He has released a statement that having GOJEK in Malaysia can support the livelihood of local motorcyclist group

Ride-hailing-turned-everyday app unicorn from Indonesia gojek has received an endorsement from Malaysian Youth Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, who said in a Twitter video that he intends to bring gojek to the country.

DealStreetAsia reported that the minister believed that having the startup operating in Malaysia can help support the livelihood of local motorcyclist group.

“They need to be defended, they need jobs – that’s a more pressing issue. That is why I met with the founder of gojek, Nadiem Makarim, who have helped create jobs for over two million motorcyclists in Indonesia and hundred thousand more in Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam,” he stated.

The minister further explained that he had met with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Transport Minister Anthony Loke and gained a positive result from the presentation.

The discussion will be finalised in the upcoming cabinet meeting on Wednesday, August 21.

Also Read: GOJEK, Astra launch all-in vehicle maintenance service GOFLEET

Ride-hailing in Malaysia

 

The statement by the Youth Minister rolled despite Malaysian government ‘s ban of ride-hailing startup Dego Ride services, which also provides motorcycle taxi service.

In September last year, Loke reportedly had said that the government will not hesitate to take action against Dego Ride if it continues to operate illegally. The ministry also maintains its stance against motorcycle ride-hailing services, mainly for safety reasons.

In the Twitter video, Youth Minister Syed Saddiq also explained that his support will not only go to gojek, emphasising the need for a “condusive ecosystem.”

e27 has reached out to gojek to get their statement on the expansion plan.

gojek has launched and operated in Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore, and had identified Malaysia, Myanmar, and Cambodia as its next expansion target.

Meanwhile, the unicorn’s effort to enter the Philippines has not been successful due to its failure to meet local ownership criteria.

Just last month, e27 reported that gojek has released its new logo to mark its “further innovation and the strengthening of its integrated ecosystem of over 20 on-demand services”.

Malaysia is the home of Grab, gojek’s main competition. Recently, the country releases new regulations that required all e-hailing drivers to acquire a public service vehicle (PSV) licence.

—

Image Credit: Twitter.com/@SyedSaddiq

The post Malaysian youth minister to bring gojek into Malaysia appeared first on e27.

By being a good human, great leadership comes next if the good human in question makes a conscious choice to be a great leader you want the shortcut to becoming a great leader?

No three steps here.

No five different guides.

Just one single idea.

Let’s stop thinking about employee engagement. Ditch the “Top 10 Traits of Being A Leader”. Push those thoughts you have away after reading a book on leadership by Simon Sinek.

No matter what kind of leader you are and who you are leading, the context does not matter. Great leaders exist in every field and industry, from your college football team to the data team at Google.

Each discipline demands different traits and management skillsets—albeit fluid. Yet it is always centralised around a specific type of blend—but the critical point does not come in how “much” of a specific trait we are.

Many successful leaders today all began with similar foundations: it is through years of exercising and flexing the leadership muscle that led to their success. Talent is overrated here; leadership is something that can be developed and grown over time, according to The Leadership Quarterly.

Like training a muscle, we all begin somewhere.

In fitness, the fundamentals must be learned correctly and solidified before complex exercises and programs can be incorporated.

Scott Laidler, the personal trainer for The Fantastic Beasts cast, emphasised how important getting the right form is. Poor technique can cause a lot of damage in the long haul.

The locus of leadership lies in the fundamentals.

Leadership has so many positive connotations: many people have different images of what leadership looks like. Some can have heroic images. Others tie it very closely to someone dear in their life, be it in the workplace or within their circle.

Regardless of what image it is, we all know what a good leader is like.

There are charismatic leaders who seem to dazzle everyone with his authenticity and strong character.

There are leaders who seem to be perpetually patient and tolerant: she only wants you to succeed, and she wants to help you. Sincerity pulls through all the time.

Here’s the big question: what do all these great leaders share that makes them great in the first place?

It’s not that they are charismatic: some leaders are introverted and hate talking on stage. We don’t see every single C-suite in the company give a keynote, right?

It’s also not that they are patient: some leaders want results, fast. They hold that to a strict standard. Not everyone is that tolerant of mistakes.

In their very own sense and with a unique blend within every one of them, these leaders are fundamentally good humans before they were great leaders.

Are humans even good in the first place?

Humans spent hundreds and thousands of years spent walking on the earth. Science has spoken: we still suck.

Even when there are a plethora of philosophies marked by tens of thousands of years in thought, human nature remains a contentious issue—especially the inherent goodness in people.

For centuries, psychologists have attempted to dig deep into the brains of humans, trying to understand why we do certain things and what sort of things will we do when left to our own devices.

A joint study in 2014 by Harvard University and the University of Virginia showed that we’d much rather electrocute ourselves—literally—than to contemplate in our thoughts for 6–15 minutes.

Within the myriad of different research studies that psychologists have done, one of the most significant issues is on the inherent nature of humanity: are we inherently good or bad? This is a fundamental question that provided fodder for discussion.

Also Read: The big data heroes of today: citizen data scientists

Thomas Hobbes, a 16th Century philosopher, wrote Leviathan and argued that humans were savagely self-centred.

Widely thought as the first autobiography in the Western world, the Confessions of St. Augustine, contained proclamations that all people were born “broken and selfish”. Sigmund Freud also argued that human nature is fundamentally selfish—violence is a feature—not by error or mistake—of humanity.

Philosophical arguments aside, empirical data also showed different sides of human nature.

Our belief in karma led to many of us willing to blame the underprivileged, impoverished, diseased and stricken people for their own fate.

A-Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences study in 2018 showed that we enjoy schadenfreude at only six years old. Children are literally capable of understanding and enjoying punishment being enacted.

Perhaps Freud was right with his theory on human nature: a study in 2016 by the American Psychology Association showed that preschool children expect reciprocation when they know someone is indebted to them.

In addition, we begin dehumanising people who belong to an outgroup (those belonging to people who live in a different city or who are of a different gender than the child) when we are five years old.

With a plethora of dispiriting findings and controversial studies like Asch’s, Zimbardo’s and Milgram’s, here’s the kicker: humanity is good.

Philip Zimbardo is famous for his Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). “When you put good apples in a bad situation, you get bad apples,” said Zimbardo, who had to prematurely stop the study after the ‘guards’ became overwhelmingly sadistic and tyrannical.

This 1971 study showed that people can be corrupt with power—unless of course, there was manipulation involved to make that happen, which formed the main bulk of the criticism against the SPE.

It turns out, that’s false.

Haslam responds to Zimbardo’s defence of his work with the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Dr. David Amodio (Assoc. Prof @ NYU), talking about the SPE as a fraud.

Diving deep into the archives of recordings during the SPE, Alex Haslam of the University of Queensland noted the power of identity leadership at play here: Zimbardo manipulated the guards with his assistant. The British Psychological Society refuted his original claims in a 2002 replication of the SPE known as the BBC Prison Experiment that people were reluctant to accept their roles so readily.

The difference between the replication and the original?

The experimenters in the 2002 study only ensured that moral and ethical standards were kept. There were no suggestions or leadership involved: it was all unobtrusive observation from the sidelines.

What about Milgram? Famous for the shock experiment in the 1960s, Stanley Milgram conducted a study where he had a ‘scientist’ encourage a participant to give a deadly electric shock to another participant.

The conclusion? People can go crazy with the shocks (participants went from giving 150-volts to 450-volts) and humans are prone to be blindly obedient—which therefore encouraged a shocking feature of human nature.

A joint study by the University of Wisconsin and University of Siegen showed something different: these participants realised that the experiments were not dangerous at all.

72 per cent of participants made claims that suggested they realised the experiments posed no danger to the other participants at least once in their post-experiment interview.

The conclusion is clear: these dispiriting studies are not enough to disprove the empirical research on the fundamental goodness of a human being.

The reality is, humans are capable of both good and evil.

“A fight is going on inside me,” he says to the boy. “It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One is evil — he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good — he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith. The same fight is going on inside you — and every other person too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.”

Also Read: Heading towards global success: a combination of multilingual SEO with localisation

Psychologist Steven K. Baum cited an old Native American tale in his book, The Psychology of Genocide which showed the duality of human nature.

Man can be both wonderfully good and disgustingly bad. The unique nature of mankind is predicated on the plethora of external factors like upbringing, living environment, trauma, and past experiences, which shapes many people when they arrive in adulthood.

Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that Man is inherently peaceful but corrupted by society. In contrast, Thomas Hobbes saw mankind as inherently violent but civilised by the community—in this case, we are simultaneously both “naturally peaceful” and “naturally violent”.

While a paradox, it is clear that how cooperative or selfish we are is different within each individual and hinges on a myriad of genetic and environmental influences.

Consider this: if there was a software capable of quantifying how much of a ‘trait’ we possess, every individual would differ even in the decimal points.

Good humans in leadership

The jury is out—for a long time—on how humanity has survived as a whole: we are a community species.

We thrive when we rely on cooperation, which forms the core of Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last. By intuition, we are cooperative, according to a Harvard University study in 2012.

So, the verdict is out: humans are good, and we need each other.

Here’s the question then: what traits go into being a great leader?

Fundamentally, human nature is already such a contentious issue and therefore, by default, so are the extensions of it.

However, rather than focusing on what goes into the blend, leaders need to focus on the fundamentals. The core belief here is that the locus of effective leadership lies in being a good human.

The locus of effective leadership lies in being a good human.

Bringing back to the point on how leadership can be trained, being good humans allow leaders to train a lot faster.

The reality is that many of the leadership qualities that Forbes, Entrepreneur.com and other authors champion are easily reconciled with the fundamentals of being a decent human being.

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

Good humans in leadership

Good humans care about the survival of the tribe, tapping on innate interdependency. Great leaders, therefore, carry that throughout: it is the team that needs to survive, not just one person.

As mentioned before, we are innately cooperative.

Great leaders tap on this instinct to be inclusive. It is a focus on teamwork and group effort.

Fundamentally, good humans would want to do good for one another—as it is the unique human trait of being altruistic. This traces back to the origin of humanity—creating value without having reciprocation.

Good humans tap on their desire to assist and help other people. Great leaders make full use of such desire, giving up time and putting into helping their team in solving problems and building projects.

The key here is that they see the benefit in having their teams grow: and that in itself is a form of “good-human leadership”.

However, great leadership is a multivariate existence as well, with leaders having their unique blends of traits and qualities.

As an innovative genius, Steve Jobs once gave a legendary commencement speech in 2005. On the other hand, Elon Musk is notably bad at public speaking—which he readily admitted as well.

Great leaders share different traits in different compositions. What is more significant here is context: what is the work at hand here? What kind of qualities does it demand and what is the team most receptive to?

Also Read: 5 steps to write an appealing first email to a potential client

Leaders must understand their team to shape their leadership decisions. By extension, good human beings would willingly empathise and understand other human beings contextually close to them.

There is no clear, obvious answer as to “what makes a great leader”. Instead, the answer to “what is the first step to becoming a great leader” is glaringly obvious here; being a good human, at our core, is key to practising great, effective leadership.

Like great leadership, the composition of traits in a good human is also multivariate.

However, the focus is not on what goes into the composition, but on the fundamental idea that being a good human is critical to the success of a leader.

How can we truly comprehend the idea of being a good human, then, if there are so many variants of it?

That is where external factors and experiences unique to ourselves, come in. They are the ones that shape the fundamentals and decide the blend.

Again, it is really about understanding the person across the table, fully embracing every flaw and strength, choosing positivity over anything.

When we think of leaders, the common examples might be Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela.

They are people who inspired a movement and created deep, profound change in their environments. They lead differently, with differing compositions of charisma and ideologies.

However, these are “heroes” — in our current day and age, such heroes are few and far in between.

We recognise a hero when we see one. It is not critical for every leader to be a hero: what we should focus on is the impact that we can have on the lives of those who are close to us.

Great leadership is not about being a hero.

It is about the matrimony between leadership, humanity, and management. It is a delicate blend between a timeless concept and reality. We ground our ideals in leadership with facts like the job at hand, the team members’ unique combination of attitudes and traits.

Also Read: How to make gender equality training work

There are a million guides to being a great leader, with a million more books and theories on how we can practise great leadership.

There are people who write about being a good human as a composition of traits we “should practise” as if goodness is a muscle that needs to be trained and flexed consistently like leadership.

Being a good human is a call for high-level self-awareness. It is a total reconciliation with oneself, coupled with the comprehension of why being a good human is critical to ourselves and the people around us.

Regardless of the environment and experience that you have, when you are a good human being, all you need to do to become a great leader is to make a conscious choice to be a good human being every single moment, with every single person.

That is how great leaders can stay consistently great, regardless of the tides.

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Katherine Chase

 

 

 

 

The post Before becoming a great leader, become a good human first appeared first on e27.

The comfort of a home poses many distractions. Here’s how to overcome them and achieve maximum productivity

Working from home seems to be a dream. You don’t have to spend time and money for commuting, you can cuddle with your cat or play guitar in pauses, and you (usually) have a flexible schedule that allows you to combine work with hobbies, studies and other activities.

But sooner or later, any remote employee faces the problems that make it look not so attractive. Literally, you are surrounded by the worst enemies of productivity and efficiency. Distractions, procrastination, losing connection to your coworkers – all this is extremely disruptive for your work and career.

So, how to work from home and stay productive – and successful?

Dream come true? Not exactly

Home is a place where you’re busy even when you are not doing anything particular. As easy as it can seem first, fighting everything that gets in the way requires discipline and effort. Sometimes much more discipline than an office employee needs.

Problems that telecommuters face are pretty much the same. And the first step to tackle them is identifying them. So, what are the enemies of your success at work?

• Distractions. Home is full of distractions, and let alone TV and the Internet – household chores, even small and fun ones, are consuming your workday. Doing laundry, watering flowers, organizing closets during your workday seems to be a great idea: you switch off from work for a while and do something useful. But many of remote employees end up using this as an excuse for not doing their actual work.

• No consistent schedule. If you’re working shifts — for example in support — you have a regular schedule. What a blessing! The other side of flexibility is that you are tempted to put everything off for later. Later turns out to be a late night, and you find yourself working on pending tasks instead of having a good night’s rest. This results in accumulated tiredness and irregular sleep.

• Unhealthy eating habits. As if unhealthy sleep wasn’t enough, working from home tends to influence our eating habits – and not in the best way. We eat more when we stay home because it’s easier to snack when the kitchen is just a few steps away, and – admit it – we rarely indulge ourselves with healthy snacks.

• Interruptions. Working from home is not “really working” – that’s what friends, neighbours and family sometimes think. And it’s not always easy to explain to them that it is not quite true. This is why they keep interrupting you while you’re working, asking you to do more chores, or to cook – this destroys your efforts to be productive.

• Losing connection to your boss and colleagues. It’s easy to communicate when you’re physically in the office. For a remote employee, regular communication can be a challenge. Different working hours, no scheduled meetings, no defined procedure for communication with remote coworkers are the main reasons of that.

Also Read: The 4 drawbacks of working remotely and how to address them with your team

Returning to the office – do you really need it?

Indeed, being disciplined is easier with external control from your boss or coworkers. That is why some remote employees prefer to return to the office. But if you really love working from home, there is nothing that could hold you back.

The first thing you need to do is regain self-discipline. Commit to being focused and organized, and don’t let anything distract you from work.

Easier said than done – so here are 8 crucial steps that will help you stay productive and make your lifestyle healthier.

1. Define a set schedule. Define your working hours and stick to them – this way it’s easier to resist the temptation to relax and make up the hours later this day (or this week, or this month). It will also help you set a healthy sleep schedule by preventing you from working late hours.

• Get rid of distractions. If you easily get distracted by web surfing or video games, use special distraction blockers on your computer. If your distractions are household to-dos, try Pomodoro technique with a real timer or a software analog. Anyway, be mindful of how you are spending your workday, and don’t abuse your employer’s trust.

• Create a to-do list and put it in a place where you can see it regularly throughout your workday. You can also try special to-do list apps on your mobile device or computer.

• Track your time. It’s much easier to focus on your work and try to get it done faster when you are aware of your time expenses. For that purpose, try adopting special tools that summarize your daily, weekly, monthly etc. results and show them in a graphic chart.

• Communicate proactively. Remember that sometimes even the fact of telecommuting can make your coworkers wonder what you’re doing throughout your workday. Let them (and your boss) know what you are working on, share your results and concerns, and ask for feedback.

Also Read: 5 myths about working with remote teams

• Be accessible during your work hours. Don’t let calls or messages unanswered. First, this will help you let your colleagues know that you’re working as hard as if you were in the office. Then, it prevents your coworkers from trying to access you outside your working hours.

• Explain your friends and family that you are not available for any additional chores, household to-dos or long talks during your working hours. Be clear with them that it is not okay to interrupt you when you’re at work.

• Stick to healthy habits. Don’t overwork, follow your schedule, take breaks to exercise (it’s much easier at home than at the office), don’t eat throughout the day more than at the office, and opt for healthy snacks.

Summary

Being productive while working from home is challenging. There are quite a few reasons why, including constant distractions, no external control, and seemingly valid excuses for not work-related activities.

Follow some simple rules, and you will build up healthy habits and develop a mindful approach to your work and rest. This will improve your work-life balance, make your lifestyle healthier, and help you be more successful at your job.

—

This article was first published on e27, on April 18, 2018.

Image Credit: goodluz / 123RF Stock Photo

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

The post 8 steps you should take in order to work from home effectively appeared first on e27.

What separates successful blockchain projects from those that bite the dust after a short while?

There’s not a single doubt about the flexibility and security brought about by blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT).

It has been tagged as the next big thing that will transform the world. Some say DLT will do to the world what the internet did many years back. 

Blockchain has gained massive acceptance globally. Reports from blockchain research group Diar showed that blockchain startups raised over US$3 billion through VC investments in 2018.

However, while the technology has experienced growth in leaps and bounds, over the past years, we have witnessed thousands of blockchain projects fail woefully with millions of dollars gone down the drain.

Therefore, it’s worth asking: What separates successful blockchain projects from those that bite the dust after just a short while?

Challenges within the blockchain community

According to reports from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), over 80,000 (92 per cent) blockchain projects launched over the years, have already failed with an average lifespan of 1.22 years.

Also Read: 5 companies set to drive blockchain adoption in Asia

Organisations and projects have sprung up, showed promising concepts and excellent whitepapers. They raised hopes for a better (and profitable) future, yet failed to withstand the test of time. 

The majority of these projects fail at the proof-of-concept stage, while some never even make it to that point — they are just dead-on-arrival. Only a few blockchain projects get to actual execution and scale.

This is enough to cause any to pause and truly reflect asking: What could be the problem? These failures might not be surprising, as many of these projects were not able to find what it takes to succeed and scale truly.

It would be interesting to highlight some of the factors that have led to the success and sustainability of blockchain platforms that are still going strong to date.

This will help other blockchain startups in establishing a solid ground for upcoming projects.

Enterprise partnerships help in achieving scale

While blockchain has its outstanding capacities, it should be understood that the technology is not the universal solution to all business woes.

In many cases, blockchain can serve strongly as a complementing technology with the capacity to enhance business operations, and not necessarily to disrupt them entirely. 

Some disruptive projects can be described as solutions that are looking for problems. If you try to disrupt an entire industry too much, chances are you will get little cooperation with potential partners.

We can highlight success stories among blockchain startups that have partnered with existing enterprises to improve service delivery and enhance the way they do business.

Take the e-commerce supply chain, for example. E-Commerce companies are more widely-known for the front-facing part of their business, which involves online transactions, fulfilment and delivery. But for consumers, little is known about what happens behind the scenes.

This is what a partnership between Walmart China, VeChain, and PwC are addressing through DLT. The Walmart China Blockchain Traceability Platform (WCBTP) will keep track of products like packaged fresh meat, rice, and vegetables through the supply chain. This aims to enhance accountability across 23 product lines, which will be expanded to 100 by year-end.

With this platform, Chinese consumers can get detailed information about products by scanning a code on their smartphones, including location reports, source, and real-time tracking.

It is quite essential to conduct due diligence on areas that truly require blockchain and meet the need there. E-commerce and supply chain management are good examples of traditional businesses now being complemented by distributed ledger tech.

Projects like VeChain, which recently marked its one-year anniversary, have shown how relevant targeting and application of blockchain solutions can result in sustainable projects that scale faster.

Tapping the right target market helps in sustainability

The blockchain craze has gotten every entrepreneur jumping on the bandwagon mostly motivated by the fear-of-missing-out.

These projects end up with no form of originality or real idea concept but are just a bunch of copy-paste materials and concepts with no depth. Many have poorly-designed or plagiarised whitepapers. 

Also Read: 5 reasons tokenisation makes blockchain tech more impactful in real-world scenarios

Leveraging blockchain solutions should go beyond just jumping on the bandwagon and an opportunity to make money. Project founders must conduct adequate research and due diligence in understanding the needs of whatever target market and exploring means to satisfy them effectively.

This will help in developing concepts that have depth and which can withstand the test of time and can truly scale. 

To again highlight the complex business of supply chain and logistics, a good example here would be the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) formed by UPS and FedEx to facilitate transparency in supply chain and provide a platform for adequate record-keeping of information leveraging blockchain technology.

Case in point: The trucking industry is in itself a US$4.6 trillion industry as of 2018, and businesses are scrambling to define the industry’s future amidst a general slowdown. In logistics, automation, security, and transparency are key considerations in meeting customer expectations — both in the consumer-facing and B2B aspect.

With blockchain implementation, rich data, internet-of-things, and real-time updating can make logistics more efficient and secure. The BiTA aims to establish a common standard of implementation of blockchain and Distributed Ledger Tech to ensure everyone can gain from the benefits.

Technical know-how is necessary to scale

The bandwagon approach has turned everyone into a blockchain expert. However, the problem with some projects is the lack of technological know-how on the part of the project’s management.

While the vision is there, the technical personnel do not have the capability or means to execute a project that could go to scale. Here we go back to the challenge of using blockchain as being the “universal solution” that can solve all business challenges. Well, sometimes it’s not.

To illustrate, for those who look to build a powerful blockchain to scale for a global audience. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has spoken on the need to focus on the three fundamental properties of distributed networks, decentralisation, security, and scale. 

Many projects can achieve two of these — decentralisation and security — but rarely do blockchain projects successfully address the issue of scale. Even Bitcoin itself has been bogged down by scalability issues, due to the limited block size in its initial implementation.

The Bitcoin creators’ intent is unclear at this point, but there is an ongoing debate as to whether this limitation has resulted in a scalability issue with the platform.

To mitigate this challenge, blockchain experts should be able to design their platforms with such future-proofing in mind in the first place.

A balance in overcoming business and technical challenges

Before embarking on a blockchain project, it is essential to consider the market, the technology, and the ecosystem, which can make or break your platform.

Ask yourself if it is viable, scalable, and usable. Conduct adequate research, find or build knowledge and technical know-how, and partner with the right people.

Also Read: AI and blockchain: new tech frontier or simply incompatible?

Distributed ledger technology will transform the way we do business, but for that to happen, we will need products and platforms that will stand the test of time.

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Unsplash

The post Enterprise focus, customer satisfaction, and technical expertise are key for scaling blockchain projects appeared first on e27.

In addition to Cambodia, we also have updates from China’s self-driving vehicle ambition, ShopKirana, and the Indonesian central bank

Cambodia launches state-backed e-commerce platform – Khmer Times

Cambodia Post E-Solutions PLC, a venture of Cambodia Post, has worked with Chinese firm ZVS Investment and local tech company Paxxa Mobile Solutions to launch state-backed online marketplace Tinh Tinh E-commerce, Khmer Times reported.

Named after the Khmer word for “buy, buy,” the platform is available in Khmer, English, and Chinese. It also offers a “comprehensive and integrated” set of services, which also included a logistics and intermediary agency service.

The platform was established with an initial capital of US$1.5 million, according to Cambodia Post director-general Ork Bora.

Cambodia Post E-Solutions PLC chairman Meas Sopheary also stated that the platform is the country’s only certified online marketplace.

China dedicates a mountain highway to test self-driving cars – SCMP

As part of its effort to compete with the US in autonomous driving technology, China has dedicated a mountain highway in eastern Shandong province for testing of connected, self-driving vehicles, South China Morning Post wrote.

The testing is the result of a partnership between Qilu Transportation Development Group with Huawei Technologies and China Mobile.

The equipment that is being tested on the highway included road sensors, laser and microwave radars, panoramic video surveillance, as well as weather monitoring and traffic signs monitoring.

Also Read: Cambodia’s Meal Temple expands into Bhutan with an investment in DrukRide

Indian B2B platform ShopKirana raises US$10M – Deal Street Asia

Indian B2B e-commerce platform ShopKirana raised US$10 million in Series B funding round from Info Edge, Incubate Fund, Akatsuki AET Fund, NPTK Emerging Asia Fund and Better Capital, Deal Street Asia reported.

Founded in 2015 by Tanutejas Saraswat, Sumit Ghorawat, and Deepak Dhanotiya, Shopkirana develops a platform for stakeholders in grocery and FMCG supply chain to run orders, delivery, payments, and other related services.

The company will use the funding to expand its presence across major tier-two cities in India.

Indonesia launches standardised QR code – DailySocial

Indonesia’s central bank has formally introduced a standardised QR code (QRIS) as part of its goal to simplify QR code-based payments in the country, DailySocial reported.

The QRIS will support different types of digital payments, from e-wallet to mobile banking.

It will operate using the “merchant present mode”, which requires merchants to present the QR code to be scanned by customers.

—

Image Credit: Christian Holzinger on Unsplash

The post Today’s top tech news, Aug 19: Cambodia launches state-backed e-commerce platform appeared first on e27.

Under the new moniker, the company said it will carry multiple wellness products such as Ride, Rave, Reflect, and The POD

RIDE, the Indonesian wellness startup that is known for its indoor cycling programme, announced its new name R Fitness after raising IDR17.7 billion (US$1.25 million) pre-Series A funding round by Intudo Ventures, Agaeti Ventures, and SMDV, according to a DailySocial report.

The decision to rebrand, the company said, is a strategic one as it seeks to fulfil the mission to make wellness accessible for everyone.

Under R Fitness, there will be several wellness products launched, such as Ride (nightclub-style indoor cycling fitness programme), Rave (cardio exercise programme), Reflect (mental health programme), and The POD (microgym facility access provider).

“We’ve been in operation since four and a half years ago when boutique fitness movement is still a new concept to grasp. The market has matured now and many investors start to notice this industry,” said CEO & Co-Founder RIDE Jakarta Gita Sjahrir.

Also Read: Fitness studio RIDE Jakarta raises US$500K in seed funding to launch digital platform

This is the second time the independent venture capital Intudo Ventures invests in R Fitness, after participating in the seed funding round of the company back in February 2018. Recently, the VC closes its US$50 million second fund targeted at Indonesian startups.

Agaeti Ventures is the VC firm based in Indonesia that focusses on pre-Series A and Series A funding. Back in March 2019, Agaeti Ventures participated in the US$7.6 million fundraisings of Indonesian logistic tech Kargo led by Sequoia Capital India.

SMDV is tech-focused venture capital that claims that it is on a mission to “change the landscape in Indonesia and the region by providing venture investments, strategic network, and mentorship”. With East Ventures and Yahoo! Japan, SMDV has launched new VC firm EV Growth that focusses on Series B funding and has raised US$150M for startups in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia

SMDV often participated in funding led by East Ventures, like the recent investment in grab-n-go coffee chain Fore Coffee in January.

–

Image Credit: Samantha Gades on Unsplash

The post Indonesian wellness startup RIDE gets US$1.25M Pre-Series A funding, rebrands into R Fitness appeared first on e27.

When the sharing economy emerged, it was seen as one of the means to reverse employment problems around the world

When the “sharing economy” emerged ten years ago, its promise of providing income to anyone who’s willing to share his or her resources, captured the imagination of investors and consumers alike. It can be an extra space in one’s car, as popularised by Uber, or a spare room at home, as led by Airbnb.

The proponents of the sharing economy believed that many had a surplus of one valuable commodity that could be used by others for some profit.

This led nine-to-five job holders and office workers into thinking about the untapped income that they can access if they share a bit of their asset, which in most cases would be their property and time.

For the most part, consumers were the biggest winners, as costs to hail a ride for a trip across the city dropped, and less expensive accommodation for a vacation became more widely available.

Also Read: Will Asia’s booming digital economy lead to an inevitable rise in cybercrime?

The promise of convenience, of having access to services in a click on an app was a big win to customers. Both Uber and Airbnb became global brands in less than three years after they were launched. By 2025, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates the industry will churn US$335 billion in revenue. 

But as investors plunked more money into on-demand service startups and asset-sharing platforms, the industry was pressured to turn profitable.

To turn green, startups were forced to cut the income share of affiliates. Eventually, the industry’s most prominent players became contractors of independent workers, and its affiliates started to demand more accountability. 

In the world over, there’s been numerous worker strikes against on-demand service platforms as their affiliates and partners clamour for a higher share of income for their services. I

n the US, Uber drivers, had consistently gone on strike, most recently in May, just before the company went public. In 2015, a worker under on-demand cleaning service Handy, sued the startup after it reportedly paid her only US$14 for 30 hours of work. 

Somehow, despite being at the frontline of their company’s services, workers have become the last priority in the sharing economy. Even the World Bank suggests it’s now time for investors to funnel their cash in startups with resilient business models and the ones that provide “upside to everyone that’s involved in their growth over time.” 

Fortunately, based on my research, there are still a handful of startups, from the Asia Pacific to the US, that employs business models that prioritize both the consumers’ and their partners’ well-being, that startups may take lessons from. 

Transparent business terms to affiliates

In Australia, the leading cleaning booking service in the country called Urban You made its terms for affiliates the most straightforward and transparent in the industry.

On its website, it already bares that it offers AUS$25 for every hour of service to a cleaner, about 30 per cent more than the national minimum wage average in the country, which is at AUS$17. Partners are also motivated, as they get to keep about 75 per cent of the total fee charged by the company for every hour of service from customers. 

This isn’t to say that the only way for the sharing economy work is to ensure partners get the lion’s share in business charges.

From all the leading cleaning booking service providers in the country, Urban You is also the most upfront in its offer to provide work insurance for affiliates, for a minimal fee of AUS$8 a week. That’s a perk that isn’t offered by most, if not, at all by platform companies. 

In the US, car-sharing Turo is showing “ride-hailing” can still be a business for those who just merely want to make a profit out of their idle resources.

Instead of making car owners drive other strangers around the city, Turo allows them to have their vehicles rented by others either by the hour or by the day. Its biggest advantage over other services is the fleet of cars in its platform.

One can rent the latest Tesla, a Jeep, even a Porsche Macan, to name a few for over US$250 for a week. Meanwhile, the owners get the chance to pay not just their monthly car dues, but to save for another one, even for their dream cars. 

These startups show that the sharing economy may still be inclusive for partners and that there are business models that platform owners can employ to create a truly beneficial and economical proposition for those who wish to participate in the industry. 

It’s what my startup, Mober, an on-demand delivery service platform, wants to achieve with our newest program, “Driverpreneur.” Filipinos have always been madiskarte, a Filipino term for being resourceful and industrious. And if given an opportunity, they can be successful in business and in life. 

Also Read: 5G is the technology that will upset the economy as we know it

With the program, drivers will have the chance to own the service vehicles they use for the platform, under a creative “rent-to-own” scheme. A minimal fee that they pay to the company daily goes towards owning the vans.

Outside of that, drivers take home all their profits from the day’s delivery services and bring the vehicle home too. Mober even takes care of the vehicle’s maintenance so drivers aren’t hounded by fear of their cars breaking down and setting them back in terms of large repair costs and precious, precious time.

The program aims to go back to the roots of ride-sharing: providing income opportunities to those who are willing to share resources that they own, all the while being empowered as entrepreneurs and bosses of their own. 

Back to the roots of an inclusive sharing economy 

With an industry bound to reach more than US$300 billion in revenues by 2025, now is the time for startup players in the sharing economy to reassess their business models for sustainability. I believe Philippine startups can do their share in this effort, and I hope Mober’s “Driverpreneur” program can encourage others that an inclusive business model for partners is still possible. 

Also Read: 5 ways the on-demand economy has disrupted the way we study and learn

The World Bank even said it could help end poverty in developing countries. It may be time for the startups in the sharing economy to go back to its roots, embody the ideals they once fought for, beginning with more highly valued partners. 

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

Image Credit: Vlad Busuioc

 

The post These three startups prove that the sharing economy can still be inclusive to its partners appeared first on e27.

A layman’s guide to utilising AMP for your website

 

AMP stands for “Accelerated Mobile Page,” an innovation that was developed specifically for viewing web pages on mobile devices. AMPs were first introduced by Google in 2016 and provoked much buzz.

They removed tracking codes and third-party ads, shifting attention to the most important elements of website functionality, Thanks to AMPs, Google’s experts have given us easy, fast, and user-friendly mobile web pages.

The progress of AMPs

Initially, after the technology’s announcement, AMPs were mainly utilized by writers who were supplying relevant, real-time materials with a short life cycle, and wanted their articles to be indexed in Google News.  

Later, the application of AMPs was extended beyond news publishing, and websites with various purposes and subject areas were creating their own AMPs, marked with a special icon in organic search results.

This icon notified web users that they would be able to view a certain page very quickly, and it would upload as fast or faster than a desktop page. 

Also Read: How technology can make the HR department more productive

Over time, as more people shifted to mobile phones, AMPs completely overshadowed desktop-oriented pages, and Google’s team decided to tailor their ranking algorithm to this technology.

New solutions began to be approved based on how they looked on smartphone screens. This revolution, known as “mobile-first” indexing, turned the online space upside down and forced entrepreneurs to revise their web presence. 

Desktop versions of websites ceased to be the primary promotional platforms and quickly turned into addons for mobile versions.

This change was inevitable since modern web users often search for information and solve important issues on the go. Tech-savvy Millennials and other avid users often work, play, and even sleep with gadgets in their hands. The use of tablets and smartphones has become an indispensable part of our daily lives. 

Any entrepreneur who wants to reach their target audience and hit high sales should think mobile-first and place information about their brand on accelerated mobile pages. Below, we provide some weighty reasons to utilize AMPs. 

Why is utilising AMPs important?

Immediately after the transition to mobile-first indexing, the use of AMPs seemed optional to many uninformed entrepreneurs. They believed it would be possible to continue doing business without gadget-optimized content. But this was a fatal mistake.

Even though there are no obvious SEO benefits, the use of AMPs can change the way potential clients perceive your brand. People are impatient today, and they quickly become irritated with slow loading speeds.

They will not hesitate to discard your pages due to long page loading times. In today’s dynamic world of rapid changes, multitasking, and universal informatization, no one has time to wait, so it is crucial to satisfy their needs as quickly as possible. 

You want your company’s web image to be associated with convenience and responsiveness rather than delays and awkwardness, so it is up to you to make sure potential customers enjoy great user experience.

Also Read: Leveraging technology to transform the way we feel, travel, and eat

Speed up your website, create a user-friendly layout and high-quality content, and watch your online platform rise to the top in search rankings. 

Without making these transformations, it will be impossible to remain competitive in today’s overcrowded market. A positive first impression plays a critical role in building strong and lasting relationships with clients, ensuring their satisfaction and loyalty.

If people visit your website and find it awkward to navigate, they will quickly abandon your site and shift to your competitors, never to return. 

AMPs provide an easy, natural, and affordable solution for improving your website’s user experience. Do not limit the potential power of your brand.

The largest online platforms like Facebook and others have adopted AMPs because they understand that users want to access their sites on any and all devices. If you want to become an online leader, you would be wise to learn from the best. 

AMP technology will continue to evolve

Google’s representatives admit that their current AMP strategy has not yet reached its ideal state, and they continue to expand its functionality and eliminate flaws.

This active work is a clear indication that AMPs are not a temporary trend that will fade away over the coming years. AMPs are the future of the Internet, so it is in your best interest to utilize this technology as early as possible and track all innovations made by Google. 

Many entrepreneurs are reluctant to change their marketing strategies and embrace AMPs. They fear they will face multiple risks in replacing desktop-focused websites that have successfully brought in profits in the past.

Lack of experience often leads to faulty AMP development and improper syncing with existing non-AMP pages. It is quite understandable that businesses have concerns about ruining their previously efficient web presence and losing their high positions in search rankings. 

However, if you fail to act, your site will go down in rankings anyway. It is just a matter of time. So you can take a risk and win, or wait until you have no choice.

The benefits AMPs will far outweigh potential losses. Business owners who welcome innovations, think outside the box, and are willing to let go of obsolete approaches can expect their brands to occupy leadership positions.

There is no other way to stay competitive. Google sets its rules and we have to respect them if we want to get ahead. 

One more popular trend is the creation of special mobile applications for improving business processes. Of course, it may be challenging to transform your standard workflow and get rid of old habits.

Also Read: Trends and predictions for the 11.11 and 12.12 digital commerce sales periods in Malaysia

But more and more companies revolutionize their web platforms. Keep up with the times and leverage the latest technologies in order not to let competitors overshadow you. Best of luck!

–

Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Join our e27 Telegram group here, or our e27 contributor Facebook page here.

 

The post The importance of Google AMPs for website promotion appeared first on e27.

From mental health awareness to online medical consultation, these ten startups are the healthtech rising stars of the country

Malaysia, as we know it, is a breeding ground of hundreds if not thousands of startups today, supported by its modern, tech-enabled infrastructure and strategic location. Among many tech sectors it boasts, Malaysian healthtech has seen quite a productive year so far, with the latest funding deal was secured by Naluri, the digital therapeutic platform.

According to The Malaysian Health Care System: A Review by David Quek, Malaysia has a “dual-tiered system of healthcare services: a government-led and funded public sector, and a thriving private sector creating a dichotomous yet synergistic public-private model”. However, the report stated, there is no unified system of universal access to healthcare for every citizen.

The heavily subsidised public sector caters to the bulk of the population (about 65 per cent) but is served by just 45 per cent of all registered doctors, with even fewer specialists (25-30 per cent). The private sector also has grown tremendously over the past 25 years.

The report further noted that this two-tiered system has significantly different goals that can be unsustainable in the longer term.

The way forward, it suggested, is to foster closer partnership, collaboration, and sharing of services and personnel with an integrated system of medical information and expertise access. To achieve so, Malaysia’s healthtech startup has to aim for a more cost-effective system and a portable system of reimbursement, exactly what these startups are working on:

BookDoc

BookDoc has a presence in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, where it teamed up with Siloam Hospital to open way to the country, Hong Kong, and Thailand offering a platform that connects patients to healthcare as well as gives incentives through BookDoc Activ, where users can earn rewards and discounts from retail partners and service providers for maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle.

BookDoc’s ecosystem allows users to search and book healthcare professionals anytime and anywhere, and integrates with navigation (Google Map, Waze), transport (Grab, Uber, AirAsia), accommodation (Agoda, Airbnb), and recommended restaurants & attractions (TripAdvisor) for more efficient healthcare appointments.

BookDoc was founded by Dato’ Chevy Beh with the goal of improving the timeliness of diagnosis and helping patients to find appropriate care.

In 2018, the company received funding from Bruneian royalty.

Naluri

Freshly-funded, Naluri took a different approach to conquer chronic disease by focussing on patient’s mental health. It offers a digital therapeutic service that is combined with behavioural science, data science, and digital design.

Naluri, which is founded by a former iFlix Malaysia CEO Azran Osman-Rani, said the healthcare concept it offers is aimed at “building mental resilience needed to achieve goals and overcome life’s challenges that stand in the patient’s way”.

Also Read: Startup in Spotlight: How dengue helped create Malaysia’s BookDoc

Naluri provides self-serve modules/lessons, tracking through connected weighing scale, food journal, and thought journal and peer group support. It also gives users regular feedback and coaching and access to professional health coaches, dieticians, executive coaches, fitness coaches, medical advisors, and pharmacists.

It then presents the users with a machine-learning and Natural Language Processing-based results that predict health outcomes of users and increase the productivity of coaches.

REMEDi

REMEDi offers its users a paperless, responsive system that connects patients with healthcare professionals and services, from doctor visit to prescription management, and gives access to medical history securely.

Patients can connect to selected records online to review historical and current results securely. This allows patients to have an active say in taking care of their health together with the health professionals that treat the patients.

ClicknCare

ClicknCare was founded based as an initiative of Simple Motion Sdn Bhd to create a healthcare platform for migrants around the world. It aims to make it easy for any migrant in any country to find local doctors that are not restricted by barriers, at a reasonable cost.

ClicknCare was founded by Abu Hasnat Mohammad Sultanur Reza, using a telemedicine approach called ClickTalk, that allows health care professionals to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients using telecommunications technology. ClickDoc, on the other hand, are a contact pool of registered doctors in Malaysia with Bangla-speaking operator.

Check Up Asia

Check Up Asia recently made news after signing a partnership agreement with Takaful Malaysia to promote a healthy lifestyle, as well as related services and solutions, for the insurance giant’s Employee Benefits (“EB”) customers. Check Up Asia is best known for its product CHECKUP PLUS, that is aimed towards helping individuals subscribe to a healthier lifestyle to manage and control heart disease risk factors.

The programme includes consultation with a doctor of users’ choice, the use of the Ourcheckup Platform and Mobile Apps, and health data collection devices.

DoctorOnCall

DoctorOnCall claimed to be the first and currently the largest online doctor consultation platform in Malaysia. It offers healthcare services via chat, phone, and video calls.

Besides consultation, the company also provides medical second opinion and medicine delivery.

Also Read: HealthMetrics, the first Malaysian startup to join Google Launchpad, raises US$1M from Spiral Ventures, Cradle, RHL Ventures

DoctorOnCall works by connecting patients to registered doctors simply with registering to write symptoms. Then, patients will be able to speak to a doctor online and get needed treatments and answers, all the way until a prescription is ready and medication is being delivered to the patient.

HomeGP

HomeGP is an online platform that connects patients to house call healthcare practitioners such as doctors, nurses, and caregivers.

Patients simply book an appointment with a smartphone or web device. After the booking is confirmed, the selected medical service provider will arrive within an hour to tend in the comfort of the patient’s home.

To date, HomeGP claimed that it has over 300 on-demand healthcare practitioners.

HypoBand

HypoBand is healthtech product that is designed to alert caregivers when the life of a diabetic patient is in danger. If a wearer is having a cold sweat or hypoglycemia, a distress call is made on auto to prevent a hypoglycemic attack, that usually happens when the person with diabetes is asleep and unaware.

The cold sweat detection is done by inbuilt sensors monitoring the patient’s temperature and sweat levels using the HypoBand. A panic button also can be triggered in case of emergency.

According to the World Health Organization, in Malaysia alone, one out of 8 adults has diabetes and 50 per cent of them do not even know that they have diabetes.

The Hypoband itself is integrated with the Android-based app that makes auto calls and sends out pre-written text messages (SMS) to caregivers, doctors, or hospitals during an emergency hypoglycemic attack.

It also has a local alarm mode that can alert nearby caregivers to assist the patient.

PurelyB

PurelyB is a health and wellness platform that offers customised health programmes, curated content, and a platform to connect with a like-minded community.

The company was started in 2015 by duo Raja Jesrina Arshad and Stephanie Looi as a healthy food recipe and directory platform. It has expanded to include an online marketplace that sells healthy lifestyle products in an English and Chinese platform.

HealthMetrics

HealthMetrics acts as a personal assistant to manage employees’ health benefits. It offers transparent healthcare pricing as well as predictive analytics to help companies budget and manage the administrative work under one platform, eliminating the use of Excel or even receipts traces.

With HealthMetrics, all data are converted into analytics for the users to make business decisions.

Also Read: Malaysian healthtech startup Naluri raises US$250K seed funding from 500 Startups, BioMark

HealthMetrics became the first-ever Malaysian startup to join Google Launchpad Accelerator in 2017. The company got a chance to go to Google’s headquarter in Mountain View to take part in intensive mentoring from the Google team and experts from top technology companies and venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. In 2018, it received US$1 million funding from Spiral Ventures, Cradle, and RHL Ventures.

These are the 10 disruptive, emerging healthtech from Malaysia, among other thirty-something healthtech startups that are reported to be operating in the country. With many innovations ahead that covers a multifaceted issue in health, Malaysia is on its way to transforming the fragmented healthcare system not only in the country but potentially in neighbouring Southeast Asia countries as well.

–

Image Credit: chuttersnap on Unsplash

The post These 10 startups are changing the way Malaysians access healthcare and wellness appeared first on e27.

While organisations recognise the potential of data, many struggle to turn data into actionable insights that provide value

According to a recent Alteryx-commissioned IDC Info brief, The State of Data Science and Analytics, there are approximately 14 million data workers in the Asia Pacific and they spend 80 per cent of the workweek on data-related activities.

Yet, 45 per cent of this time is wasted each week because data professionals are bogged down by the sheer scale, complexity and diversity of their organisations’ data.

Also Read: Women are starting to get in on the cybersecurity action, but more can be done

A huge problem revolves around the way many organisations have siloed data departments away from the rest of the organisation, limiting the way data can be used.

It is an antiquated thought model and one that needs to be changed in the age of Big Data as organizations continue to generate what seems to be untapped goldmines of data sources across industries and internal functions.

So how can organisations bust down the old siloes around building an analytic culture? How can they finally realise the potential of data analytics to achieve higher ROI?

These are questions that many organisations are grappling with as they think about either establishing a data science team or empowering existing team members to become data scientists.

 Empowering business analysts to be citizen data scientists

To start, organisations need to empower data professionals on their team, regardless of technical acumen, to become more data literate and to improve their analytic knowledge.

In a workforce that is becoming increasingly data-centric, there is not enough expertise to keep pace with the explosive demand for data scientists.

Data scientists come at a premium, are difficult to retain and are few and far between, making it challenging for enterprises to build out this technical capability.

Furthermore, organisations need to recognise that not every data-related job requires a data scientist with advanced qualifications.

Also Read: Why virtually everything relies on cloud technology in 2019

Instead, the key is to empower business analysts sitting in various lines of business, many of whom are currently stuck in spreadsheets, to analyse data more efficiently and drive real, measurable, business results.

Coined by Gartner, the term ‘citizen data scientist’ is defined as a person who creates or generates models that use advanced diagnostic analytics or predictive and prescriptive capabilities, but whose primary job function is outside the field of statistics and analytics.

With the power of a code-free platform behind them, a citizen data scientist (CDS) can be up-levelled to create data and business models with the help of data analytics tools, even if they do not have advanced mathematical expertise or technical skills such as writing custom codes.

It’s not rocket science. Creating and empowering citizen data scientists is a unique opportunity to develop existing talent who know an organisation’s data and understand their business priorities and objectives.

These professionals know the business inside and out and probably have a laundry list of ideas they aren’t empowered to tackle. Imagine then, the power of unleashing their potential and the type of quantifiable business impacts they could realise.

Often, they are eager to learn and develop skills to improve their personal development and contribute to the business, thus, creating a virtuous cycle of improvement.

Providing self-service tools that put humans at the centre of analytic intelligence

As the data and analytics landscape becomes more complex and fragmented, it is more pertinent than ever to democratize access to analytic tools among members of a business who can best create and derive value from the data.

The rise in the use of self-service data analytic tool has become so pronounced that Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019, the analytics output of business users with self-service capabilities will surpass that of professional data scientists.

Going beyond the implementation of self-service capabilities, business analysts and citizen data scientists must be encouraged to ask tough questions and be provided with the necessary training to answer these questions, to ensure the success of a self-service approach.

Today, there are even self-service data analytic platforms that have taken it one step further to put more advanced analytic capabilities into the hands of business experts.

These are people who know their company’s business and data and are in the best position to assess whether a prediction that can impact the business – but do not have technical skills to write codes and deploy predictive models.

To help them advance their skills and harness the advantage of AI, self-service platforms now come with a guided walk-through to build machine learning models in a code-free, drag-and-drop environment.

Data is at the core of digital transformation, and this trend is driving demand for analytics across all business functions of an organisation.

Also Read: The cloud has moved mountains, but always keep an eye out for security

Building this analytic mentality and creating a platform that embraces teamwork and model building will be pivotal in developing the next generation of data workers. One that thrives on making self-service analytics your competitive advantage.

–

 

The post The big data heroes of today: citizen data scientists appeared first on e27.