With Southeast Asia being a hotbed for innovation, the region is experiencing steady and continuous economic growth. This is to be expected given the amount of new and exciting business models sprouting in the region. With a population of over 270 million people, there is no better microcosm for these developments than Indonesia.

The country of over 17,000 islands is expected to grow by 5.4 per cent in 2022 and another 5 per cent in 2023 according to a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). But there are disparities in this growth, one of which is the economic growth of rural and urban areas.

Over 80 per cent of Indonesia’s population is currently residing in rural areas. This will change in less than 10 years due to the rapid growth of its cities, which is faster than other Asian countries at 4.1 per cent. By 2025, Indonesia is expected to have 68 per cent of its population living in cities, in an almost complete shift that leaves the rural economy behind.

Also read: How an 87-year-old enterprise aims to change the packaging game

As with its Southeast Asian neighbours, this denotes an uneven development between rural and urban areas. While the cost of living in urban and rural areas may not vary by a large amount (about 10 per cent in the 20th century), given factors such as low wages and high prices of goods and services, greater social mobility is afforded in urban centres where most innovation is concentrated, making it a more attractive choice for young professionals.

The key to addressing this disparity is by harnessing smart solutions to empower underserved small business owners and end consumers. Doing so encourages employment, entrepreneurship, consumer patronage, and other drivers of economic growth in rural areas.

Impacting lives to drive economic growth

One company spearheading this mission is Dagangan. Ryan Manafe, Dagangan CEO and co-founder, recently spoke with e27 about his vision of transforming rural Indonesia for the better.

“[Dagangan] ignited an old dream to spend more time and contribute to my country; to create concrete and real impact,” shared Manafe during a call.

Before starting Dagangan, Manafe worked in various companies that exposed him to the challenges that rural areas face, particularly those in logistically-challenged areas.

Having served various roles in various institutions – from his stint at the Indonesian Presidential Work Unit for Development Supervision and Control to starting SUN Energy, a renewable energy developer that would grow into Indonesia’s largest solar company giving rural and remote areas in Indonesia access to sustainable and eco-friendly energy – Manafe’s experiences have helped shape Dagangan as a company that aims to impact lives, especially among people in rural areas.

The Indonesian social commerce platform does that by establishing a tech-enabled hub-and-spoke network that provides small business owners access to goods at affordable prices. The network is based on a trust system that connects community leaders who can cascade information to the rest of the community, as well as establish a reliable platform that provides quick and quality goods and services.

Also read: Accelerating Indonesia’s rural economy through social commerce

By promoting and improving “rural commerce”, Dagangan expands opportunities for market access in rural communities and provides small business owners greater access to materials and opportunities outside their area.

One concrete example of how Dagangan has transformed not just on a macro level, but on the matter of individual lives, is the testimony of Mrs Herlina, one of Dagangan’s loyal customers from Magelang, Central Java. After using the Dagangan platform, her daily sales increased three times to more than IDR 1,500 per day.

Social commerce has helped her to expand a high variety of products with a very competitive price, which helps attract more customers and provides more value creation for the products in her store. Mrs Herlina used to have her store inside her living room but now, only two years after working with Dagangan, she has already expanded the store with a dedicated space in front of her house. She was also able to purchase a car to help with her business’ transportation needs. This is only one of the many examples of how Dagangan impacts rural communities.

A vision of growth and impact

“In first-tier cities, there’s greater accessibility to super apps — though none of these apps is accessible in the rural areas. So, our vision is to focus on addressing a key pain point first by providing access to basic necessities at an affordable price. This is done through the supply chain network of hub and spokes, rural commerce, last-mile delivery, educating, and building relationships with the people,” shared Manafe.

Dagangan covers land areas not typically reached by most mainstream e-commerce platforms—within at least an 80,000 km radius—and because of this, has reached 17,000 villages in rural Indonesia in the last 2.5 years alone.

“The last fundraising round that we did was led by the bank BTPN Syariah Ventura. So we leveraged their fintech solutions. We onboarded the existing solutions that have been developed,” explained Manafe.

Because of its model, the business has grown the average basket size by 24% month-to-month in the past year, showing how customers are satisfied with the business and its reliability. This has led to an increase in the share of wallet to improve the purchasing power of local partners.

Also read: Japanese startups seek strategic partnerships in Southeast Asia

Dagangan also recognises that a central pain point is the need to establish trust: in tier three and tier four cities, there is ​​still a lack of trust, which is why part of Dagangan’s solution is to build relationships with community leaders.

The social commerce platform’s hubs have grown by 200 per cent, operating as many as 40+ hubs as of writing. This has led to spurring growth in these areas and allowed the creation of over 300 jobs. The Dagangan team has also grown three times in the last 12 months.

Its exponential growth has given Dagangan more ambitious goals by year’s end: to cover the whole of Java island. Apart from this, it also seeks to expand rural commerce to Kalimantan and Eastern Indonesia within the next 12 months while expanding its team fourfold.

At the end of the day, to ensure that no one is left behind even within communities, it’s important to educate small business owners and their networks about the benefits of rural commerce and to empower these owners with the tools and resources needed to scale. Moreover, apart from the innovative tech component, the main benefit that comes with Dagangan’s solution is its ability to connect, foster, and build trust within the community. It is through this that the larger trade and commerce ecosystem is rendered sustainable.

Dagangan also sees opportunities to partner and work with local producers to bring goods and services across tier-3 and tier-4 villages to tier-1 cities. From these expansive forward-looking targets, the business ultimately aims to transform and accelerate Indonesia’s rural economy, one partner at a time.

The post The future of the rural economy is here appeared first on e27.

In just a short span of two years, incidents on the world stage have exposed the vulnerabilities of the global food supply chain. Faced with the crippling effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries faced an uphill battle in ensuring their citizens have stable sources of food and medical supplies during the early stages of 2020.

The twists and turns of food security

And while food supply has since stabilised, it has accelerated the Singaporean government’s push for food resilience through self-sufficiency and brought forth the necessity of locally grown produce. The 30 by 30 goal set out by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) took centre stage, but as the pandemic woes eased, other issues came to the forefront.

With the unexpected fallout from the Ukraine war, the increase in the prices of gas and agricultural products threw the world into yet another food price-supply shock. With Singapore producing only around 10 per cent of its food, the reliance on imports puts us in a precarious position where we will be caught off-guard with unexpected disruptions in the upstream supply chain processes.

Back in 2010, I entered the glitzy world of casino gaming where I was based in Macau, the then gaming hub of the world. It was definitely an eye-opener, and we would often see people splurging on fine dining and luxury goods.

I was exposed only to the consumption part of the food supply chain, and it did not occur to me what goes on behind the scenes. After almost six years in casino gaming, I decided to move back to Singapore and looked towards the green economy industries as the area I wanted to venture into.

The beginnings of Artisan Green

I stumbled upon vertical farming projects and was fascinated by how they married technology with traditional agriculture. I saw this field as one that is forward-looking and was intrigued and wanted to be able to play a part in providing food sustainably.

Also Read: GREENS aims to empower Indonesia’s 240M non-farmers with its meta-farming solutions

The vertical farming industry back in 2016 was still in its nascent stages, and market data was not readily available on its commercial viability. However, after some research and financial modelling, I found that integrating plant science to increase yields, engineering to obtain economies of scale and having a sound commercialisation plan was the breakthrough the agritech industry needed.

2018 was the year that Artisan Green started its operations as a modern indoor farm using controlled environment techniques and hydroponics. Within the first year, we established ourselves as the only indoor farm growing baby spinach, one of the most sensitive crops to grow indoors in Singapore.

Through continued research and experimentation, we managed to grow our own produce that surpassed the quality of imports, netting our first success in our foray into the vertical farming world.

Due to the constant need for research and development, we understood the necessity of using a system that enables us to conduct more experiments in a shorter time frame. Especially since we are now embarking on building our new farm, which will increase the production area from 300㎡ to 5,400㎡, the integration of automation and AI is central to scaling production.

Scaling up production with automation and AI

Singapore is known for its scarcity of resources such as water, food, and land. Through innovation and technology, Singapore has managed to ensure a robust water supply. There should be no reason why we are not able to ensure this for food resilience as well.

Also Read: How an 87-year-old enterprise aims to change the packaging game

One way to achieve this would be through using automation to convert the farming process into a factory line, increasing productivity and efficiency. Increasing our production footprint by almost twenty-fold does not increase our labour force proportionately, and in fact, through our Automated Storage and Retrieval System, which automatically conveys crops to different stations, from seeding to post-harvesting, we will only experience a four-fold increase in headcount.

Developing an AI platform in our farming system reduces the time needed to conduct experiments and get results quicker. We are currently building a digital twin of a plant that is fed with the various parameters and data from our experiments to subject it to different climate conditions and nutrient formulas to simulate the real plant’s responses.

This accelerates the research process without having to go through the time-consuming process of going through multiple iterations of experiments. With this digital twin, we can create virtual farms and allow us to optimise the various parameters in our controlled environment that we are normally not able to.

With Singaporeans now being more aware of sustainability and adopting healthier lifestyles, the consumption trend for local food products with traceability will continue to rise. Consumers now understand the pitfalls of a nation relying mainly on imports, and the shift of their mindset towards local produce requires concerted efforts from the government, consumers and finally, the innovation of farms themselves.

The support of the community has been a great boon to local farms and has allowed us to develop this nascent industry where it is slightly more mature and accepted by consumers. Consumers now get a wider range of choices and can purchase local produce that has not gone through the long journey of travelling thousands of kilometres before arriving on their tables. Every packet of produce bought from local farmers also contributes toward our long-term food security and creates a new economy for Singapore to excel in and export out to the world stage.

Nonetheless, climate change is still a major concern, and erratic weather conditions have subjected farms to crop losses and lower than normal yields. This has brought up the necessity of indoor farms to ensure a stable supply.

And while indoor farms will never replace the traditional outdoor farms, we can still play a part in the supply chain and ensure consumers have access to pesticide-free, fresh, and clean produce grown locally at their doorstep.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image credit:  Canva Pro

The post How AI and automation can shape the future of farms appeared first on e27.

Singapore- and US-based international insurtech company bolttech has completed the acquisition of a majority shareholding in Axle Asia, an established insurance broker in Indonesia.

Axle Asia will become a subsidiary of the Singaporean firm and subsequently be rebranded.

This deal will accelerate the deployment of bolttech’s insurance exchange capabilities and complement its existing presence as a device protection provider in Indonesia, per a statement.

Also Read: Insurtech unicorn bolttech invests in digital insurance advisory Sherpa

“Becoming part of bolttech will enable us to innovate and bring more choice to customers in Indonesia at an accelerated pace,” said Junaedy Ganie, Commissioner, Axle Asia.

Founded in 2008, Axle Asia has served diverse corporate clients from a broad cross-section of industries in Indonesia, from its offices in Jakarta and Surabaya. Its portfolio balances general insurance and employee benefits. Axle Asia also provides personal lines to support its clients’ needs.

Launched in 2020, bolttech aims to make connections between insurers, distributors and customers easier and more efficient to buy and sell insurance and protection products. It works with insurers, telcos, retailers, banks, e-commerce and digital destinations to embed insurance into their customer journeys at the point of need.

The firm claims it serves customers in 30 markets across North America, Asia, and Europe. It has more than 800 distribution partners and 200 insurers in its network and is licensed in 36 international jurisdictions.

Also Read: iPhone co-inventor-backed insurtech unicorn bolttech adds US$30M to Series A

In March this year, bolttech made a strategic investment in UK-based digital insurance advisory Sherpa. Last December, it added BRV Capital Management as a strategic investor in the company. This followed a US$30 million investment towards its US$180-million round from EDBI and Spanish firm Alma Mundi.

bolttech’s other backers are Tony Fadell (Principal at Future Shape, inventor of iPod, and co-inventor of iPhone), Alpha Leonis Partners, Dowling Capital Partners, B. Riley Venture Capital, and Tarsadia Investments.

—

Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon. 

Here’s the full list of the speakers for the 2022 edition, which will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

The post bolttech acquires majority shares in Indonesian insurance broker Axle Asia appeared first on e27.

I plan to write some thought pieces every other month to document the activities that are happening in the Southeast Asian tech startup –ones that we did not get to publish as a feature or news article. It would be a neat way to wrap up our editorial calendar for a month, enabling us to look back and understand what the month meant for us.

For September, the highlight seemed to centre around the return of events in many Southeast Asian countries.

In Indonesia, we attended the NXC International Summit, where we witnessed notable announcements such as Indonesia’s upcoming plan to launch a crypto exchange.

Meanwhile, to say that the last two weeks were intense in Singapore is an understatement.

There was the Singapore F1 weekend for the rest of the community, but the event also happened to be in conjunction with several major tech events in the country. We went to TOKEN2049 to speak to three global Web3 companies on their strategies to win over the Asia Pacific market. In the same week, we also received invitations to at least five other events in the Web3 space.

Our friends at Tech In Asia also hosted their conference just the week before.

We can even say that September was the month when the MICE industry in Singapore was making its comeback as the borders reopened and the world started turning again. But what does it mean for the tech startup ecosystem?

Also Read: Echelon 2022 to discuss the state of the SEA startup ecosystem

As the world keeps on turning

Last week did come with its own disadvantages as Singapore recorded 6,888 new COVID-19 cases following the return of F1 Grand Prix to the country after two years of absence. There is no doubt that this part is unfortunate. It reminded us that the fight against the pandemic is not entirely over.

But for the tech startup ecosystem, perhaps this is a moment where we can be a little bit hopeful.

Every event has its own uniqueness, and startup ecosystem members go to events for different reasons. I recently spoke to some founders about attending events; some believed it remains a great opportunity to promote their works and secure sales. But in principle, the advantage of attending events is its networking opportunities.

Personally, by visiting just one event in the past two weeks, I was able to secure leads for many of our projects from the Contributor Programme to regular feature articles. Seeing the startups that exhibited their booths at the event and the sessions on the stage gave us a glimpse of what is happening in the ecosystem.

(It also felt great to be able to reconnect with familiar faces after two years of not meeting in person.)

But in the context of Web3 space, the hosting of TOKEN2049 and similar events in the last week of September did help to get the word out about the Web3 space. Because let us face it: There are still several people out there who are still questioning the legitimacy of this vertical. The great homework industry players have in growing it involves advocating and educating the masses about its prospects and advantages, and events –especially ones that coincide with major events such as F1– are the right opportunity for it.

This is the kind of hopeful moment that we needed as we enter the final quarter of the year, closing in the works that we had done before –and preparing for a new one.

I want to close this note by reminding you that Echelon 2022 is set to happen at Resorts World Sentosa on October 27-28. This will be a great opportunity for us to reconnect. I cannot wait to see more familiar faces at the event.

The post In September, the SEA startup ecosystem was all ready to go out again appeared first on e27.

As Juwai IQI’s COO and CIO, I lead the effort to manage and build our technology platform and “super-app” Atlas. Today, Atlas has more than 20,000 users, all of whom are agents in Juwai IQI’s global real estate network, IQI.

Here, I’d like to share the five most important lessons we have learnt from creating this global tech platform from our headquarters in Malaysia.

Talent matters

The first and most important lesson we learnt is that when it comes to building a global tech platform, talent matters. A lot. Having a great team is critical to success.

Salaries for software engineers vary country by country, with some, such as the United States, paying more for the same talent as in other places like, say, Malaysia. But a good team-building strategy can’t be focused on paying the least. It has to be centred around finding the best available talent. I’m proud to say we have been able to attract and retain some world-class engineers and operators thus far and continue to grow our team.

We did this by building a strong culture of excellence and teamwork. We were very intentional about the values we wanted to instil in our team, and we hired people who aligned with those values.

Setting a good foundation is even more critical because our team is still in its early stages of growth since we intend to employ more than 1,000 tech and data staff in Kuala Lumpur. Especially after we take possession of our new larger offices, we will need to fill many, many roles. These include platform and mobile app developers, data scientists, and social network community specialists.

Also Read: Tips on building your startup out of that spark of frustration 

So, if you’re working on building a global tech platform, my advice is this: talent matters. A lot. Invest in your team and your culture and establish your core values early.

Put the users first

Another important lesson we learnt is that you have to put the users first. Always.

When we began building our platform, we constantly asked ourselves: what do the users need? What are they trying to accomplish? How can we make their lives easier?

It sounds simple, but it’s not always easy to do. There are a lot of competing interests and agendas in any organisation, and it’s easy to get caught up in those and lose sight of the users. What’s more, corporations tend to focus on the desire to create the perfect solution, but application development only succeeds when you focus on the user’s needs.

If you keep the users in the front and centre of everything you do, you’ll easily stay on the right track. For us, that has meant consulting directly with our users, engaging with them at every stage of development, and receiving direct feedback on what they think about our latest release and how we can improve it.

You also must manoeuvre delicately around the difference between what users say they want and what features they would actually embrace.

One lesson we learnt from our users is to avoid over-engineering the product. A product plan can include many features that users simply don’t want. For example, we found our real estate agent users wanted to maintain personal control of their lead and client information. We had to build around this desire. Some other real estate platforms have struggled because their business models depend on agents sharing this data.

Think globally from day one

From day one, we knew we wanted our business to scale internationally. That meant our platform would have to be used by real estate agents worldwide. So, we made sure it was built to be scalable and accessible from anywhere.

We are committed to localising our content and supporting different languages so that users worldwide can use our platform in their mother tongue. From the very first, our app has supported multiple languages and currencies, has been hosted on servers worldwide and has relied on robust infrastructure to accommodate future growth.

Thinking global also meant that we had to be more ambitious. We weren’t simply trying to digitise a formerly offline process. We hoped instead to re-engineer the process, reduce complications, and make our agents more efficient.

In this journey, we constantly walk the tightrope between doing too much and too little. We can neither present our users with entirely new and unfamiliar ways of doing things nor offer them too few efficiency advantages. We must strike the right balance.

Be willing to pivot

The next lesson I want to share is that you must be willing to pivot. Pivoting means changing direction – both when things are going badly and also when you identify an opportunity you hadn’t planned for.

Our platform looked very different when we started than it does today. We had to make many adjustments along the way based on user feedback and changing market conditions.

Early on, we found our users would often fail to enter complete and accurate addresses, including postcodes. As you can imagine, valid addresses are critical in the real estate business. Even so, our users told us they wanted to save time by entering partial addresses while on the go.

We resolved this challenge by creating code to use machine learning to identify correct property addresses from the available information. This took more work but also resulted in higher satisfaction and usage rates.

Also Read: The profitability trade-off: How startups navigate uncertain times to achieve quality growth

So, if you’re building a global tech platform, my advice is to be willing to pivot. Be flexible, be adaptable, and be open to change. It can be painful but can also make your platform much more successful.

Data is vital

The final lesson that I want to share is that data is vital. Without data, it’s impossible to understand what’s working and what isn’t, identify new opportunities, or fulfil your broader business goals. If you’re considering building a global tech platform, make sure you have a plan for collecting and analysing data. It will be essential to your success.

Sometimes, you collect data even in the absence of an immediate plan for making use of it. I find that data is like money: it is best to save what you can because, eventually, you’ll find a need for it.

Data allows you to understand your users and make decisions that will improve your platform. And because our users are the agents in our network, data also gives us deeper insights into our business. Without data, we would be flying blind.

These are the five most important lessons I learned while helping build a global tech platform in Malaysia for Juwai IQI. I hope they are useful to you as you plan your own development efforts.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post 5 lessons from building a global tech platform in Malaysia appeared first on e27.

Ecoxyztem, a venture builder for climate tech startups in Indonesia, has received undisclosed funding from TAP Applied Agri Services, Konservasi Hutan Indonesia (a global investor from Pegasus Tech Ventures), and Roni Pramaditia (Chairman of Medco Foundation).

The funds obtained will be used as working capital to develop at least four startups annually.

It will also reach more business actors in the climate tech sector, which can contribute to reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in the archipelago.

Ecoxyztem provides access to talent, venture architecture for business modelling, go-to-market activities through business matchmaking, and investments.

Also Read: ‘There’s a lack of urgency among companies in achieving net zero targets’: Unravel Carbon’s Grace Sai

Currently, Ecoxyztem has four startup portfolios: Waste4Change (waste management), ReservoAir (solving flooding problems), Ravelware (driving the green industry transition), and Enertec (working in the energy efficiency sector.

Ecoxyztem conducted three launchpads: Circular Jumpstart, Urban Innovation Challenge, and Climate Innovation League. They acted as a medium for Ecoxyztem to get to know over 45 climate tech startups in Indonesia through learning classes and mentorship programmes.

The team is currently promoting the #TrustinEcopreneur movement to raise public awareness about climate tech solutions and increase the confidence of ecopreneurs.

Jonathan Davy, Co-Founder and CEO of Ecoxyztem, said: “The venture-building process from Ecoxyztem is needed by ecopreneurs (environmental business founders) in the early stages of their business growth. Ecoxyztem becomes an institutional co-founder for startups by facilitating their business growth with methodologies tailored to the Indonesian context.”

Bijaksana Junerosano, President Director of Ecoxyztem, said, “Ecoxyztem was born based on the concern of environmental issues, which is growing faster than the solutions. Through the venture builder model, we believe it will encourage the creation of more innovative solutions to address the environmental issues around us.”

—

Echelon 2022 aims to provide intimate and focused discussions on key topics and business matching services to facilitate business-driven connections during the two-day event. e27 will curate and invite key stakeholders of startups, investors, corporates, and ecosystem enablers to drive towards fruitful business outcomes at Echelon. 

Here’s the full list of the speakers for the 2022 edition, which will be co-located with SWITCH at Resorts World Sentosa from 27 to 28 October 2022. Learn more here. 

The post Indonesia’s climate tech venture builder Ecoxyztem secures investment appeared first on e27.

On September 28-29, Singapore became a host for TOKEN2049, one of the leading global crypto events where founders and executives of leading Web3 companies share their views on the market.

On the sidelines of the event, e27 speaks to three global Web3 companies to understand their views on the Asia Pacific as the next big market for them –and how they intend to win this.

Seeing the Asia Pacific from outside

The first company that we spoke to was WEMIX, a South Korean-origin company that started out as a game developer before expanding to the Web3 space. Its offerings now include DAO and DeFi services.

“We started the blockchain business in 2018,” WEMIX CEO Shane Kim explains to e27 on the first day of TOKEN2049. “As a gaming company with more than 20 years of history, we have very big IPs and game titles. We need a game platform to onboard our games, so we launched our platform in 2020.”

Although founded in South Korea, the company has set up an entity in Singapore, which it views as a “significant area” for its blockchain business WEMIX.

Also Read: Web3, wallets, and winning the next culture revolution in Southeast Asia

“We think Singapore is the best place to extend our blockchain business because Singapore has friendly regulations. It is also not far from South Korea, so there is little time difference. It is the best place to expand our blockchain business,” Kim says.

We also spoke to Anton Katz, CEO and Co-Founder of digital asset technology provider TALOS, who explained to us the difference in their user profiles from the early days of the company and today.

When the company first began, most of its clients were crypto-native organisations that wanted to provide services to the customers. But today, they have a wider variety of clients, which include traditional financial institutions and service providers who are looking to enter the Web3 space by adding digital assets into their regular offerings

Katz also noticed a difference between US and the Asia Pacific clients.

“In the US and Europe, there is a 50-50 balance between crypto-native organisations and service providers. But what we have seen in Asia is more lopsided towards the service providers,” he said. “There is a strong, long-term thinking in Asia in terms of providing services to underlying clients, and those can be retail or institutional customers.”

“We definitely did not expect this level of interest,” Katz stresses.

Another global Web3 company looking into the Asia Pacific market is Amber Group, a global digital asset company that has recently secured unicorn status. Having grown from 60 people to almost 1,000 in the recent year, the company also sees a shift in the profile of its customer base.

“Our client base is actually quite diverse. Four or five years ago, it was mostly the crypto-native participants because back then, there are not that many outsiders trading crypto. So you can think of crypto miners who have the need to get liquidity or manage their Bitcoin exposure. Then there are many and token projects,” explained Annabelle Huang, Managing Partner at Amber Group.

“Right now, we have also expanded into a lot of the traditional financial institutions, a lot of hedge funds, that are scaling up to add crypto to part of their portfolio. We also have traditional family offices and ultra-high net worth individuals who are willing viewing Bitcoin as an alternative investment,” she continued.

Also Read: How Web3 will impact the future of employment

Having started her career in the US, Huang also noted the difference in how Asia Pacific customers are behaving.

“I saw a very different crowd. In the US, it is a lot more developer-focused, more R&D perhaps. In terms of user activity, I think it’s definitely a lot more vibrant here in the Asia Pacific,” she said. “People are generally open-minded about new products and willing to try. It is a perfect ground for a lot of innovation that comes to this space to become real, tested use cases eventually.”

This placed the Asia Pacific as a top priority market for Amber Group.

“We are continuing to build upon the offerings here. All the way from the base layer, from security to all the product offerings that we can offer to clients. For example, on the institutional high-net-worth side, maybe their need is more around trading or wealth management. But I think we are not ruling out retail opportunities down the line,” she elaborates.

“Looking at the trends we have seen so far, in GameFi and others … I think we’re building out the infrastructure so that we are ready to onboard many more users. By infrastructure here, we mean technical infrastructure and regulation infrastructure.”

Seizing the APAC market

When it comes to the strategies these companies are using to seize opportunities and win market share in the Asia Pacific, there is a great variety between TALOS, WEMIX, and Amber Group. But one thing in common for these companies is the importance of word-of-mouth in a nascent industry such as Web3.

“For many years, it happens organically,” explains Kim. He adds that as a gaming company, WEMIX only began implementing marketing outreach with its more recent titles by hosting offline events in Japan, where most of its attendees come from abroad.

“We always focus on the essence of the game business: Fun. Basically, a game has to be fun,” Kim stresses. “Money is [even] a second objective, I think. Many P2E games focus too much on making money, which is not sustainable. Users will always want a fun experience with a game.”

Also Read: A look into (brand) love in the time of Web3

Amber Group also benefited from the concept of word-of-mouth.

“We have established ourselves as the most trustworthy, secure, and service-oriented platform. I think that is what our clients liked. Internationally, this space is still quite small,” Huang explains.

“So, for new players looking to come into space, I think they will get around to recommendations, and our name is always on top of the list,” she concludes.

With the Asia Pacific playing an important role in their expansion plan, it is no surprise that both TALOS and WEMIX have set up entities in Singapore to spearhead their operations in the region.

“By having these interactions in APAC and abroad, we have a better understanding of how service provider organisations are adopting these technologies. We are better at providing a more coherent set of services,” Katz explains. He gives an example of how crypto trading platforms tend to focus more on improving trading efficiency, connectivity, and stability while other organisations may put a stronger emphasis on relationships with clients.

In the case of WEMADE, the company is also looking forward to investing in more blockchain projects and companies in the region.

“We focus on the quality of the game and the fun [aspect of it], but we expand our business to new trends of the blockchain industry. We always go out looking for new trends,” says Kim.

Also Read: How Web3 will revolutionise borderless banking in Southeast Asia

Huang explains more details of Amber Group’s plan to grow further in the Asia Pacific market. It starts with expanding its team to include the best talents in the region.

It also puts emphasis on surviving the crypto funding winter.

“The most important thing is to weather through this cycle, making sure that we can continue to build in this so-called crypto winter. To remain competitive and still offer the best-in-class services … to make sure that we can onboard the next wave of users coming our way in the next Bull Run,” she closes.

The post Global Web3 companies on why Asia Pacific is the future of the industry appeared first on e27.

In this episode, we are excited to welcome Marvin Liao. Liao is a partner at Diaspora Ventures and GAMEGROOVE Capital and previously was a partner at 500 Startups, where in total, he has invested in over 400 companies. Prior, Liao played a major role in the international expansion efforts (in APAC and EMEA) at Yahoo!

In our conversation, Liao shares why it is crucial to building an internal network and trust to be successful in new markets, the pitfalls of too much localisation and autonomy, the importance of two-way innovation, and why bad economic times are great opportunities to expand in international markets and viewpoints on how investing in fast-growing companies is getting more global.

Also Read: East Ventures, Yahoo! Japan Capital, and SMDV launch EV Growth

Get your copy of our Wall Street Journal Bestselling Book, Global Class, a playbook on how to build a successful global business.

This episode is sponsored by our partner ZEDRA. Learn more about how the ZEDRA team can support you in expanding to new markets here.

Find our entire podcast episode library here.

—

The content was first published by Global Class.

Image Credit: Global Class

The post Why Yahoo!’s strategy to give local teams near full autonomy cost them the global search market appeared first on e27.

In my eight-month career at e27, I have had the privilege of walking closely with our contributors and propelling their thought leadership journey via the e27 Contributor Programme.

I have come across different perspectives and opinions leading the change towards positive growth and learnt so much about the ecosystem thanks to our incredible contributor community.

A few weeks back, we published an article by John Tan, Co-Founder and CEO of Doyobi, an edutech startup, where he talks about how our current education system has been struggling to nurture curious and self-directed learners, focusing on finding solutions that go way beyond the four walls of a classroom. And thus, I was introduced to the hybrid model for our education system and how edutech is making it happen.

Our contributor articles from expert thought leaders of the tech industry call for an evergreen stature of content. Our club has founders, investors, innovators, technicians and startup professionals expressing their views.

And since its inception, we have tried to nurture our growing family of contributors. While at it, we have realised that nothing is more enriching and heart-warming than learning from each other.

Day in and day out, the ability to strengthen this vibrant community and how we can serve our contributors better keeps us going. And it is time we give them the much-deserved spotlight. Each one has a unique voice and perspective and deserves to be heard. Check out our latest product update — a contributor-only leaderboard to glance at the most popular voices on e27 at all times.

This leaderboard is a ranking chart based on article views where you can see our top trending contributors and their published bylines. With this new launch, you will be able to discover the most popular contributions from the community and stay connected at any given time. We aim to ensure that accessibility becomes as smooth as a bowl of butter and that a bright spotlight is always shining on our top thought leaders.

Our responsibility is to bring out the choicest voices and opinions and keep strengthening and nurturing this evergreen community. Don’t forget, we are just the glue holding this community together; the real magic dust is you.

So without further adieu, head to our news page (hyperlink) and see the magic brewing for yourself. If you want to see yourself on our new shiny leaderboard, join our vibrant community today by submitting a byline.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

The post Put yourself in the spotlight with our new contributor-only leaderboard appeared first on e27.

Technology has become such an integral part of the way organisations operate, and because of this, the tech industry faces a huge skills shortage. So much, so that big pay packets are offered to those with the most in-demand tech skills – usually men.

Additionally, high female representation in hard-hit industries like healthcare, hospitality, retail and tourism, the role of women as caregivers and the compounding effect of the gender pay gap have meant that women have borne the brunt of the global pandemic.

A study conducted by Boston Consulting Group and Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority indicates the tech sector is making progress in diversity, but advances must continue to accelerate as women make up 28 per cent of the sector workforce worldwide. South-East Asia (SEA) is leading the change where women account for 32 per cent of tech talent in this sector.

While 32 per cent might seem significant, in reality, only a small percentage of SEA tech startups have female Founders or Co-Founders. It’s the same in the US, women make up 17-20 per cent of CIOs in large companies and 27 per cent of IT managerial roles.

The tech talent crisis

Research has shown that women place a higher value on careers that involve helping and working with other people, collaboration and problem-solving. This perhaps explains why women are drawn to tech, engineering, and STEM careers and the higher salaries these roles pay.

Studies indicate that there is a growing awareness that action must be taken on gender diversity within technology companies. While women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has been increasing, the gender gap remains high, meaning suitably skilled women technology workers are not entering the sector.

Also Read: Gina Romero’s quest of unchaining women through AI and digital tasks

This skills shortage is particularly noticeable in the field of cybersecurity, where cyber-attacks and threats are becoming more frequent and detrimental. According to the (ISC)² Cybersecurity Global Workforce Study 2021, there are 2.7 million unfilled cybersecurity positions worldwide. The (ISC)² also estimates that three-quarters of cybersecurity professionals are still men.

Considering a cyberattack could potentially disable the economy and critical infrastructure of a city, state or entire country, this is one sector that requires an injection of talent to defend networks and improve cyber resilience. Cybercrime is expected to cost the world US$10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Threat actors and hackers know the sector is globally understaffed and underprepared.

What can organisations do?

By encouraging and increasing the number of women we recruit into technology and cybersecurity fields, we can harness the power of a more diversified workforce in this industry to help combat mounting cybercrime.

Cybersecurity is akin to medicine with generalists and specialists. Until now, the field of cybersecurity has focussed more on the technical side with roles requiring specialist technical expertise.

Organisations should be looking to attract or retain more women in tech (in this case, specifically cyber), which pays higher salaries and will, in turn, reduce the gender pay gap.

Also Read: Women of Web3: Top women contributors tell us all we need to know about Web3

Research proves diverse teams perform better. Individuals from different ages, backgrounds and genders provide different perspectives, which ultimately drive innovative solutions. Cybercriminals also have a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences, the wider variety of people with broad experience working in this space, the better our chances of improving our cybersecurity posture.

Look for women with transferrable skills outside the IT department

What’s missing is the expertise that can be found outside the IT department. Expertise such as organisational change management, learning and development, business intelligence, stakeholder management, communication, situational awareness, emotional intelligence and business partnerships, to name a few.

Pay women fairly and promote women

Before looking outside for talent to complement the existing IT department, companies should be looking within. The abovementioned skills can be found among employees already working in areas such as Human Resources, Communications, and Marketing.

Provide women with training and clear career paths

Many women already working in STEM face distinct barriers to succeeding in the field, including a lack of mentorship, role models and training. There is bias in the workplace, with only 24 per cent of women working in cybersecurity. There is also a huge gap in women in leadership positions within cybersecurity. On more than one occasion, I have seen women who are as capable as their male peers (sometimes with more experience than them) be overlooked for leadership roles.

Businesses have a role to play in ensuring that as well as being paid equally, women are equally represented in leadership positions, are supported in their work lives, and there are fair policies, flexibility and parental leave.

Partner with educational institutions to mentor women early in their careers

There needs to be a concerted effort to make technology and cybersecurity professions more enticing to young women and girls to help address the gender balance.

STEM must become more available to girls early in their school curriculum, and cybersecurity needs to become more accessible. The latter requires more understanding and opportunity at a grassroots level to not only level the gender playing field but to address a rapidly growing skills gap.

One thing we can do as women in the industry is to mentor young women early in their careers, which makes access to the industry more inclusive and far less daunting. This is necessary not only to make women feel like the technology industry is a good fit for them but to give them more confidence when it comes to salary and role negotiations.

Women are increasingly finding their footing in the technology sector, but there remain legacy issues that should be dealt with today to eliminate gender from every conversation.

–

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page

Image credit: Canva Pro

The post Why it’s time to hit ‘refresh’ when it comes to addressing the gender diversity gap in the IT sector appeared first on e27.