Singapore-based smart electric motorbike company ION Mobility has secured US$18.7 million in its Series A round of financing from investors, including India’s leading two-wheeler maker TVS Motors.

Other investors are AC Ventures Malaysia, Michael Sampoerna, and ION’s CMO Ng Ho Sen. Existing investors TNB Aura, Quest Ventures, Monk’s Hill Ventures, Village Global, GDP Venture, and Seeds Capital also joined.

Also Read: ‘Singapore isn’t ready for mass adoption of EVs yet; hybrid may be better for the present’

This brings ION Mobility’s total capital raised to over US$25.5 million since 2020.

TVS made the strategic investment through its subsidiary TVS Motor (Singapore). It will provide the necessary ecosystem support for the e-vehicle startup to succeed in the electric two-wheeler markets of Singapore and Indonesia.

ION will use the fresh capital to grow its Indonesia team, operations and capabilities. This includes its sales and marketing presence, local supply chain networks, production tooling and manufacturing capabilities in Indonesia to achieve at least 50% local content.

This announcement comes on the heels of the company’s launch of its M1-S electric scooter in Jakarta in November 2022. It also signed a broad-ranging Memorandum of Understanding with Indonesia’s national grid operator PLN to expand its charging network and two-wheeler fast-charging technology research and user outreach and education.

ION Mobility Founder and CEO James Chan said: “We are excited to draw upon TVS Motor’s decades of global expertise in two-wheelers to accelerate our “Mobius” M1-S production readiness, as well as the design and development of other models.”

Also Read: ION Mobility lands US$6.8M as it prepares to launch smart e-motorbike in Singapore

Founded in 2019, ION Mobility aims to become a technology company leading the region’s transition towards a low-carbon economy with consumers’ electric and electric mobility products. It wants to provide clean alternatives for urban users to alleviate urban air pollution and lead the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) across Southeast Asia, starting with motorbikes.

The plan is to convert the 200-plus million motorcycle users from petrol to electric to drive a sustainable future in Southeast Asia.

In October 2021, ION completed its US$6.8 million seed financing, co-led by Quest Ventures and TNB Aura.

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Online shopping isn’t just a COVID-19 fad, it has become a lifestyle. Even as we move on from the pandemic, an increasing proportion of consumers in the Asia Pacific region continue to embrace self-serve and mobile retail experiences.

Indeed, in a 2022 report, 9 out of 10 millennials listed online shopping via their smartphones as their preferred means of purchasing. Elsewhere, in the United States, a record US$9.12 billion was spent online on Black Friday 2022, up 2.3 per cent from Black Friday 2021, while Thanksgiving saw US$5.29 billion in online spending, up 2.9 per cent from 2021.

This holiday season, the digital space will once again be the battlefield where shoppers hang out, and businesses compete. Anyone who wishes to survive and thrive in the competitive environment must buckle up and brace for the biggest shopping window of the year.

In this article, we’ll explore some tips and strategies, illustrated with the success stories of three e-commerce businesses that we were able to partner with to help take their business to new heights.

Create a brand that speaks to customers’ hearts

In the crowded e-commerce space, numerous businesses are selling the same type of products. How do you stand out? Why should people choose and stay loyal to your business? The key lies in creating a brand that connects with your customers.

Founded in 2020, Cheak (formerly known as Butter) is a Singaporean brand offering women’s activewear. With only five products in their catalogue in their first year of business, Cheak generated an impressive six-figure revenue, and they did it by building a unique brand around women in Asia.

Cheak was born when its founders, Olivia Yiong and Tiffany Chng, couldn’t find active apparel that is chic, affordable and fit for Asian body types. Setting out on their own to address this gap in the market, Olivia and Tiffany built a brand that made it a point to listen to the Asian women’s community and what Asian women wanted.

Not to mention, Cheak’s collection of vibrantly coloured activewear fits both the body and budget as well. Finally, Asian women’s voices were heard, and Cheak quickly became a newfound favourite.

But as with any start-up retail business, there is a substantial outlay required to purchase inventory to sell. In fact, this is a problem often faced by newer e-commerce companies who are often not able to secure any financing from traditional financial institutions, as many e-commerce merchants lack sufficient assets to serve as collateral for bank loans, while private equity and VC firms tend to favour disruptive innovators over e-commerce businesses. 

Fortunately, we were able to work with Cheak to provide the funds required to finance their inventory purchase. With this injection of life, Cheak was able to significantly fulfil more orders, increase their revenue, and grow their brand.

Also Read: Profitable e-commerce: Making real money in the new year

This caught the eye of Love, Bonito, Singapore’s leading women’s fashion label, which is poised to expand to overseas markets such as Hong Kong, Japan and the US. Cheak was recently acquired by Love, Bonito enabling their female-founded activewear brand to continue to empower millions of women with confidence in themselves and in everyday life.

Scale growth with paid search advertising

When it comes to scaling a business, it’s often said that you have to spend money to make money. In this regard, digital advertising is what you can do to multiply your revenue quickly and exponentially.

Jaco Hardware illustrates this well. Now a big name in Hong Kong’s hardware industry, Jaco Hardware began as a college hustle by its founder, Henry Chao. It wasn’t until Henry decided to double down on the digital venture and seek funding that he turned the business around.

Henry invested some 60% of funds secured into digital marketing – which is a huge sum for a business, but one that paid dividends. Noticing huge search volume for certain products, he started sourcing new hardware tools from across the globe and amped up Google Ads spending in those categories. When people searched for hardware products on Google, Jaco Hardware’s ads would show up and drive visitors to its online store.

As a small business owner, Henry shared that the amount of money spent on advertising seemed overwhelming at first. With clearly defined goals, performance tracking, analytics and optimisation, however, returns on ad spend (ROAS) turned out to be very promising.

Revenue grew 100x in less than two years,  establishing the company’s leadership position in the online hardware industry. Henry’s hardware empire now turns a seven-figure monthly revenue and is continuing on an upward trajectory.

Sell directly to consumers to accelerate growth on your own terms

For digital merchants just starting off, joining marketplaces like Amazon, Shopee and Lazada are the easy path to take. To push your business towards further growth and success, however, building a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand is a must. In fact, this is how Archiology grew its revenue by 5x in 6 months.

Archiology is a designer company of home lighting and furniture goods and first came into being as one of the many merchants on the Amazon Marketplace.

Also Read: How e-commerce brands can tap into the US$600 billion social commerce market potential

Among all challenges of being a marketplace seller, commission fees are where it hurts most. Platforms pocket up to 45 per cent on every transaction, often undercutting merchants’ profit margins to razor-thin levels. Interacting with customers, delivering customised marketing messages and offering seasonal promotions also prove challenging since all must be done within platform rules and policies.

The company subsequently cast about for ways to establish a DTC brand and eventually made substantial capital investments in the transition from being an Amazon seller to establishing its own DTC brand. 

The pivot to DTC opened up a treasure trove of opportunities for Archiology. On top of eliminating exorbitant platform fees and offering higher profit margins up for grabs, selling directly to consumers enables Archiology to engage in hyper-personalised interactions with them.

With its own online store, Archiology now offers 15 per cent off a customer’s first purchase, a US$5 reward for each referred purchaser, as well as a live chat box to answer shoppers’ queries right away.

This way, interested visitors turn into purchasers, existing customers bring in new ones, and they themselves remain loyal customers of the brand. More importantly, most of them know Archiology by its name, not just another seller on Amazon.

Reaching into the opportunities of e-commerce

As the Chinese saying goes, starting a business is difficult, but keeping it going is even harder. Running a business in today’s crowded digital landscape, the real challenge is to stand out from the competition and achieve continued growth.

As a key funding partner for the Southeast Asian/APAC e-commerce market, we have partnered with hundreds of e-commerce businesses. We believe that the full potential of the region remains untapped and that, contrary to recent reports, there remain great opportunities for growth and funding in the e-commerce space. 

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What Sistema Asia Capital is facing is likely no different from any other established VC firms in the market in the current downturn, said former CEO Edward Tay.

He was responding to a recent DealStreetAsia report that said India- and Southeast-Asia-focused Sistema Asia was caught in a liquidity limbo and struggling to find buyers for its Asian portfolio. Sistema had placed its portfolio on the secondary market but could not evoke buyer interest owing to the political implications of being associated with Russia, which is engaged in a fierce war with Ukraine. 

Sistema Asia’s parent company is headquartered in Russia.

Also Read: ‘The era of easy money is over’: VCs speak of funding winter and exit landscape in Southeast Asia

Tay quit as Sistema Asia CEO amidst this crisis and is currently an Associate Professor with the UNITAR (the UN Institute of Training and Research). UNITAR provides innovative learning solutions to individuals, organisations and institutions to enhance global decision-making and support country-level action for shaping a better future.

“From Sequoia Capital to SoftBank, many VCs have already announced an investment freeze because the outlook looks very negative,” Tay said in an interview with e27. “Therefore, top VCs, including Sistema Asia, have to relook at their portfolio companies’ valuations as part of the fiduciary role as a fund manager. Looking at some of the portfolio companies, deciding whether they should keep some of them because there’s still potential despite the negative outlook, and investing their capital to support them through this crisis are the areas they are currently looking at.”

He further remarked different VCs have different outlooks on portfolios and valuation. Top-tier VCs will look at how best to protect Limited Partners’ interests and help them recycle their hard-earned capital in this hostile environment. “They also have a different perspective on how the global economy, especially the regional economy, will move and how they ultimately affect their portfolio valuations. So I believe the fund managers now have their task cut out.”

Established in 1993, Sistema Asia Capital (part of Russian investor Sistema) invests in telecom, utilities, retail, high-tech, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, railway transportation, agriculture, finance, mass media, and tourism. It has invested in over a dozen companies, primarily in India, including Qwikcilver (acquired by Pine Labs), Licious, Lendingkart, Faasos, netmeds (acquired by Reliance Retail), Uniphore, and Seclore.

‘2023 is a watershed moment’

Tay also said 2023 would be a watershed moment for the VC investment industry. There has been an increased tendency to focus on sustainability-related investments because of the global pandemic and fundraising challenges. Over the last 36 months, ESG-related investments have grown to about 11-12 per cent across the entire classes of venture capital globally. 

“Many foreign portfolio companies are also being reevaluated because globally, consumers (young and old) demand that manufacturers and producers build products using less energy so that they tax the planet less. They also demand companies carry green labels on their products,” Tay said. 

Listed companies with a clear sustainability action plan are rewarded with higher valuations and stock prices simply because they solve world problems. At the same time, organisations that don’t release credible sustainability reports with their annual reports are being marked down by many global retail and institutional investors. 

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

“In the past, many VCs and startups used artificial intelligence to solve different pain points. They now use the same deeptech in artificial intelligence, quantum mechanics and data analytics to solve practical sustainability-related issues. Such companies are being rewarded with revenues and contracts by the markets,” Tay continued. 

Southeast Asia has also been supportive of sustainability efforts. Six of the ten countries in the region, including Singapore, have clear sustainability policies. The Singapore green plan, conceived in 2020, already has an offshoot of more than 20 plans at different agency levels. “Singapore also has energy plans for 2050, green bonds programmes, and enterprise sustainability programmes to support startups and founders who want to learn more about sustainability,” he concluded. 

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Indonesian cybersecurity-as-a-service startup Peris.ai has raised an undisclosed sum in funding led by East Ventures, with participation from Magic Fund.

The startup will use the money to build and enhance its cybersecurity platform, train Machine Learning and AI capabilities, and nurture the ethical hacker community. Peris is supported by a community of more than 1,200 ethical hackers.

Also Read: ‘From a cybersecurity perspective, the Asian market still uses legacy tools’

“With constantly evolving cybersecurity threats and how there has been a significant increase in reliance on technology and connected devices, the potential for cyber attacks is more significant than ever. We believe Peris.ai is at the forefront in providing the right data protection solutions for every business and individual,” said David Samuel, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Peris.ai

Peris.ai was co-founded by David Samuel (CEO), Co-Founder and former CTO of Ritase.com and its former Cybersecurity Head Deden Gobel.

Peris.ai offers its solution as a subscription-based service with different pricing tiers based on the organisation’s needs. It also provides a specialised SaaS-based platform for high-risk industries and companies with complex IT infrastructures.

All the services are performed with the advanced technologies and the expertise of Peris.ai’s cybersecurity consultants and software engineers to ensure maximum protection. It comprises 13 highly skilled individuals with in-depth knowledge and expertise in cybersecurity and software engineering.

Peris.ai claims it has recorded a minimum of 20 per cent month-over-month growth in monthly recurring revenue (MRR).

Also Read: watchTowr can tell an organisation in real time if it can get compromised

“The advancement of technology should be followed by strong data protection. An organisation’s security level is no stronger than its weakest spot. It requires a holistic approach, including local relevancy. We believe Peris.ai is building cyber security solutions based on local and regional needs,” said Willson Cuaca, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at East Ventures.

The co-founders’ previous startup Ritase provided a trucking services platform in Indonesia. In 2019, it raised US$8.5 million in Series A funding led by Golden Gate Ventures, with participation from Jafco Asia, ZWC Ventures Insignia Ventures Partners, Beenext, and Skystar Capital.

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Fundraising or preparing your startup for fundraising? Build your investor network, search from 400+ SEA investors on e27, and get connected or get insights regarding fundraising. Try e27 Pro for free today.

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An agile, speedy and proud animal, the rabbit can leap over obstacles and maintain its pace as it navigates the complex landscapes it finds itself in. A symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity in the Chinese Zodiac, the year of the rabbit is a timely token for the digital payments industry.

Yet, in the midst of the Lunar New Year celebrations, we find ourselves facing a challenging landscape. Inflation is rising rapidly, Singapore, for example, has introduced a higher rate of GST, and in the tech sector, we see a wave of layoffs as some of the world’s largest tech firms grapple with staying on course in the face of post-Covid corrections.

However, it’s not all bad news. The fintech industry is expected to see significant growth in Asia this year, and current predictions suggest the global payments revenue – which APAC accounted for over 50 per cent of in 2021 – will top US$3 trillion by 2026. As we leap over the economic challenges, there’s a lush landscape of opportunities for the tech and payment sectors across the APAC region to graze on.

Challenges present a hotbed for innovation

As the retail sector becomes even more competitive, transcending borders and channels, merchants and enterprises are fighting to get the attention of consumers, wherever they may be.

But, as the digital payments rabbit leaps through this competitive landscape, it must remember the lesson from that well-known fable – it mustn’t stop to rest on its laurels and be outdone by the slow and steady tortoise, but instead, it must innovate to maintain pace throughout this year. Innovation and creativity thrive in difficult environments, so we should expect great things this year.

One area where we can expect to see creative use cases is Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) systems across the B2B industries. Due to the larger and more expensive purchases involved in the case of corporates, it can be challenging to implement a BNPL system for B2B transactions.

Also Read: How to scale up your DTC game with payments

However, as more SMEs turn to BNPL for their zero per cent interest rates, we can expect businesses will take the leap to integrate BNPL systems to attract more customers in the current environment.

Across the APAC region, BNPL has continued to surge in popularity with consumers, evolving to become Live Now Pay Later (LNPL). When money is tight, consumers want to spread their costs for new work wardrobes, flights for their next escape, or even routine health and dental costs. We can expect consumer payment trends like BNPL and LNPL to continue to evolve, with entrants into the APAC market likely to come from China and the US.

Alongside BNPL, new digital wallet functionality often combined with Embedded Finance services and apps will appear on the scene, paving the way for merchants, enterprises, and payment service providers to offer customers unrivalled and highly personalised payment experiences.

Where innovation grows, it is vital that regulation must follow, particularly in the payments industry where trust is of paramount importance. We have already witnessed active regulators over the last year in the region with the BNPL space and the crypto industry, protecting consumers whilst promoting innovation.

Digital banks on the rise

In a market that is forward-thinking from a digitalisation standpoint, it’s surprising to see that digital banking is a concept that has seen a slow introduction into the region up until now. Popular for some time in the US and Europe, in 2023, we will likely see digital banks surge in popularity across the APAC region.

This will throw incumbent banks into a state of disruption in which they need to compete against offers of shopping rebates, improved interest rates, and sign-up bonuses, as well as greater convenience and the streamlined interfaces of digital banks.

Also Read: What the payments industry should consider when preparing for the holiday season

However, traditional banks are leaping towards the same opportunities as their fintech counterparts, increasing their offerings and stalling digital banks from winning the race for now. It will be exciting to see how the new and old players battle it out this year in the hopes that this will also spur innovation in the banking sector.

Hopping into the metaverse

Could this be the year that most of us take our first jump into the metaverse? Shifting our perspective on reality, big tech companies and financial institutions are foraging for their pixelated piece of the metaverse, which is estimated to be worth over a trillion dollars by 2024.

In December, Indonesia’s central bank (BI) announced plans to use the digital Rupiah to buy products in the metaverse in the future. Many central banks around the world are also developing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for use in the metaverse.

This emerging technology could have a transformative impact on APAC economies, with the metaverse having the potential to have its own digital economy with integrated payments and an avenue for commerce.

Though it is still in its dawning stage of development, countries such as China and South Korea are already ahead of others when it comes to adoption rates and regulatory stances on developing and integrating the metaverse.

Hopefully, other markets in APAC will mirror these steps, and we’ll see collaboration between regulators and industry players as we journey towards making the metaverse the next big transactional channel.

Whilst the year of the tiger promised adventure and bravery – as well as an element of cruelty which we saw play out in 2022 – the year of the rabbit promises to be a bumper one for the APAC payment market.

With innovation, the rapid advancement of digital payments, and new technological experiences presenting endless opportunities for those that seize them, I am left wishing you and the payments industry gong he xin xi (good luck in the year ahead).

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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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Early-stage Philippine VC firm Foxmont Capital Partners has announced the close of its Fund II at US$21.3 million.

Notable institutional investors participated, including Singapore-based Pavilion Capital, Taiwan-based AppWorks, and Netherlands-based Orient Growth.

Also Read: Fund managers have their task cut out right now: Edward Tay

The newly raised fund brings Foxmont’s total net asset value to over US$30 million across both funds.

With Fund II, Foxmont Capital will continue investing in Philippine-focused and Filipino-founded early-stage startups that have proven to scale effectively and lead the Philippine digital evolution.

The VC firm made the first close of Fund II in November 2021 with US$12 million in committed capital.

The Philippines, with a population of 113 million, is an attractive destination for venture capital. In 2022, local startups raised US$1.1 billion, exceeding the US$1.03 billion amount raised in 2021.

The country is experiencing continued GDP growth momentum and is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets globally, according to a Google-commissioned report.

Foxmont believes that the Philippines is among the most technologically advanced emerging markets, ripe for digital innovation.

Over 60 million Filipinos are actively utilising fintech solutions paving the way for sustainable adoption of other digital solutions across varying sectors.

Also Read: Monde Nissin CEO backs Foxmont Capital’s initial close of US$20M Fund II

Founded in 2018, Foxmont Capital has invested in 31 startups, including live-streaming app Kumu, vertical e-commerce player edamama, D2C beauty brand Colourette, stock trading platform Ztock, and digital ledger and PoS app Peddlr.

“We look forward to continuing our investment track record, scouring the Philippine market for great entrepreneurs, and empowering them to build Filipino solutions to Filipino problems,” said Franco Varona, Managing Partner of Foxmont Capital Partners.

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Web4, also known as Web 4.0, is a term used to describe the next generation of the World Wide Web. It is a vision of an intelligent, decentralised web that is more secure, private, and equitable than the current web.

Web4 is built on the following key principles:

• Decentralisation: power and decision-making are distributed among multiple participants rather than being centralised with a few large tech companies.
• Interoperability: devices and services can work together seamlessly, regardless of their underlying technology.
• Self-sovereignty: users have control over their data and identities and are able to use them across different services without the need for a central authority.
• Privacy: users’ data is protected and kept private, rather than being collected and sold by companies.
• Transparency: users are aware of how their data is being used and have the ability to control it.

Web4 aims to provide a more secure and private web, where users have more control over their data and how it’s used. It also aims to create a more equitable web, where access to information and services is not limited by wealth or location.

Also Read: ‘The Axie hacking reminds us of the importance of a decentralisation network’

Web4 is still a concept, and many experts believe that it is still in the development stage. Some of the technologies that are being developed to make Web4 a reality include blockchain, peer-to-peer networks, and decentralised AI.

The Symbiotic Web

The Symbiotic Web is a concept that envisions a decentralised and distributed web where users have more control over their data and privacy. The idea is to create a web where users can share their data with other users or services in a secure and mutually beneficial way rather than having their data controlled by a central authority.

The Symbiotic Web is based on the idea of a web of relationships between users, devices, and services, where each participant has their own autonomy and agency. The goal of the Symbiotic Web is to create a web that is more resilient, secure, and fair for everyone by giving users more control over their data and how it is used.

The Symbiotic Web is built on several key principles, including:

• Decentralisation: power and decision-making are distributed among multiple participants
• Interoperability: devices and services can work together seamlessly
• Self-sovereignty: users have control over their data and identities
• Privacy: users’ data is protected and kept private
• Transparency: users are aware of how their data is being used

AI and the Symbiotic Web

To me, Web4 and the Symbiotic Web are relatively new concepts, and they are closely interlinked in many ways.

The Symbiotic Web is a concept that envisions a decentralised and distributed web where users have more control over their data and privacy. The idea is that users can share their data with other users or services on the web in a secure and mutually beneficial way.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can play a role in achieving decentralisation in the Symbiotic Web by allowing for more sophisticated and decentralised decision-making. For example, AI algorithms can be used to analyse and make decisions on data shared by multiple users in a decentralised network without the need for a central authority.

Also Read: Decentralised identities: Revolutionising access management practices

One way that AI and the Symbiotic Web can work together is through the use of decentralised AI models. These models are trained on decentralised data and can be shared and used by multiple users in the network. This allows for more accurate and personalised AI services while also maintaining user privacy and control over their data.

Another way is through the use of decentralised AI protocols. These protocols allow users to share and collaborate on AI models and data in a decentralised network without the need for a central authority. This can lead to more accurate and robust AI models, as well as more equitable access to AI services for all users.

Final thoughts

AI and the Symbiotic Web are considered to be key technologies that are driving the development of Web4, the next generation of the World Wide Web.

AI has the potential to enable more sophisticated and decentralised decision-making on the Symbiotic Web by allowing for the analysis of data shared by multiple users in a decentralised network without the need for a central authority. This can lead to more accurate and personalised services while also maintaining user privacy and control over their data.

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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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I am a firm believer in the power of personalisation in education. Education is not a one size fits all model, and there is extensive evidence to suggest that learning should be tailored to the needs of each individual.

According to a report, “over 80 per cent of teachers, parents, and students want exactly what personalised education – the holy grail of education can offer.” Specifically, this means getting a quality education where students can work at their own pace and be their own benchmark to maximise their potential. What makes this more possible now is technology.

Before 2020, online learning was still considered a niche offering more suited for adults pursuing higher education or professional training. Few parents saw it as a viable option for young children. Suddenly, global school closures at the height of the pandemic accelerated the adoption of edutech across all ages as everyone scrambled to seek solutions to overcome these unprecedented learning disruptions.

Even as pandemic restrictions loosened and students went back to school, the innovations in edutech created numerous opportunities for flexible learning; we observed that many families still want online options for education – especially for enrichment classes.

Expanding access to education

Advances in technology have made it possible to learn anything from anywhere. Language learning has been a game changer for students where world languages are not taught as part of the standard curriculum.

For example, American students typically do not start learning a second language until high school, and they are often only limited to Spanish and French. But now, kids as young as three years old can start learning Mandarin Chinese with a professional teacher in China and take that class anytime, anywhere. They are no longer limited to the resources available to them locally.

Personalising the process

Language learning, in particular, should be tailored to individual learning needs. For beginners, the focus lies in building the foundation of the language. But for younger students, the key is to make learning fun. This is why gamification, animated storytelling, and other interactive multimedia can make lessons so much more engaging and effective.

There are also two different levels of beginners to consider: heritage learners with some exposure to a language through their family and non-heritage learners who are starting as a blank slate. Though both beginners, their starting points are very different. For heritage learners, our programme is designed for kids who can already understand and speak. While we take an immersive approach for non-heritage students, we ease them into the language at a slower pace.

Also Read: In this age of digitalisation, is edutech a bane or boon for educators?

That said, both programmes apply the same principles. Games and animations are used to engage students to learn a rigorous curriculum that’s pegged to globally recognised syllabi. This seamless blend of content and instruction in a virtual classroom is what makes our language learning platform effective.

Flexible solutions with edutech

Similarly, hybrid learning allows students a different kind of flexibility. Students can develop cognitively, socially, and emotionally through in-classroom learning while complementing this with online coursework that’s tailored to suit their individual learning needs.

In Singapore, we offer a hybrid learning programme for learning Chinese called LingoAce Blended Learning. It allows students to learn at their own pace in a manner that best suits their learning style.

From our online interactive platform, they can access learning materials wherever they are and whenever they need them. On the weekend, students can join in-person classes where they can interact with a teacher and classmates in person, which helps reinforce what they’ve learned on their own.

For some students, the accessibility, personalisation, and flexibility of hybrid learning can be a more sustainable and efficient learning experience.

Personalisation is the future

The future is about personalising educational experiences, building instruction from student passions and capacities, helping to personalise their learning and assessment in ways that foster engagement and talents, and ultimately encouraging students to be ingenious.

To date, LingoAce has taught more than 100 countries and regions. Each of our students is on their own unique journey, where learning is tailored to individual learning styles and lifestyles, maximising learning outcomes.

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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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Sharina Khan is the Lead Consultant and Experience Designer at Thoughtworks, with six years of experience in this domain and over ten years in Product Design and Development as a practitioner and educator.

She is actively involved in the Design Community, conducting design, business and innovation workshops, classes and events with a focus on educating and sharing design methodologies to better engage both designers and non-designers in co-creation activities.

Khan continually updates her skills with industry-specific tools in a technology-driven and experience-based economy. She is a regular contributor of articles for e27 (you can read her thought leadership articles here).

In this candid interview, she talks about her personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

I help people do things better and faster with their phones and computers.

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

Switching careers and going back to school to sharpen my UX skills after being a lecturer. While losing financial freedom was initially tough, reskilling was a worthwhile investment.

How do you envision the next five years of your career?

At the larger design community level, I do enjoy mentoring. I’m still teaching part-time to design students in a polytechnic, which allows me to keep engaged with our youths and work with them to ensure they’re equipped with industry-relevant skills.

Also Read: Being a first-class listener will serve you best: Jon Howard of Bud Communications

Professionally, I want to see myself playing more of an advisory role at work, where I can play a significant impact in shaping projects from a strategic level. I have a keen interest in the social sector to see how we can work on proactive actions. As Benjamin Franklin said, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.

What are some of your favourite work tools?

Pen and paper — I know it’s very traditional, but I think faster, and it helps me mentally engage with the information better.

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

What might surprise most people is that I’m a proud mother of three who still loves the adrenaline of speed and fast cars! 

On top of that, taking the risk to switch careers and upskill while juggling motherhood is the most surprising thing about my job. It only speaks to the work-life balance at Thoughtworks and how nurturing and inspiring the culture is here through all the opportunities it has provided me.

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

I prefer hybrid work.

Where brainstorming and discussions are needed, I prefer having them face-to-face as it tends to be more productive and dynamic. You get things done much faster, reducing the need to go back and forth.

Also, I love the use of big whiteboards in the office for such discussions – for me, it sparks creativity through a more hands-on approach. I prefer working from home for work where I’m required to have a greater focus time.

Also Read: Chart your own path, for the future is what you make it: Rachel Lau of RHL Ventures

However, whenever I need to map out my thought process or complex business flows, I’ll still head to the office, book a room with a whiteboard and start mapping my thoughts visually. I need to see how things connect.

I approach work differently depending on the nature of my tasks, so I split my time between the office and home. Therefore, the hybrid working arrangement is my most productive and preferred working style.

What would you tell your younger self?

Be hungrier and bolder to explore a variety of industries.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Eager, passionate and a risk taker.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

Travelling the world, exploring various cultures and cuisines.

What are you currently reading/listening to/ watching?

I love binging on European investigative films, as I see a lot of relevance to my work. As designers, we are constantly trying to uncover underlying issues, connecting the dots through mapping out journeys and interviewing users, similar to the work of detectives and investigators.

In parallel, I have also been reading about the various milestones of my child. Four months ago, we welcomed a new addition to our family, so it helps to refresh my memory as I go through the different stages of motherhood all over again.

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The theme of social impact is taking over the centre stage in the Southeast Asian (SEA) tech startup ecosystem this year, with social enterprises being in the spotlight, but challenges remain for companies that are working in the sector.

While some of the challenges that they are facing are relevant to startups in any vertical, there are some specific problems that they face that require a tailored approach.

To uncover the issue and its possible solutions, e27 reaches out to some of the startups that have participated in the first cohort of Sustainable Impact Accelerator, a programme jointly organised by the Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise (raiSE) and venture capital firm Quest Ventures.

These three startups –SoundEye, The Posture Lab, and ACKTEC Technologies– reveal the challenges that they are going through and how taking part in the programme can help them tackle them.

The two most pressing issues

When asked by e27, the three companies agree that balancing social impact and generating revenue remains the top challenges they face as social impact startups.

Also Read: How are NFTs contributing in creating a social impact?

SoundEye –a social enterprise that provides a range of innovative and smart safety solutions that seek to protect, secure, and monitor– stresses that it is especially hard during the pandemic when the company must find ways to survive.

To address this, SoundEye finds ways to reduce the cost of goods sold. The easiest way is to innovate and use affordable components – and we are not referring to using an inferior product. For example, we use a single microprocessor to perform sound recognition and vision analytics instead of two. Doing so reduces the hardware cost and better organises how our back-end system works. We also removed the need for gateways, servers, expensive networks, and cloud computing that leads to cost reduction for our customers,” says Dr Tan Yeow Kee, Founder of SoundEye.

“By doing all these, we can keep our solution affordable and generate social impact without burning a big hole in our customers’ wallets. SoundEye is always finding ways how we can achieve more with less,” Dr Tan stresses.

A similar approach was done by ACKTEC Technologies, an edutech company focused on creating an immersive learning environment that is affordable and accessible to low-income students in Southeast Asia.

“Balancing impact creation while at the same time ensuring a profit is one of the greatest challenges. We believe in making quality education affordable and accessible to all, which is a key differentiating factor between our competitors and us,” says Rayvan Ho, Founder and CEO of ACKTEC Technologies.

“Hence, even though there are short-term costs involved in impact creation (i.e. keeping the product affordable to students from low-income backgrounds), we are here for the long term. As such, we are strategic in our spending decisions and social impact creation to create more value in the long run.”

Also Read: A better way to make impact: Why we decided to start a social impact network

For Posture Lab, which runs an in-studio and posture training for diverse users, including persons with disability, revenue and impact are something that is inseparable.

“Oftentimes, others place their focus on revenue and impact separately. However, in our case we want to create impact seamlessly together with revenue generation. Though it may sound impossible, technology makes it more accessible and easier to work with demographics that may not have access to these services,” explains Emile Dumont, Founder-CEO of Posture Lab.

“In today’s economic situation, we focus strongly on a B2B model and run initiatives where customers will be part of the impact loop. Apart from ensuring that our training and app offers are inclusive for people with diverse needs, we are also planning to provide subsidised services for persons from low-income backgrounds when we launch our app.”

What investors can do

Quest Ventures shares its insights on the biggest challenges faced by startups in the social impact sector.

“Startups will face the challenge of balancing impact creation and business growth, aligning expectations of stakeholders and business partners, and getting their investors to better understand how impact can translate into enterprise value,” says James Tan, Managing Partner at Quest Ventures.

“With sustainability coming into focus in these few years, the challenge may be slowly mitigating, but investors should put teeth in their commitment to sustainability and impact by actually investing in and supporting the growth of impact-driven startups … Together with our local and international partners in the startup investment ecosystems and social sectors, we are able to support the startups in expanding beyond the local market and pulling together resources to replicate and scale.”

Also Read: Startups should work with corporates to achieve balance between social impact, sustainability: Arcadis

Its collaboration with raiSE is an example of the initiative that it set up to support startups in the social impact sector.

Founded in 2015, raiSE aims to develop the social enterprise sector in Singapore by providing financing options, capacity building, and mentorship to startups in the relevant sector.

Since 2022, it has partnered with Quest Ventures to launch the Sustainable Impact Accelerator which is described as Asia’s first venture capital-backed accelerator programme for social enterprises.

Alfie Othman, CEO of Singapore Centre for Social Enterprise, raiSE, explains the challenges that social impact companies are facing: “According to a study on The State of Social Enterprise in Singapore that raiSE conducted in partnership with the British Council in 2021, the top three challenges faced by social enterprises are customer acquisition and market development, access to financial support, and building internal capabilities.”

The accelerator aims to help social impact companies by providing startups with funding of up to S$50,000, access to mentors from world-class partners and investors, and valuable insights on business and social topics from industry experts.

The ten-week programme has recently opened applications for the second cohort of its programme.

“We continue to partner with Quest Ventures to provide promising, socially impactful startups with the support they need to improve their competencies and access regional and global markets for the second cohort of the accelerator this year. The Sustainable Impact Accelerator’s first cohort has proven successful – with companies pitching to over 2,000 investors, corporates, and government organisations within the programme’s first three months. We are always heartened to see participants benefit from the programme, whether it be scaling their business, growing their impact, or gaining footholds in new markets,” says Othman.

Also Read: Startups should work with corporates to achieve balance between social impact, sustainability: Arcadis

“Together with our partners and the Quest ecosystem, we look to identify and support regional champions with purpose and profit as their core engines of growth. We invite international social impact startups looking to pilot in Singapore and leverage it as a launchpad to Southeast Asia to join us in their next phase of growth,” Tan closes.

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Image Credit: Quest Ventures

 

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