVIEWS

NASA built SpaceX. Can Singapore build SEA’s space champions?: The opening of the Space agency is a starting signal. For founders, VCs, and technologists, it should be treated as an opportunity to build onshore capabilities and an invitation to move faster, design for regulatory interoperability, and think regionally.

Cheryl Goh’s global win signals Southeast Asia’s marketing maturity: Rather than treating marketing as awareness-building alone, she appears to have operated with a tight link between brand activity and measurable business performance. Grab’s growth has depended heavily on repeat usage and ecosystem behaviour.

Stablecoins are becoming ‘dollars as a service’ for emerging markets: Stablecoins preserve purchasing power and lower the friction of moving value across borders. Regions — where local currencies are volatile, or banking infrastructure is costly and slow — have shown robust adoption of dollar-pegged digital assets.

In a world of copyable AI, founders with scars win: The 2025 Endeavor Catalyst Annual Report highlights a marked shift: investors are increasingly backing entrepreneurs who have already paid the price of scaling companies: the “scars and instincts” that come from building in markets such as São Paulo, Lagos, and Istanbul.

INTERNATIONAL

Coupang data breach hits 165,000 more accounts: The initial breach involved roughly 33.7M accounts. Information exposed included names, phone numbers, and addresses, but no transaction or login data was compromised. Hackers accessed data from about 3,000 accounts, which was later deleted without sharing it with third parties.

Anthropic, Palantir AI spark drop in Indian IT stocks: Anthropic’s automation initiatives have raised concerns about potential impacts on IT sector revenues. Shares of Indian software exporters fell 0.7% on February 5, after a 6% drop the previous day. The decline came amid fears that AI-driven automation from Anthropic and Palantir could shorten project timelines.

US House panel summons Coupang over trade practices: The House Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena to Coupang as part of an investigation into alleged discrimination against US firms. The committee is requesting communications between Coupang and the South Korean government and has called on the company to testify.

SpaceX acquires xAI via triangular merger: The move allows SpaceX to avoid repaying billions in debt and provided tax benefits to xAI shareholders. The transaction keeps xAI as a wholly owned subsidiary, separating its liabilities and legal risks from SpaceX, which aims to protect itself from investigations and litigation.

CYBERSECURITY

Global cybersecurity heats up, and APAC cools off: Tracxn’s dataset shows funding peaked in 2021 (about US$1.7B that year) and has tapered since. In 2025, the region attracted US$185.2M, representing a 27.7% YoY decline from 2024. The number of rounds also contracted to 43, down 27.1% YOY.

AI at machine speed: What 2026 holds for cybercrime and enterprise security: AI agents are supercharging cybercrime in 2026, automating reconnaissance and attacks, forcing organisations to shift from perimeter defence towards resilient, data-centric security models built on identity and lifecycle control.

Why protecting data today means proving you can restore trust: Privacy has shifted from policies to proof: organisations must demonstrate control, clean recovery and resilience under disruption to protect data, meet regulation, and sustain trust in an AI-driven, cloud-first world.

Cybersecurity and data governance in the boardroom: A strategic imperative for Asian boards: Cybersecurity and data governance are now board-level priorities in Asia, demanding strategic oversight, real-time monitoring, scenario planning and cultural accountability to protect enterprise value, trust, compliance, and long-term resilience.

Beyond the hype: What generative AI is actually changing in startups: Generative AI is reshaping startups by accelerating build cycles, enabling workflow-based products, and shifting defensibility towards trust, integration, reliability and data loops, while raising the bar for real-world performance, economics, and governance.

SEMICONDUCTOR

US chipmaker Microchip forecasts weak profit on memory shortages: Microchip forecasts weaker Q4 earnings due to global memory shortages, sending shares down over 5 per cent. Despite beating Q3 estimates, reduced smartphone and PC orders are weighing on demand.

Taiwan’s ASE forecasts its advanced chip packaging to hit US$3.2B: The company made the projection during a conference call after reporting a Q4 revenue of US$5.6B, a 9.6% increase from the previous year. Its net income for the quarter rose by 58%.

Qualcomm posts US$12.3B revenue in Q1 2026: The firm’s Q1 fiscal 2026 results, with record revenues of US$12.25B, up 5% from the previous year. The company’s GAAP net income was US$3B, and non-GAAP EPS reached 3.5. Revenue growth was driven mainly by its QCT segment, which includes handset, automotive, and IoT products.

AMD shares plunge 17% after cautious Q1 outlook: AMD’s This marks its worst day since 2017, after the company issued a cautious outlook despite beating Q4 earnings estimates. CEO Lisa Su said demand for AI and data centre products has increased in recent months, with the company’s data centre business accelerating from Q4 into Q1.

AI

Endeavor report shows AI is eating venture capital alive: Global venture capital is rebounding but increasingly polarised, with AI megadeals dominating funding, squeezing non-AI startups while disciplined, domain-driven companies in emerging markets find selective opportunities amid shifting investor priorities.

The AI-energy paradox: Will AI spark a green energy revolution or deepen the global energy crisis?: AI’s energy use is rising fast, but AI can also cut emissions by optimising data centres, grids and industry. Long-term sustainability depends on efficiency gains and massive renewable expansion.

AI can’t replace doctors, but it can catch disease before they do: MASH remains massively undiagnosed despite huge costs, but new therapies shift the bottleneck to scalable detection. AI-powered liquid biopsies and cross-disciplinary innovation could enable early screening, personalised care, and better outcomes.

Nvidia CEO predicts India will build its own AI infrastructure: Jensen Huang said that India will develop its own AI infrastructure, including data centres and chips, emphasising AI as essential to modern nations. Huang compared AI to utilities like water and electricity, suggesting every country needs its own systems.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

Markets on edge: AI rally fizzles as crypto plunges below US$2.42T: Markets turned risk-off as AI optimism faded, mixed US data fuelled Fed-cut speculation, tech sold off, volatility rose, commodities rallied, and crypto plunged amid leveraged liquidations and fragile macro sentiment.

When streaming prices ignore how people actually watch: Indonesia’s OTT boom highlights a mismatch between rigid subscription pricing and intent-driven viewing habits, fuelling subscription fatigue, churn, and piracy despite strong content availability and platform competition.

Ex-PayPal risk leader’s AI exposes credit underwriting’s hidden flaw: Kevin Lee’s TrustPlus AI tackles finance’s “judgment deficit,” automating credit underwriting preparation to reclaim analyst focus, cutting workflows from 16 hours to two.

Why visibility in the AI era is a design problem, not a discipline one: In the AI era, consistency is no longer about discipline but system design, where micro habits and AI-assisted workflows create sustainable visibility, leverage, and communication without burnout.

Why your 50s are the perfect time to start a business: At 50, after major health challenges and shifting tech waves, the writer argues it may be the best time to start a business, citing experience, networks, financial stability, purpose, and higher success odds.

How social media and public relations work together to drive brand success: Social media has reshaped public relations by boosting visibility, enabling real-time crisis response, expanding content distribution, and providing measurable insights, while influencer partnerships and ethical storytelling help brands build trust and engagement.

Fractional hiring, distilled: Fractional work challenges traditional career ladders, offering flexibility and efficiency, but founders must ensure fractional leaders enhance their vision, not dilute it through mismatched corporate instincts.

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By focusing on early-stage innovation and measurable impact, Temasek Trust’s Catalytic Capital for Climate & Health (C3H) is positioning itself as one of Asia’s most important champions of climate and health tech startups. Still in its infancy, the platform has already backed three pioneering ventures — Notpla, Dozee, and Equatic — and is actively scouting new technologies across climate, health, and the rapidly expanding climate–health nexus.

At the centre of this effort is Ryan Tan, founding Head of C3H and Co-Head of Strategy and Development at Temasek Trust. Tan’s mandate is simple yet ambitious: deploy catalytic capital that bridges the “valley of death” for early-stage innovators, helping them scale commercially while delivering measurable climate and health impacts.

Founders in these two areas frequently encounter a familiar hurdle: promising science, but a long road to demonstrating commercial and environmental viability. C3H targets precisely this gap.

“We take a dual-lens approach to evaluation – looking at both commercial viability and measurable impact,” Tan explains in an email interview with e27.

Unlike conventional investors, C3H is comfortable entering at an earlier stage and taking a long view on development. This is crucial in climate technology, where extended pilots are often required to validate both the underlying innovation and its eventual real-world impact.

By providing patient, early capital, C3H gives startups the runway to develop sustainable and scalable models — the key to crossing the notorious “valley of death.”

Also Read: The finish line fallacy: What Olympic psychology reveals about startup exits

One of the central roles of catalytic capital is to prepare early-stage ventures for commercial capital. Tan describes a two-pronged approach.

First, C3H conducts rigorous evaluations of both business and impact models, effectively absorbing early-stage risk. This de-risking signals confidence to later-stage investors, who are assessing whether a new technology can reach scale.

Second, C3H actively supports portfolio companies through its networks. “We frequently connect the startups we support to various organisations across the larger ecosystem for pilots and broker introductions for potential follow-on funding,” Tan says. Startups such as Notpla, Dozee and Equatic have already benefited from this hands-on facilitation.

For startups in climate and health navigating opaque markets and complex implementation pathways, this combination of validation and connectivity can be transformative.

Asia needs a different catalytic capital model

Tan emphasises that Asia cannot simply replicate Western models of climate innovation.

“Asia is highly diverse, with differing regulations, cultures and commercial environments. This creates information gaps and uneven implementation pathways. There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to scaling here,” he notes.

Impact measurement, as a core pillar of C3H’s thesis, must also be contextualised to the region’s regulatory and environmental variations. As such, catalytic capital in Asia must go beyond financial support. Strong partnerships are essential, particularly when it comes to assisting with pilots, market entry strategies, and long-term scaling.

Also Read: How East Ventures adopts materiality-driven ESG strategy for its portfolio companies

As the climate crisis intensifies, technologies that address the intersection of climate and health are becoming increasingly urgent. Tan sees robust momentum in climate adaptation, a complement to long-term mitigation strategies.

C3H is especially excited about three areas:

1. Heat-stress monitoring for workers in high-risk industries, enabling earlier interventions that protect health and productivity.
2. Next-generation cooling technologies that reduce energy use while remaining climate-safe.
3. Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) innovations, including novel electrochemical solutions that enable greater renewable integration and cross-border energy collaboration.

Each of these areas promises not only commercial potential but also substantial, quantifiable impact for communities most vulnerable to climate risks.

Looking ahead, Tan outlines three strategic thrusts for C3H in 2026.

First, the organisation aims to lead or participate in high-potential investments, as it did with Equatic. Second, it plans to selectively invest as a limited partner in early-stage funds where general partners show strong differentiation and alignment with C3H’s impact mission. This expands networks and deepens sector insights.

Finally, C3H intends to strengthen ecosystem partnerships — among startups, funds, academia, and corporates — to build a robust pipeline and support its portfolio companies in scaling both commercial and impact outcomes.

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Image Credit: Chris LeBoutillier on Unsplash

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As the global travel industry moves into 2026, demand remains resilient. Bookings continue to recover, intra-regional travel is accelerating, and Asia-Pacific is gaining prominence as both a source and destination market. Yet beneath this surface-level optimism, the operating realities discussed at MarketHub Asia, HBX Group’s flagship industry forum that convenes leaders across travel, hospitality, payments, and technology, point to a deeper recalibration underway.

The next phase of travel will not be defined solely by expansion. It will be shaped by how effectively the industry balances technology, artificial intelligence, and trust at scale, in a system where data volumes are exploding, regulatory environments are increasingly fragmented, and security risks evolve faster than governance structures.

Power and control in travel distribution

One of the clearest realities of global travel today is the concentration of power within its infrastructure layer. While innovation across platforms, experiences, and booking channels remains vibrant, control over payments and settlement remains in the hands of a few dominant networks.

Global payment providers such as Visa and Mastercard shape much of the industry’s commercial and operational framework. High commissions, opaque routing logic, and limited competitive alternatives are largely treated as fixed constraints rather than areas open to challenge. As a result, value creation in travel increasingly happens downstream of infrastructure control, not at the point of customer experience or product innovation.

Also Read: HeyMax’s US$11M raise signals a new era of programmable travel loyalty in Asia

This concentration has consequences that extend far beyond pricing. It determines how quickly new models can scale, how risk is distributed across ecosystems, and how trust is enforced across borders. Individual companies, regardless of size, have little leverage acting alone. Real change requires collective pressure, coordination across stakeholders, and a willingness to rethink the underlying rails that power global travel.

“We cannot compete with these giants on size alone,” David Amsellem, Chief Distribution Officer at HBX Group, said. “The only viable response is strategic alignment. By forming alliances and coordinating as an ecosystem, we can rebalance the market and preserve healthy competition. When competition is healthy, travellers benefit, innovation thrives, and regional players retain agency.”

He pointed to history as a cautionary guide. “We have seen what happens when markets consolidate too far. In social media, for example, dominance by a single player came at a cost. Privacy eroded, choice narrowed, and users paid the price. Contrast that with cloud computing. At one point, Amazon Web Services held close to 50 per cent market share. Had competition not emerged, the market would look very different today. Instead, the rise of Azure and Google Cloud rebalanced the ecosystem. Market share diversified, competition improved, and customers gained greater autonomy and choice.”

For Amsellem, the lesson is not that dominance should be countered with brute force. It is that it should be countered with coordination. Strategic alliances, not fragmentation, are what shift power. This is where HBX sees its role: to act as the ecosystem of reference, a platform where players, particularly across APAC, can align, collaborate, and maintain a competitive balance alongside these global giants.

Trust remains travel’s defining currency

Against this backdrop, one idea stood out, as Mark Antipof, Chief Growth Officer at HBX Group, put it: “travel has always been about trust.” The weight of that observation lies in what it implies: many of the industry’s most pressing challenges are not failures of innovation, but failures of trust reinforced by scale.

Antipof points out that trust in travel operates across multiple, interdependent layers: payments clearing correctly, identities being verified securely, refunds being processed fairly, data being handled responsibly, and recommendations reflecting reality rather than promotion. As travel becomes increasingly digital and interconnected, these trust dependencies multiply, raising the cost of failure across the entire ecosystem.

Also Read: Travel is back, and it’s more cutthroat than ever

The past year underscored how fragile these systems can be. Cybersecurity activity in 2025 reached record levels across industries, with phishing and malware incidents rising sharply and credential-stealing attacks tripling year-on-year. The rise of Phishing-as-a-Service and Ransomware-as-a-Service lowered the barrier to cybercrime, while deepfake-based scams surged by more than 1,500 per cent between 2023 and 2025, directly targeting identity and executive trust.

Hospitality, a critical layer of the travel ecosystem, was among the most affected sectors. In 2025, 82 per cent of North American hotels experienced a cyberattack during peak periods, most commonly targeting payment systems, guest Wi-Fi networks, and booking platforms. Each breach introduces friction, exposes sensitive data, and steadily erodes the trust that underpins the travel experience.

Evidence over brand in the algorithmic economy

As trust becomes harder to maintain, the way travellers evaluate credibility is shifting. Traditional markers such as brand reputation, polished imagery, and static reviews are losing influence in algorithm-driven environments.

Jiha Jung, Tripbtoz CEO and Founder, observed that travellers increasingly seek real-time, human-generated proof when making decisions. Influencer content, live experiences, and unfiltered perspectives now carry more weight than curated marketing assets.
Algorithms increasingly privilege evidence over reputation. Engagement signals, recency, and contextual relevance matter more than brand heritage. This aligns with findings from HBX Group’s Travel Trends 2026 report, which highlights a growing preference for experience-led, emotionally resonant travel shaped by social influence and community validation.

In this environment, influencers function less as promoters and more as intermediaries of trust. Their value lies not in reach, but in perceived authenticity, a commodity that is increasingly scarce.

AI in practice, not theory

Artificial intelligence now sits firmly in the realm of execution rather than ambition. The most credible discussions across the industry no longer frame AI as a distant, transformative promise, but as an operational requirement embedded into everyday decision-making.

Across travel, AI is being applied to concrete problems: improving pricing precision, detecting fraud, forecasting demand, and managing customer interactions at scale. These applications are practical, measurable, and largely invisible to travellers. They closely mirror developments in cybersecurity, where AI has already become essential for identifying anomalies and responding to threats at machine speed.

Agentic AI takes this a step further. Rather than supporting predefined workflows, agentic systems can perceive context, make decisions, and take action autonomously within set constraints. In travel, this means systems that can dynamically adjust pricing, reroute inventory, personalise offers, resolve service disruptions, or manage refunds in real time, without waiting for human intervention. The experience is no longer optimised before or after the journey, but continuously shaped during it.

Also Read: Online travel becomes 2025’s breakout winner as accommodation prices lift SEA’s GMV

However, the same capabilities that enable real-time optimisation also expand exposure. AI-driven personalisation, automation, and data processing increase the number of attack vectors available to adversaries. Deepfake fraud, automated credential harvesting, and adaptive malware demonstrate how speed, when left unchecked, can amplify risk rather than reduce it.

This tension becomes most visible as decision-making shifts into live environments. When systems are empowered to act, not just recommend, errors propagate faster, and trust can erode instantly. The implication is clear: sustainable progress depends on the alignment of technology, AI, and human judgment. Guardrails, accountability, and oversight are not constraints on innovation. They are what make agentic systems viable at scale.

Fragmentation as the industry’s defining constraint

If trust is the industry’s core challenge, fragmentation is its most persistent constraint. Travel spans finance, aviation, hospitality, technology, and regulation, each with its own incentives, standards, and timelines.

Banking and payments introduce an additional layer of complexity. Regulatory requirements change dynamically, vary by jurisdiction, and directly influence how data can be stored, processed, and transferred. This makes scaling secure, compliant systems disproportionately difficult.

Fragmentation explains why many travel leaders are shifting focus from expansion to optimisation. Scaling a brittle system magnifies exposure. Modular architectures, continuous monitoring, and operational discipline are increasingly valued over rapid market entry.

It also explains why cybersecurity incidents propagate quickly. Breaches rarely exploit sophisticated vulnerabilities. They exploit seams between systems, vendors, and responsibilities.

Southeast Asia as a proving ground

These dynamics are particularly visible in Southeast Asia. According to HBX Group data, Asia-Pacific’s travel growth is being driven increasingly by intra-regional demand, favourable demographics, and rising middle-class consumption. At the same time, the region exposes operational weaknesses faster than more mature markets.

Regulatory diversity, uneven infrastructure, and rapid digital adoption create a high-pressure environment. Models that work here tend to be resilient elsewhere. Those who fail do so quickly.

Also Read: How Gen-Z travellers are driving the comeback of online travel agencies

Gen Z travellers amplify this effect. They expect connected journeys, value-led choices, and personalisation by default. Loyalty is fluid, trust is conditional, and switching costs are low. Economic and political uncertainty remains a real downside risk, reinforcing the need for systems that can adapt without undermining confidence.

As Javier Cabrerizo, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at HBX, observed, Gen Z uses AI and personalisation to discover what is trending and relevant to them. But once they arrive, they deliberately avoid the crowd, seeking hidden gems and local experiences instead. AI guides discovery, but individuality defines value.

For travel providers, this creates a tension: AI is essential for discovery and relevance, but value is ultimately measured by how effectively it enables individuality rather than conformity.

A recalibrated future

MarketHub Asia did not signal a slowdown in travel. It signalled a recalibration.

The industry is moving away from growth narratives built solely on scale and toward operating models grounded in trust, evidence, and resilience. Technology enables opportunity. AI accelerates execution. Security, often invisible, determines whether either can be sustained.

The next generation of travel leaders will not be defined by how quickly they expand, but by how well their systems hold under pressure. In an increasingly connected, data-rich world, discipline, not ambition, is becoming the industry’s most durable competitive advantage.

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Image credit: HBX Group

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Advancements in AI present healthcare professionals with both opportunities and challenges. AI can personalise healthcare through digitisation and advance research efforts, but in the hands of threat actors, it is a tool used for sophisticated cyberattacks.

There is no disputing that technology’s ability to streamline operational efficiency would be a welcome boon to Singapore’s healthcare industry, which faces the need to grow its workforce to 82,000 by 2030.  AI can help by increasing operational efficiency.

For example, in Thailand, N Health,  a healthcare services provider, modernised its ageing infrastructure with new, scalable technologies. This strategic upgrade has strengthened operational efficiency and resilience, enabling partner hospitals to deliver higher-quality patient experiences while supporting N Health’s regional expansion.

Healthcare systems are also under pressure to reduce staff burnout, reduce technology costs, stand out among competitors, and grow patient numbers and other revenue streams. At the same time, healthcare IT professionals have their hands busy fighting off ongoing cyber disruption campaigns. According to the 2024 Global Threat Intelligence report, threat actors use GenAI to enhance social engineering and phishing attacks and share false information. Data breaches caused by ransomware, extortion, and other tactics result in significant financial losses to victims.

That said, IT professionals can protect their organisation’s critical systems by levelling up their cybersecurity maturity and defending against cyberattacks by taking the following actions:

Build your AI strategy early

When integrating AI into your operations, it’s essential to start with a strategy that incorporates security and resilience from the beginning, as retrofitting these elements can introduce unnecessary challenges.

By aligning your AI use cases with your organisation’s specific needs—whether you’re a research hospital, a clinical facility, or both—you establish a solid foundation to achieve results. Once your use cases are defined, you can assess potential risks and address them by determining what data is required for your models, who needs access to it, and how to secure it effectively.

Given the complexities of AI in healthcare, collaborating with external IT and security experts can provide crucial insights. These advisors can help you design a robust, future-ready AI strategy that avoids common pitfalls. Ensuring you have the right expertise in place will keep your AI initiatives secure, accelerate adoption and drive progress without unnecessary setbacks.

Also Read: Bridging healthcare and cybersecurity: How women are challenging stereotypes in tech

Advance your cybersecurity maturity

Reducing your attack surface is also critical to limiting how threat actors can infiltrate and what they can access. With sensitive medical data at stake, Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency (CSA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH), Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and Synapxe has introduced the Cybersecurity Labelling Scheme (CLS) for Medical Devices.

This scheme establishes essential security benchmarks for medical devices, guiding healthcare providers in procuring more secure equipment to enhance protection and ensure compliance. Taking these steps strengthens your defences while meeting regulatory requirements.

Real-time detection and response are further elements that are essential for safeguarding healthcare IT systems. AI-powered tools like Managed Detection and Response (MDR) enable you to quickly identify and mitigate threats. Manage AI-specific risks by implementing AI guardrails, such as those offered through AI Proxy services, and regular penetration testing to ensure your systems remain secure and reliable.

Recovery planning should address more than cyberattacks: Prepare for system failures or AI disruptions, such as faulty outputs from Large Language Models (LLMs). The ability to swiftly roll back AI systems to prior versions is critical to maintaining operations. A solid strategy includes regular backups of data and systems, well-defined incident response plans, and immutable vaults.

Protect backups to avoid costly recoveries

According to The State of Ransomware 2024 study, the average cost of cyber recovery, excluding ransomware payments, totalled US$2.73 million. The study also found that 98 per cent of organisations were able to recover encrypted data, with backups serving as the No. 1 recovery method.

It is crucial to protect your backups, given that 94 per cent of organisations impacted by ransomware in 2023 said threat actors attempted to compromise their backups during attacks. AI can strengthen your backup systems by automating backup scheduling, detecting anomalies like corrupted files or incomplete backups, and identifying and eliminating duplicate data.

Also Read: Showcasing the future of healthcare, the Estonian way

Safeguard healthcare data and restore operations faster

According to a 2025 Dell Technologies survey, 64 per cent of business and IT decision makers say recovering the business to meet Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) would be difficult after a cyberattack. You can position your healthcare IT system to avoid this challenge.

To better protect your data, you must plan, prepare and practice as if an attack is inevitable, with an emphasis on quickly restoring operations with minimal disruption. You can lead a swift recovery and minimise data loss by using these AI-integrated solutions:

• Immutable and isolated storage: Immutable backups cannot be altered or deleted. Storing backups in an isolated environment protects them from cyberattacks on your healthcare IT system.
• Data encryption: Encryption locks your data with a digital key, ensuring only authorised users can decode and access it.
• Data validation: Validation verifies the accuracy and integrity of data, guaranteeing your backups can be trusted and used when needed.

By advancing cybersecurity maturity with AI-enhanced backup and recovery methods, you can build a resilient and secure healthcare IT system that enables you to quickly recover from cyberattacks while minimising downtime. This can set you apart in the market and instil confidence among patients, healthcare professionals, partners and investors.

With the power of AI, healthcare professionals can continue delivering better patient care.

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In an era marked by unprecedented technological advancement and economic transformation, the healthcare technology sector stands at a critical inflexion point.

As we navigate the complexities of post-pandemic recovery and economic restructuring, healthtech has emerged not merely as a vertical within the broader technology ecosystem but as a fundamental driver of healthcare delivery, accessibility, and economic growth.

Market landscape: Exponential growth

The global healthtech market has demonstrated remarkable resilience and expansion, even amidst economic uncertainties. According to Grand View Research, the global digital health market size was valued at US$211.0 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.6 per cent from 2024 to 2030, reaching an estimated US$665.5 billion by the end of the forecast period.

This growth trajectory significantly outpaces many traditional economic sectors, signalling a fundamental shift in both healthcare delivery models and investment priorities.

Within this broader landscape, several sub-sectors demonstrate particularly compelling growth metrics:

• Telemedicine: The global telemedicine market size was valued at US$87.41 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 24.0 per cent from 2023 to 2030.
• AI in healthcare: According to Bloomberg Intelligence, the AI healthcare market is projected to reach US$187.95 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 37.0 per cent.
• Digital therapeutics: Market valuation exceeded US$4.3 billion in 2022, with projections suggesting growth to US$32.5 billion by 2030.

The macroeconomic context: Healthcare as economic imperative

The expansion of healthtech must be understood within the broader economic context. Healthcare expenditures now constitute approximately 18.3 per cent of GDP in the United States and between 8-12 per cent in most developed economies, according to World Bank data from 2023. Two critical macroeconomic factors are accelerating healthtech adoption:

Demographic pressures and healthcare labour shortages

The World Health Organisation projects a global shortage of 10 million healthcare workers by 2030. With OECD populations aging rapidly (65+ increasing from 17 per cent to 27 per cent by 2050), technological solutions that amplify provider capacity and enable remote care have become essential.

Value-based care transitions

The Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services aims to have 100 per cent of Medicare beneficiaries in accountability-based care relationships by 2030. healthtech solutions supporting preventive care and chronic disease management are critical enablers of this economic transformation.

Also Read: Striking the right balance: Financial health, talent retention, and business growth

Six key trends shaping the future

• AI integration beyond diagnostics

AI is moving beyond imaging to transform entire clinical workflows. Nature Medicine reports AI-enhanced clinical decision support systems have demonstrated a 32 per cent reduction in diagnostic errors and 27 per cent improvement in treatment optimisation.

Google DeepMind’s breakthroughs in protein folding are accelerating drug discovery by an estimated 70 per cent, revolutionising therapeutic development.

• Ambient clinical intelligence

A 2023 JAMA study found physicians spend nearly half their time on EHR tasks. Ambient clinical intelligence technologies like Microsoft and Nuance’s DAX have shown 27 per cent productivity improvements, allowing physicians to see three to five additional patients daily.

• Digital therapeutics as standard of care

The Digital Therapeutics Alliance reports over 35 DTx products have received regulatory approval as of mid-2023. IQVIA Institute projects DTx interventions could generate healthcare savings of US$46 billion annually in the US by 2030.

• Decentralised clinical trials

Deloitte’s 2023 Life Sciences Outlook finds decentralised trials reduce costs by 15-20 per cent while accelerating recruitment by 30-50 per cent. This model has increased diverse participant enrolment by 33 per cent according to the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative.

• Healthcare ecosystems and interoperability

The healthcare interoperability market is projected to reach US$9.4 billion by 2028. Regulatory frameworks including the European Health Data Space and 21st Century Cures Act are accelerating this transformation.

Also Read: The most-funded healthtech startups in Southeast Asia: A decade in review

• Healthcare software development solutions

The healthcare software development market is projected to reach US$12 billion by 2027 (Grand View Research). This growth is fuelled by rising demand for patient management systems and telehealth applications. Innovations in AI and machine learning are enhancing diagnostics and care, while regulatory frameworks like HITECH are promoting secure and interoperable solutions.

Challenges and economic constraints

Despite promising growth, healthtech faces several constraints:

• Reimbursement frameworks

While telehealth reimbursement has expanded significantly—with 43 US states now having telehealth parity laws—many innovative healthtech solutions still face reimbursement challenges. A survey by the Digital Medicine Society found that 67 per cent of digital health companies cited reimbursement as their primary commercial obstacle.

• Data privacy and security concerns

Healthcare data breaches increased by 35 per cent between 2022 and 2023, according to a report from the Ponemon Institute, with the average cost of a healthcare data breach reaching US$10.93 million. These security challenges represent both an economic liability and a potential innovation barrier.

• Regulatory harmonisation

Fragmented regulatory approaches across global markets introduce friction into healthtech commercialisation. The FDA’s Digital Health Center of Excellence and the EU’s Medical Device Regulation provide frameworks within their jurisdictions, but global harmonisation remains elusive, creating additional costs for multinational deployment.

healthtech represents both a resilient investment sector and a catalyst for healthcare transformation. By addressing the fundamental challenges of access, quality, and cost, these technologies offer pathways to sustainable healthcare systems that align economic and human imperatives.

For forward-thinking organisations, the strategic imperative is clear: position for a future where healthtech becomes healthcare’s fundamental operating system rather than merely a component of care delivery.

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Ask someone to define clinical informatics, and you’re likely to be met with a blank stare — a reaction that outlines its niche status despite its growing importance in healthcare.

As the industry grapples with rising operational and technological challenges, clinical informatics has emerged as a critical enabler of innovation in healthtech, though it remains widely misunderstood. Even less common is the idea of a fully trained nurse venturing into this male-dominated field.

Clinical informatics in Singapore

Informatics is a translation discipline – it helps to transform different “languages” into one that can be used for effective communication. In that respect, clinical informatics employees, who are usually both medically-savvy and IT trained, serve as the bridge between healthcare and tech employees to help all parties speak and understand the same language.

Such collaborative effort underscores the importance of fostering a more inclusive discipline. Greater representation from women can bring a more empathetic and human-centered perspective to the field, balancing the process-oriented approach with a focus on compassion and patient-centric solutions. By embracing diversity, the field of informatics can unlock even greater potential to drive innovation and improve outcomes in healthcare.

A specialist nurse turned IT professional in clinical informatics

I have spent six years as a full-time Emergency nurse at Tan Tock Seng Hospital before 2015, where I immersed myself in the complexities of patient care. Over the years, as Singapore’s public healthcare system grappled with rising healthcare demands and the unprecedented challenges of the 2020 global pandemic, I witnessed firsthand how healthtech innovations became a game-changer for healthcare professionals. These advancements not only enhanced patient care but also transformed the way healthcare teams operated.

One of the most pressing pain points I have observed was the considerable amount of administrative tasks, which can sometimes take time and energy away from direct patient care. I began to see how healthtech solutions could alleviate these inefficiencies, enabling healthcare professionals to focus on what truly matters — delivering exceptional care to patients. This realisation sparked my growing interest in the potential of healthtech to reshape Singapore’s healthcare landscape.

Also Read: How the tech industry can become friendlier for women

Driven by a desire to make a broader impact, I took a bold step and pursued a postgraduate degree in clinical informatics — a field that was still in its early stages and far from mainstream recognition. I see a symbiotic relationship between healthcare and technology. For healthtech to be effective, I believe that it should be clinically relevant and designed to address real-world challenges faced by healthcare professionals.

My journey in healthtech took a significant leap in 2015 when I joined the Clinical Informatics Team and saw the development of many national healthtech initiatives. My fondest experience was with HealthHub – Singapore’s national digital healthcare platform which serves to provide patients with equips citizens with information on medical conditions, medical listings and secure access to health records at their fingertips.

Once, I witnessed how the app kept my family member informed and reassured during a medical episode, while also significantly easing the workload for healthcare providers. It was a testament to how technology could create meaningful, human-centred solutions.

Empowering more women to chart their dreams

I believe that adaptability is important for women to succeed in today’s fast-paced technological landscape, and many women in the field demonstrate a strong ability to adjust to changing technologies.

As a passionate advocate for nurses in healthcare and women actively planning their careers, I notice that many misconceptions still exist. Women often encounter challenges such as the balancing dual roles, experiencing imposter syndrome, and facing gender-specific biases.

I am grateful for the strong peer support within my team at Synapxe as I navigate my career transition. I believe my contributions help address what an all-male team might find challenging — bringing empathy into our thought processes, which can sometimes be overlooked in complex IT scenarios.

I hope to share more success stories of women in technology to encourage young girls and women to pursue their dreams in unconventional fields. One inspiring figure would be Dr. Caroline Hargrove, who invented the F1 simulator and later moved into healthtech, where she created AI-driven telehealth applications to improve health outcomes. She is one of the many role models I hope more women will look up to and emulate.

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Since 2020, life has been tough for a lot of people. The COVID-19 pandemic may have started as a health crisis, but it quickly became something deeper—something invisible.

Behind the masks and lockdowns, many of us were struggling emotionally. And while we’ve slowly moved forward, the truth is: mental health issues have quietly gotten worse in Southeast Asia, and not enough people are talking about it.

This isn’t just a global problem. It’s a regional one. And for many in ASEAN, it’s a silent battle.

The numbers we can’t ignore

Let’s talk facts. According to the World Health Organisation, cases of depression and anxiety worldwide rose by 25 per cent in the first year of the pandemic. In Southeast Asia, a 2021 regional study found that nearly half of the people surveyed in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore showed signs of severe anxiety or depression.

In Malaysia alone, over 37,000 people called mental health hotlines in 2020. The following year, suicide cases rose to 1,142—nearly double the previous year. These aren’t just numbers. These are people who felt overwhelmed, helpless, and unheard.

In the Philippines, mental health hotline calls nearly doubled in one year, with hundreds expressing suicidal thoughts. In Singapore, poor mental health rose from 13.4 per cent in 2020 to 17 per cent in 2022. In Thailand, the suicide rate climbed to 7.97 per 100,000 people—just shy of WHO’s “alarming” threshold of 8.

Vietnam reported that about 15 million people—around 15 per cent of its population—are living with mental health conditions. Even more alarming: over 3 million children in Vietnam need mental health support.

Young people are struggling too

A generation is growing up under pressure. In Malaysia, 26.9 per cent of teenagers were reported to have depression in 2022, compared to 18.3 per cent five years earlier. In other ASEAN countries like the Philippines and Indonesia, educators and social workers are seeing more signs of anxiety, self-harm, and emotional distress among young people.

And many are suffering in silence. They look okay on the outside, but deep inside, they feel alone.

Why is no one talking about this?

Here’s the honest truth: people don’t talk about mental health because of stigma.

In many ASEAN cultures, mental health is still seen as taboo. If someone admits they’re depressed, others may say they’re weak or overreacting. In some families, the mindset is: “Don’t talk about problems—just keep going.” But bottling up emotions doesn’t heal anything. It only makes things worse.

The second reason is access. There simply aren’t enough mental health services in Southeast Asia. Most countries spend less than three per cent of their health budget on mental health. Some spend as little as US$1 per person per year.

In Indonesia, there are only about 1,200 psychiatrists for a population of 270 million. In the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand, the numbers are just as low. Even Singapore, which has better healthcare, only has 4.4 psychiatrists per 100,000 people. The WHO recommends 10.

This means many people who need help simply can’t find it—or can’t afford it.

The sad reality: Mental health isn’t “profitable”

Mental health care is often ignored because there’s no big money in it.

Governments are more likely to fund projects that boost the economy. Businesses prefer campaigns that improve productivity. But therapy? Support groups? Mental health education? These things don’t generate quick profits.

But ignoring mental health comes at a cost. Economists estimate that untreated mental illness could cost ASEAN countries up to 4.8 per cent of GDP due to lost productivity. People who are depressed or anxious often can’t focus, can’t work, or burn out quickly. So, in reality, caring for mental health actually saves money.

Still, the real cost isn’t financial—it’s human. It’s the father who feels too ashamed to ask for help. The teenager who thinks no one will understand. The friend who hides their sadness with a smile. Every day, someone is silently struggling—and some of them don’t make it through.

What can we do?

You don’t need to be a doctor or politician to make a difference. Start with the people around you.

• Check in: Send that message. Make that call. Ask someone, “How are you really doing?” Not just the usual “I’m fine” stuff. Give people space to talk. It might feel awkward, but your small action could mean the world.
• Listen without judging: When someone opens up, don’t interrupt. Don’t try to fix everything. Just listen. Say things like, “That sounds tough,” or “I’m here for you.” What people need most is to feel heard and accepted.
• Normalise the conversation: Talk about your own mental health struggles. Be honest when you’re feeling down. When we open up, we give others permission to do the same. The more we talk, the less taboo it becomes.
• Help them take the first step: If someone is in deep distress, help them reach out for support. Look for local helplines, counseling services, or online resources. Offer to go with them or make the first call together. Sometimes, people just need a little help to get started.
• Speak up in your community: If you’re in a workplace, school, or organisation, speak up for better mental health policies. Suggest wellness programs, mental health days, or anonymous counselling. Show your leaders that this matters.

It starts with us

In ASEAN, we pride ourselves on being close-knit, family-focused, and community-driven. But real care goes beyond giving food or money. It’s about showing up emotionally. It’s about making sure no one feels alone.

Mental health issues are growing in our region. The numbers don’t lie. But behind every statistic is a person—a story—a life. And every life matters.

Even if big institutions are slow to act, we can lead the change in our own homes, schools, and social circles. Let’s make kindness normal. Let’s make it safe to say “I’m not okay.” Let’s remind our loved ones that they matter—not for what they do, but for who they are.

So today, take a few minutes to reach out. Listen. Care. Because sometimes, that’s all it takes to save a life.

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