Tag: T shirts

Aerodyne makes strategic investment in Middle East’s drone solutions firm FEDS

Malaysia-based Aerodyne Group, a provider of drone-based asset management solutions, has made a strategic investment in FEDS Group Holdings, a drone solutions provider in the Middle East.

The transaction details were not disclosed.

This investment would allow Aerodyne to leverage on FEDS’s growth trajectory and financial performance to further enhance value for its shareholders.

In the Middle East, FEDS provides premium turnkey aerial inspections of infrastructure assets in the energy utilities, geospatial survey, public infrastructure, and telecommunications sectors.

This strategic investment is part of Aerodyne’s two-year global plan, which will potentially see the completion of seven M&As within the period.

In December 2019, Aerodyne announced a similar strategic alliance with Measure UAS in America.

SFA collaborates with MAS, others to support fintech industry affected by COVID-19

Singapore FinTech Association (SFA) today announced the results of the recently-conducted survey with its members on the impact of COVID-19 on the fintech industry.

SFA has been working with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and key ecosystem partners, including National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) and NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute), on initiatives to save jobs and fintech companies.

The key findings of the survey are:

• 81.2 per cent of respondents have implemented business continuity plans (BCP)
• 47.8 per cent of respondents feel that COVID-19 has had a significant impact on their business.
• Larger fintech companies seem to cope better with COVID-19 as compared to their smaller counterparts with less than 20 employees

Also Read: Singapore’s SFA signs MOU with ASEAN’s AFIN to promote fintech marketplace APIX

Top-3 areas which fintech companies need immediate assistance on are:

• Advice on available government grants
• Fund raising
• Lead generation

Commenting on the survey results, Chia Hock Lai, President of SFA, said, “We urge fintech companies to take this opportunity to future-proof their business, build up new capabilities and seize new opportunities during this period. Singapore will emerge as a stronger fintech hub as the ecosystem is standing united to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In response to the survey findings, SFA will be working closely with MAS and key ecosystem players like NTUC and e2i to address the main issues of saving fintech jobs through job redesign and upskilling of workers, lowering business cost through the new Financial Sector Technology and Innovation (FSTI) Digital Acceleration Grant for fintech.

Startups can obtain a co-funding up to US$120,000, which can be used for digital solutions and services, facilitating sales with an external auditor to come up with a new self-assessment framework, and funding stimulation through one-on-one access with investors.

Wavemaker Partners adds Gavin Lee to lead the investment team

VC firm Wavemaker Partners has announced that it has appointed Gavin Lee as a new Partner. Lee will be responsible for building the investment team at Wavemaker and is responsible for all investment-related activities.

Lee has led and participated in more than 100 investments and actively supports several Wavemaker’s portfolio companies including Shield and eFishery.

He started his career in venture capital with Matrix Partners China and Infocomm Investments, a Singapore government venture firm now called SGInnovate. He graduated with a BA in Financial Economics from Columbia University and is currently completing his Executive MBA in Finance at Tsinghua University.

CIMB, iSTOX to expand access to private capital markets through DLT

The Singapore branch of CIMB has signed an agreement with ICHX Tech, the operator of the capital markets platform iSTOX. The partnership will allow CIMB clients in the ASEAN region access to a faster, more flexible, and efficient way to raise funds at a lower cost.

iSTOX is the regulated capital markets platform available in any major financial centre to support the one-stop issuance, custody, and secondary trading of digitised securities.

Leveraging on the power of advanced smart contract and distributed ledger technology (DLT) to streamline the issuance and trading process, iSTOX allows investors and issuers to connect directly and removes barriers that have prevented a far greater pool of investors from access to private capital markets opportunity.

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Picture Credit: Aerodyne

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Right now, the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who managed to nail down working from home, and those who still struggle with it.

Let’s face it.

Working from home has been imposed on most of us with a vengeance. During this pandemic period, it is mandatory to flatten the curve. And we must all cooperate with the best of our abilities to help the world heal faster.

Remote work is just one way of it. In fact, the interest in the search term ‘remote work’ has tripled during the past three months.

Unfortunately, there are several challenges that remote work brings along with it. If you don’t put a lid on these challenges at the earliest, your productivity is going to plummet and your boss might assume that you are slacking at home.

Let’s not make situations so worse.

In this short blog post, I am going to discuss the five most prominent remote work challenges and what you can do to overcome them.

Also Read: How I built a business across three countries with only remote workers

Distractions

If you are someone like me, most probably the kitchen counter would be your work desk. And it will have an abundant supply of snacks which acts as a constant distraction from the pile of work that keeps growing.

If you are living with your family and children, there is also the constant noise and interruptions that you will have prey too.

Well, that is our first challenge to tackle — distractions.

Easy fix

You could be an intern who has just got into your first job or a CEO who has decades-long experience. It doesn’t matter which level of the corporate ladder you are at when you are working remotely; you need a proper workspace.

An ideal workspace for remote work is one where you have minimal distractions, has comfortable seating and a surface to put your work equipment on.

The kitchen counter is definitely not that, neither is the couch or the bed. You need a table and a chair to be productive while working remotely. Of course, you can keep carrying your work to the kitchen counter, couch or bed. Just don’t make them your workspace.

A dedicated workspace helps you prepare psychologically for work. It also helps set a boundary between personal life and work, although both are under the same roof now.

Also Read: (Infographics) Advantages and disadvantages of remote working

Cybersecurity

At work, our IT team would have set up the state-of-the-art IT security systems that would have protected your hardware, software or data from being threatened by cybersecurity criminals.

But, when working from home, especially when you connect to the internet using a private broadband connection, you may not enjoy the same level of cybersecurity.

As per the Techrepublic report, there has been a 667 per cent massive spike in COVID-19 related scams, phishing emails and so on. It is easy for even a seasoned internet user to fall prey to them.

Furthermore, Zoom, which rose to stardom as the go-to tools for virtual conferencing, has also become a hotspot for hackers. A Mashable report suggests that a Zoom security bug can let attackers steal your Windows passwords.

From a personal level and also from an organisational level, these are tough cybersecurity challenges of remote work that should be addressed on priority.

Easy fix

A virtual private network (VPN) is a trusted form of connecting to the internet wherein your device’s internet connection will be routed through a trusted VPN private server then the server provided by the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

It ensures that all the data you send and receive online is not eavesdropped or manipulated by hackers or any unauthorised personnel. In fact, most organisations have been assigning dedicated IP to their employees to thwart cybersecurity threats.

There are also other benefits of using a dedicated IP.

You will be automatically added to your employer’s whitelist. That solves the problem of user authentication for specific tools, databases or such confidential information that you could be trying to access from your home network.

In short, VPN solves the dual problem of cybersecurity as well as improves your access to organisational data.

Also Read: Why you shouldn’t resist collaboration and remote work

Collaboration

Like or hate it, collaboration takes a hit when you are working home.

There is some X factor to face-to-face communication that makes collaboration so easier. Be it fetching a file from a colleague or giving knowledge transfer to a new project — things are more natural when there is face-to-face communication.

One of the toughest (and most prominent) challenges of remote work is the lack of direct interaction. You have to use virtual communication channels like chat, email, voice calls or video calls with fake backgrounds to communicate.

Even with all of these, your message may not get appropriately conveyed since you are not physically present.

How can this challenge be tackled?

Easy fix

The only resort to stay on the same page with a team while working remotely is to use project management tools. There are tons of such tools available online (both free and paid). Some of the best ones in the market are Trello, Basecamp, Slack, Evernote, etc.

Also read: Why remote working is the future for startups

Most of these tools are web-based and thus spare you from the need to download any software or configure them. The only difficulty would be to add team members and make them habitual to using it regularly.

Productivity

Given the many distractions that a home has — the comfy couch, the easily accessible bedroom, the hobbies and crafts that you did not have time to attend to earlier and so on, it is bound that you will get distracted.

When distractions intervene, productivity falls off the cliff into a deep pit. Also, while working remotely, you do not have the sight of your employees as well. This gives some sort of freedom to slack around in your own way.

Easy fix

Maintaining productivity while working from home is not a difficult task. All you need is a bit of preparation.

At the office, the flow of events and the environment might have made your stock of things-to-do and keep going like a well-oiled machine. While at home, you might need a proper plan, perhaps your own to-do list for the day to get things done.

Don’t mind putting pen to paper and writing it down. It has some magical way of ensuring you stack on track.

If that doesn’t work, go for digital alternatives like Google keep, Papier, Microsoft To-do, Trello, Wunderlist and the likes.

Also Read: The future of remote work is happening now, here’s how to make it work for you

Personal well-being

Remote working has several overlooked downsides to it.

Some of them are loneliness caused due to isolation, the need to be always available and for some, even a nagging feeling of insecurity.

These personal well-being issues might seem trivial at first. But, if they are contained at the earliest, they can grow in monstrous proportions causing your entire life — both personal and professional along with it to tumble down.

Easy fix

Having a support system of friends, colleagues and family can help tide over the isolation-caused well-being issues.

To begin with, use the time to get in touch with your near and dear ones with whom you have gotten far due to work and the routine of life.

In fact, the internet is strewn with images of video calls that are bringing together entire families and co-workers who are geographically scattered.

Final Thoughts

Remote work is going to stay, at least for a while. The world as a whole needs some time to heal.

While you are working remotely, you will be bombarded with distractions. You will face cybersecurity issues that you never knew existed. You might even find it difficult to rein in work from colleagues who were easy to work with earlier.

All these challenges cannot be solved in one shot. You have to address them separately, one at a time. Once you have conquered these challenges, you will be able to improve your work productivity, maybe even better than while at work.

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Register for our next webinar: Best practices for communications during the COVID-19 crisis

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Prasetia Dwidharma leads seed funding round in Indonesian online trucking startup Webtrace

Indonesia’s online trucking startup Webtrace has secured an undisclosed seed stage funding, led by VC firm Prasetia Dwidharma, with participation from Astra Ventura.

The company said it plans to use the funds to strengthen its marketing and customer acquisition strategy as well as to expand sales headcount.

Erwin Subroto, CEO and Co-founder, said: “Webtrace aims to help those companies by using its technology and solution, to be more efficient in cost saving as well as improving the utilisation rate, productivity, and safety; by implementing IoT sensors and solution that will generate various real time data and analysis.”

Although the characteristics of Indonesia’s geography are a combination from land, sea, and air, land transportation remains the primary way good are moved goods and it touches the lives of nearly the entire population.

In addition, trucking is the physical backbone of e-commerce, and person-to-person shipments, with spending on overland logistics estimated to reach US$290 billion by 2020.

Edutech startup Lido secures over US$7.4M in funding led by BAce Capital

India-based edutech firm focussing on live online tutorials Lido Learning has raised over US$7.4 million in Series B round led by Ant Financial-backed BAce Capital.

The company said it plans to use the funding to expand its offering to Indian students in tier II and tier III cities with more curriculum-focussed subjects, as well as modern skills like analytical thinking, critical reasoning, communication, collaboration, and creativity

According to Outlook India, Lido is BAce Capital’s first edutech investment in India, as part of a strategy to continue investing in early stage companies in emerging economies in India and Southeast Asia.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Indonesian edutech startup Gredu raises Pre-Series A funding round to help ease teachers’ workload

Lido has a community of students, tutors, and parents connected by its technology to make education more accessible. With the COVID-19 lockdown taking place, Lido offers to connect expert teachers to students across the country in subjects such as mathematics and science tutorials for Classes V to IX in ICSE and CBSE syllabus.

LiveIn launches Pay What You Can (PWYC) programme addressing COVID-19’s vulnerable community

LiveIn, a property-technology company for a long-stay term, has launched a PWYC (Pay What You Can) scheme to its existing tenants and any individuals affected by the COVID-18 situation.

This scheme provides access to discounted rooms for LiveIn, which is aimed at helping those who have gotten furloughed, terminated, retrenched, or have undergone a loss of business and/or revenue during the MCO which began on March 18, 2020.

Through this arrangement with the owner-partners, LiveIn is open to invite more home seekers to come onboard and rent rooms with a ‘Pay What You Can’ afford basis, provided they have the necessary supporting documents required.

LiveIn was established in 2015. It provides property care services for homeowners and room-rental solutions for accommodation seekers in the Klang Valley with hassle-free convenience.

According to CEO and Co-founder Keek Wen Khai, the LiveIn Assist Rent-Relief Program can be found on LiveIn’s social media channels.

NUHS launches AI bot to assist instant information access to COVID-19

The National University Health System (NUHS) and Bot MD have announced a partnership to launch the NUHS-Bot MD A.I., a clinical assistant app for frontline medical staff to instantly search for hospital specific information including COVID-19 guidelines and operational directives.

Also Read: Indonesian founder develops CE-approved rapid self-test kit priced at US$10 for COVID-19

Over 500 healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and medical social workers from NUHS have benefited from the first-phase roll-out, with plans to expand access to more than 3,000 staff across the NUHS healthcare cluster.

The NUHS-Bot MD A.I. assistant is a chatbot that instantly answers questions from hospital staff about hospital protocols, COVID-19 operational directives, drug dosage information, drug formulary, and even on-call rosters. It also allows hospital staff to record their temperatures by integrating the daily temperature reporting form within the Bot interface.

The NUHS-Bot MD A.I. assistant is accessible on any smartphone device and serves as a 24×7 virtual assistant that benefits hospital clinical staff, allowing them to access healthcare information anytime and anywhere, even when they are off duty. The smartphone app also allows hospitals to build custom clinical tools based on their own guidelines and protocols.
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Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

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While governments and private sectors across the world are engaged in a battle to curb the novel coronavirus, some use this epidemic as an opportunity for profiteering. Complaints of unjust and exorbitant pricing of products on e-commerce platforms have prompted market regulators to crack the whip on several e-commerce companies. 

In Southeast Asia, many marketplaces, such as Tokopedia (Indonesia), Lazada (Thailand), Sendo, Tiki, and Shopee Vietnam were pulled up by regulators for exploitation during the epidemic. 

While companies like Tokopedia took swift action by closing thousands of online stores that were selling personal protective equipment at exorbitant prices on its marketplace, some others imposed fines on sellers. 

There are some others, who have leveraged new-age technologies to address this issue. Tiki is one such company, which came up with several novel products to mitigate the price hike on its marketplace. 

Also Read: How Vietnam’s e-commerce firm Tiki is tiding over COVID-19 crisis

The Vietnamese e-commerce giant has introduced Artificial Intelligence-based features and strict audit to provide customers with the best products in terms of quality and prices, as well as preventing hoarding.

“Online shopping is one of the safest and most-convenient solutions to meet the daily shopping needs of consumers, who are under the lockdown. However, consumers are worried about the price hike on some marketplaces, as well as the poor quality of the products,” Tiki CTO Tridiv Vasavada said. “As a technology company, we have fully exploited and applied technologies to control the quality and price of the products, as well as to mitigate hoarding.”

‘Winner system’ and ‘buy box’

The company has introduced two new features on its marketplace — ‘winner system’ and ‘buy box’ — to provide the best possible offers to its customers.

What it does is that when an item is offered by multiple sellers on the platform, Tiki puts a score on every offer by using “Regression AI”-based mathematical models. The tool takes into account various factors, such as price competitiveness, delivery speed, return and cancellation trends of the seller, and the proximity of the stock to the location of the customer. The offer that scores the highest — whether it is from Tiki’s own seller (Tiki Trading) or a third-party seller — is presented as the primary offer to the customer.

Tiki Trading proactively attempts to secure as much inventory as possible for such stock-keeping units (SKUs) and places the inventory near the high-demand clusters, ensuring the stability of product prices.

“Technology is used to price the offers by comparing prices from a diverse set of marketplaces. This system is currently applied to approximately 300 SKUs and we will extend this to 50,000 more soon,” revealed Vasavada.

Now, to detect and remove poor quality products, Tiki has developed an AI-based Investigation Tool, which collects and processes a huge volume of data, including customer review, rating, return and cancellation rates. 

It has also built a prediction model to detect fraud and automatically turn off/remove fail-to-meet-standard products. 

This technology helps reduce 6x processing time with an accuracy rate of 90 per cent, according to Vasavada.

Lastly, to avoid the hoarding of products, Tiki’s system has set a certain limit to the number of products on each SKU a customer can purchase.

“Some users may circumvent this limitation by creating multiple accounts to place one order every minute. To tackle this, we have built a fraud detection system (FDS), which uses a variety of encoded customer data, from demographics to shopping behaviours, and applies AI models to predict within a couple of seconds, whether or not a customer is fraudulent,” he continued. 

This system is applied to each and every order placed on Tiki and able to be scaled up to thousands of orders in event of rapid demand rush on particular SKUs such as medical products.

Vasavada hopes that a combination of smart pricing, optimised inventory placement and fraud prevention will offer daily necessities and medical supplies to as many customers as we can at fair prices from reliable sellers.

Besides technologies, audit activities on Tiki are continuously implemented to ensure the quality of products and sellers. 

“During our audit process, sellers are required to provide their business licenses or household business certificates to fulfil the seller registration on Tiki. Besides, sellers are requested to prove product origins and authenticity through eligible certificates before products are onboard.

Tiki also keeps tracking customers’ feedback to remove violation products and sellers. The strictest penalty is the permanent removal of violation stores on Tiki,” he concluded.

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Image Credit: Tiki

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The pandemic is undoubtedly going to go down in history books and it is high time we accept the fact that even in the post-COVID-19 era, life is not going to be the same.

At such times, one cannot simply resort to silence and “going with the flow”. There may not be many areas under our control these days, but what we say –and how we say it– certainly is. What every organisation and individual really needs is a structured plan to tackle the “new normal”.

Very well put by Puja Bharwani from Antler at the latest e27 Webinar, “Over-communication is the need of the hour.” For the first time, the whole world is facing the same issue in struggling with the pandemic. This makes the role of empathy in communication even more integral. Since we are all in the same boat, being empathetic comes easily.

Also read: e27 Webinar: Work-from-home or work-from-office, which is better?

Leaders, be it for organisations or even countries, have a greater need to feel calm and secure as everyone will be looking to them for answers. Hence, equipping them with a streamlined and contextual flow of messages will be a long way in addressing worries and keep the show going on.

Entrepreneurs may have to manage expectations and openly communicate at various levels– to investors, employees, customers, and even their families.

In this quarantine period, making up for face value and human connection can be crucial. Even it means simply making more video calls or leveraging video technology to send out key messages. Gary Koay from the video production company, Shootsta, also shared his tips on how to create these messages optimally.

If you missed the insightful webinar, check out the video recording and let us know your thoughts at contact@e27.co

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Image credit: Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

 

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RISE raises US$8M seed round after posting rapid growth since its inception

RISE, a tech-enabled corporate innovation platform, has announced the closing of a US$8M seed financing round, led by Metro Company Limited, D2C Inc. (Japan), and Chanwanich Company, among others.

Additionally, RISE has announced plans to scale its services beyond Thailand to Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

“For us, speed is the winning key in the game of innovation. With the global network of RISE, we strongly trust that RISE is able to connect best-in-class tech startups via its Global Accelerator programme to collaborate with our internal team in order to accelerate our innovation,” said Keibun Go, Global Business Alliance Head of D2C.

Founded in 2016, RISE has been growing rapidly and claims to have now hit USD 1 billion in impact through its platform across Thailand. Currently, the company has a network of more than 400 corporations, 2,000 startups, and over 20,000 corporate innovators globally.

Investree raises US$23.5M to support SMEs in Indonesia

Investree, a B2B marketplace for financial lending in Indonesia, has secured US$23.5 million in a Series C funding round, co-led by MUIP, the venture arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, and BRI Ventures.

With the new funds, Investree plans to further develop its services to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia and to expand activities in the Philippines and Thailand.

“Southeast Asia has significant potential in terms of SME lending, and we see that Investree already has a proven strategy and management expertise that really makes it the standout player in the fintech lending industry in Indonesia and wider Southeast Asia as it grows overseas,” said Nobutake Suzuki, President and CEO of MUIP.

Singaporeans spend more on entertainment products during COVID-19 crisis: Revolut report

As much as 55 per cent of Singaporeans spend on entertainment-focused products during the COVID-19 crisis, says a Fintech super app Revolut, with most users ending up buying digital goods, specifically video games, with Steam Games (+104 per cent) and Nintendo (+82 per cent) seeing the highest increase.

The report is based on data gathered between February 2 and March 31, 2020.

There were also more purchases seen in apps and software as more working professionals begin work from home. Some of these include Zoom (+200 per cent), VPN subscriptions (+20 per cent), Skype (+18 per cent) and LinkedIn subscriptions (+22 per cent).

Although foreign in-store transactions saw a decrease of 34 per cent, local in-store and e-commerce saw a spike of growth (30 per cent and 35 per cent respectively).

WeWork sues SoftBank for pulling out of US$3B deal

Commercial real estate company WeWork has sued SoftBank for pulling out of a US$3 billion deal on the ground of ‘pending criminal and civil investigations’ surrounding the company and its co-founder Adam Neumann, say a CNBC report.

According to the deal drafted in November 2019, Softbank would buy US$3 billion in shares from existing shareholders, and SoftBank jointly agreed with the co-working company to set performance milestones that would be met in exchange for the secondary liquidity

Softbank retaliated saying that several of the milestones agreed in the contract was not met by WeWork.

“Nothing in the Special Committee’s filing today credibly refutes SoftBank’s decision to terminate the tender offer. Several of the conditions the Special Committee, WeWork, Adam Neumann, SoftBank and SoftBank Vision Fund agreed to last October as requirements for completing the tender were not met as of April 1, 2020,” said a SoftBank spokesperson.

“Their filing today is a desperate and misguided attempt now to rewrite that agreement and to rewrite the history of the past six months,” the person added.

Also Read: News Roundup: Indonesian online trucking startup Webtrace secures seed funding led by Prasetia Dwidharma

WeWork’s Special Board Committee said that it “regrets the fact that SoftBank continues to put its own interests ahead of those of WeWork’s minority stockholders,” according to a press statement.

BRI Remittance joins hands with Everest to enable Europe-Indonesia money exchange

Decentralised digital payments SaaS provider Everest has announced a partnership with BRI Remittance, a subsidiary of Bank Rakyat Indonesia, to execute money exchange across Europe-Indonesia borders.

Everest aims to stop the neglect that those unidentified individuals face when banks and financial systems don’t provide services due to the lack of identification. The company’s device-free solution can identify people and transfer value, covering 196 countries and 4,000 different IDs.

“BRI Remittance’s vision is to be the leading global money service provider. To accomplish this mission, we established joint co-operation with Everest, the leading solution combining KYC, AML, compliance, and digital money movement, all through an integrated blockchain platform,” said BRI Remittance Executive Director Gigieh Perkasa.

This strategic partnership is also expected to increase business relations within the Indonesia-Europe corridor.

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Image Credit – RISE, Revolut,  Eloise Ambursley

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As modern technology barrels on through the 4th Industrial Revolution, the landscape of our industries, labour markets and overall lifestyles are transforming faster than ever. By 2030, up to 375 million workers across the global workforce — 14 per cent of all workers — may need to change occupations and learn new skills by 2030.

There is plenty of talk about what jobs will and won’t exist by the next decade, but one thing is certain: in order to prepare themselves for the jobs of tomorrow, the workforce of today must become lifelong learners. 

Yet, there is little consensus on what lifelong learning is; for all the buzz around the term, it is vague at best, and obfuscating at worst. For there to be practical solutions, we need to move the debate beyond questions about ‘what is’ to questions of ‘how to’.

That’s why, at D2L, we believe that the future will demand a “Learning-Integrated Life” — making the key question: ‘How do we live a learning-integrated life?’ 

What do we need to live a learning-integrated life

In a learning-integrated life, individuals are always in a learning mindset. Where traditional systems currently break life down into distinct stages of classroom learning, work, then retirement, in a learning-integrated life, learning is a continual journey that extends past compulsory education, into the individual’s working career, and beyond.

The learner is self-motivated, choosing to engage in intentional learning, upskilling, and retraining for both their professional development and personal enrichment. 

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: Lifetrack Medical Systems partners Philippines government to identity COVID-19 patients

Yet, while it is important that the learner takes the initiative in seeking out and seizing learning opportunities, the onus does not rest solely on the individual.

For that continual journey to be possible, they must be exposed to ongoing and intensive opportunities for learning and skills development throughout their lives.

And, that would require the establishment of a system that places the motivated learner at its core, supporting the learning individual throughout all stages of their life.  

This, unfortunately, is far from a common system in today’s global society. For many, learning stops when schooling ends. Meanwhile, those who actively seek learning opportunities while in the workforce, find themselves stumbling their way through a complex and fragmented system, enrolling themselves in courses that are time-consuming, expensive, and — where their credentials are not recognised — with no clear return on investment.

And, employers who do try to support their employees’ enrichment are limited by the capacity of their human resources team, and often restrict the training available to skills that are most needed by the employer or compliance training, rather than new skills or development.

Building an educational ecosystem that supports a learning-integrated life

The current COVID-19 crisis has revealed the tremendous need for reform in our educational systems. Worldwide, school and university closures have affected more than 776.7 million students worldwide.

With lessons forced out of the classroom, educators are seeing a breakdown in the traditional systems of learning — many find themselves having to quickly adapt to online, remote methods of teaching and learning.

Also Read: Good vibes only: Sailing through COVID-19 crisis with mindfulness meditation

Yet, this digital imperative has also cast into view inequities in the education space, as not every student has access to the tools needed for online learning. Education can be a great equalizer if inclusive, but in its current state, it widens gaps instead.

For a learning-integrated life to be possible for everyone, there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we — that is to say, individuals, education systems, employers and governments — view learning.

To create a system where individuals have the opportunity to access valuable learning that enables their enrichment and employability throughout their life. We have to move away from traditional classroom learning that grants credentials based on seat time. We need to establish a new norm that acknowledges and values non-traditional systems.

We must look towards more flexible, affordable and accessible pedagogical models, with entry and exit points based on skills, experience, and abilities. This can include short-term or modular programs; stackable credentials; skills validation for experience picked up on the job; and greater use of self-directed and online learning — and these only just scratch the surface. 

These are big changes, involving policies and value systems, but every big change must start somewhere small. For those looking to reform the system and create an educational ecosystem that supports a learning integrated life — from educators to edtech innovators, to governments — there are a number of practical principles that can guide their direction.

Also Read: Why there is no better time to upskill than this COVID-19 crisis

To understand and create that path, we must seek answers to the following questions:

1. Is this system you’ve envisioned affordable and accessible for all learners?
2. There is no “one-size-fits-all” when it comes to an individual’s learning pathway. Is this system high-quality, personalised and flexible?
3. Does it incentivise learning, motivating learners and promoting a “continual learning culture”?
4. Does it use data to help learners chart their unique pathway, by keeping them informed about which options are most appropriate to their community and have value in the job market?
5. Does it use new and scalable digital tools to enhance learning — with educator and learner analytics, personalisation at scale, improved success rates and greater cost-effectiveness?
6. Is it consistently assessed against learning outcomes — learner progress and skills development — rather than seat times?
7. Is it responsive, with the ability to adapt to the evolution of learner demands, employer needs, and workforce trends?

We all have a stake in increasing the availability and access to quality opportunities for learning. If you’re looking to learn more about the future of work and learning in 2020 and beyond, download our whitepaper here.  

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Register for our next webinar: Best practices for communications during the COVID-19 crisis

Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

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In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an unprecedented shutdown of economies and borders across the globe, causing a standstill in growth and nationalism at its best.

Fitch had revised the forecast for global growth to 1.3 per cent from 2.5 per cent in December 2019. Meanwhile, the World Bank is anticipating the Malaysian economy to be contracting 0.1 per cent, assuming COVID-19 to be under control and growth to accelerate in the fourth quarter.

In light of this, Malaysia has introduced stimulus packages to provide a buffer to its citizens.

Coined the PRIHATIN package, an additional MYR230 billion (US$52 billion) on top of the MYR20 billion (US$4.6 billion ) package that was previously announced, Malaysia unveils another package that is equivalent to 15.6 per cent of its GDP. How does this compare to our global peers?

The consistent theme across Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and the US’ economic relief bill include one-time payments to individuals, strengthened unemployment insurance, additional health care funding and loans, and grants to businesses to deter layoffs.

However, even as the US touted a US$2 trillion package, we have seen 500,000 furloughs in the US in the past month just in the retail space.

Also Read: Afternoon News Roundup: Lifetrack Medical Systems partners Philippines government to identity COVID-19 patients

At the onset, Malaysia’s stimulus is among the highest around the world. Malaysia’s RM250 billion package is focused on two main groups: the bottom 40 per cent and the SMEs.

Households are getting one-off payments ranging from MYR500 (US$115) to MYR1,600 (US$368), special allowances, electricity discounts, and free internet. SMEs meanwhile has increased the size of the Special Relief Facility to MYR5 billion (US$1.1 billion) and loan moratorium.

However, it is essential to note that only RM25 billion (US$5.8 billion)  are in the form of direct fiscal injection, 10 per cent of the package.

While headline numbers this time are significantly larger both in terms of quantum and percentage to GDP from the previous GFC stimulus package, our view is that this stimulus’ impact will mostly be muted.

Malaysia and Southeast Asia were largely insulated from the GFC in 2008 as the problems were domiciled mainly in developed countries where the US subprime crisis occurred.

The looming recession in Malaysia is unavoidable given that businesses, indiscriminate of sectors are forced to shut down due to MCO (Movement Control Order).

Also Read: {Updated} Indonesian founder develops CE-approved rapid self-test kit priced at US$10 for COVID-19

Sectors such as retail, tourism, and aviation have seen revenues down 70-90 per cent quarter on the quarter where other essential services such as F&B, manufacturing, and e-commerce have barely broken even as consumers tighten their belts.

Another poison pill is the confluence of reduced oil consumption and a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, resulting in oil prices decline 61 per cent this year.

Oil is currently hovering at an 18 year low of US$20. While consumers may benefit from lower prices, Malaysia as an oil-producing country that is highly leveraged to the commodity will see its reserves dry up and at the same time see significant losses in the oil and gas sector which accounts for 20 per cent of the Malaysian economy.

There’s no doubt that the ability of government and central banks’ massive cash injection might make things a little better in the short run. Still, the growth outlook for Malaysia and the rest of the world continues to look bleak as economies contract at record speed.

Keynesian economics will dictate that the lack of aggregate demand caused by panic and fear induced by inconsistent government measures and social isolation will cause a decline in consumption. This may result in businesses closing and unemployment to spike to double digits percentages as companies begin employees lay off.

Governments of the world need to use fiscal policy, effectively increasing deficits to pay for payroll and put a moratorium on rental and interest payments, putting the world into hibernation.

Unfortunately, unprecedented uncertainty and the absence of historical guidance on how we handle a pandemic dictates the risk of failure of any potential fiscal and monetary measures. When we wake up after a coma, will we see a world that has a standstill or a world that has slipped away from us?

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Two weeks ago, e27 made a decision to help as many startups in the ecosystem as possible, and today, we have come across over 400 companies offering discounts on their products and services.

And the list keeps growing.

We aim to publish these deals on our website eventually. In the meantime, we have created a temporary sheet to showcase the deals that we have received, which we will be populating until our site is fully developed.

In case you missed our previous article and would like to submit your product for a showcase, you can fill up the form here.

To kickstart this, here are five such companies, which are providing services that could be useful for the current widespread work-from-home arrangements:

Lark Technologies

What is the product: Lark is an all-in-one platform that addresses businesses’ collaboration needs, allowing everyone to work remotely and effortlessly. 

To support fellow businesses, Lark is giving away free three-year subscriptions.

Click here for more details.

Use Case: With remote working becoming the norm, companies have turned to various online tools and software in a bid to become more productive with the arrangement. 

However, with numerous tools and software like chat, video conferencing and project management, employees might find themselves struggling to keep up.

Ever find yourself spending unnecessary time trying to explain something to a colleague over a message? Jump on a five-minute call, instead! Not only does Lark have various chat features to facilitate conversations, it also offers unlimited audio and video conferencing for users to hop on a call anytime. 

With 200GB of cloud storage, users would be able to store their documents and files online for others to have easy reference and retrieval, too.

Interestingly, Lark also has an Integrated Health Tracker that allows employees to update their health statuses daily.

This would especially be relevant to the current COVID-19 outbreak.

Managers would be able to keep track of their employees’ health and well-being and take immediate action when any red flags pop out.

EngageRocket

What is the product: EngageRocket is a cloud-based software that helps organisations make better people decisions through employee life-cycle surveys, 360 feedbacks, and continuous performance management.

To help companies ensure that their employees are adjusting well and performing effectively with the current remote working environment, the firm has made its service available for free until May 31, 2020 for all companies. 

Click here to view more details.

Use Case: For companies that have recently adopted the work-from-home arrangement, many employees often struggle to adjust to it. Coupled with the personal concerns and issues that employees might have, their well-being, productivity and performance levels would be adversely affected.

Thus, it could be useful for companies to make use of EngageRocket to get continuous feedback from the employees. This could be related to the overall effectiveness of working from home, or any general issues they are facing, allowing companies to enact changes fast with the real-time data provided. 

There are many other productivity tools out there that are also offering discounts to aid businesses in making effective use of remote working. You can check out the full-list here. 

Toasty 

What is the product: Toasty is an audience engagement platform for virtual meetups, workshops, and team meetings that facilitates highly interactive experiences and real human connections.

To help recreate in-person experiences online during the COVID-19 period, Toasty has lowered its price to US$39 (from US$59), which includes a one-month free trial.

Click here to view more details.

Use Case: With the outbreak of COVID-19, many events and company activities around the world have little choice but to be postponed or cancelled. Some companies are, instead, looking to bring things online and provide attendees with a different experience, while delivering the same results.

Toasty is not the platform for online conferences, webinars or 1-to-1 meetings, but it can be a good choice for companies looking for a more interactive platform that’s for team discussion, team building, and workshops & training.

With the various features it has to keep the participants active and engaged, external virtual events and meetups could now be a viable option in place of the physical ones. Internally, you can also keep team meetings organized with seamless breakout rooms that allow for smaller, more focused discussions.

Pigeonhole

What is the product: Pigeonhole is a platform for live Q&As, polls, quizzes, and surveys, and a perfect companion in driving more engagement at your virtual meetings. 

To help companies hold more effective and interactive meetings amid the current situation, PigeonLab is upgrading the free plan to support video conferencing and live-streaming tools until June 30, 2020. 

Click here to view more details.

Use Case: With most companies adopting the work-from-home arrangement, video conferencing is now the go-to, whether it is for internal meetings or external workshops. 

However, unlike physical meetings where interactions have easily facilitated both ways, online sessions present a new set of challenges. It is not easy to have the same level of engagement in online meetings.

With all the integrations and features linked to video conferencing and live-streaming tools now available with the free version of Pigeonhole, companies can tap on this for more interactive and productive meetings.

There are other similar services in the market that help complement video conferencing in businesses. Check out the full list here.

JANDI

What is the product: JANDI is a collaboration tool for effective teamwork and smoother workflows. It aims to provide users with convenient communication, file sharing and quick feedback without the need for emails — all on a single platform. 

To support fellow businesses to improve their efficiency of remote working in these difficult times, JANDI is offering a free enterprise version for one year to all businesses.

Click here to view more details.

Use Case: Communication is crucial in companies to ensure that everyone is on the same page and is kept abreast of each other’s progress and tasks at hand. The physical environment of working together allows for short huddles for quick communication and decision making. 

In contrast, employees have to rely on chats and emails to communicate with one another during remote work, causing important conversations and files to disappear in the everyday noise. 

With constant communication happening among employees, different topics often get mixed up, and essential files often get buried under the stack of documents sent around. JANDI’s features, including the Chat Rooms and File Search, allow users to keep track of vital conversations and materials in an organised way while being able to access them at their convenience.

These are currently five out of the many companies, which have stepped forward to offer a helping hand to other businesses in the community.

To view the other discounts and offerings by other companies to help support the ecosystem, click here.

Have an offering/discount for the community? Fill up this form. 

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Indonesia-based accounting app BukuWarung raises seed funding led by East Ventures

BukuWarung, an Indonesia-based accounting app for MSMEs to digitise their bookkeeping, has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in a round led by East Ventures.

AC Ventures (previously Agaeti Ventures & Convergence Ventures), Golden Gate Ventures, Tanglin Venture Partners, and Indonesian billionaire Michael Sampoerna joined the round, with strategic angel investment from Grab, Gojek, Flipkart, PayPal, Xendit, Rapyd, Alterra, ZEN Rooms, and others.

The company will use the funds to strengthen its market leadership and expand its team to grow across engineering, product, design, growth, and partnerships based out of Jakarta.

BukuWarung was founded in late 2019 by Abhinay Peddisetty and Chinmay Chauhan — both previously worked together at Carousell.

The app enables customers (merchants), who are mainly from tier II and III cities, to receive credit repayments three times faster than the traditional method, claims the company. This helps them improve cash-flow due to automated payment reminders sent by the app.

PLDT, KKR, Tencent, others invest up to US$120M in Philippines’s Voyager Innovations

Voyager Innovations, a tech company based in the Philippines, has secured US$120 million in funding commitments from tech and investment grants, such as PLDT, the Philippines’s leading telco and digital services provider.

Other investors are KKR, Tencent, IFC, and the IFC Emerging Asia Fund, a fund managed by IFC Asset Management Company.

Also Read: Tencent invests in the Philippines’ fintech firm Voyager, aims to battle Alibaba

The investment is part of a broader fundraise for Voyager and is intended to support its fintech product PayMaya’s growth, as it pursues its mission to accelerate digital and financial inclusion in the Philippines and enable the wider Filipino population to participate in the digital economy.

In 2018, KKR, Tencent, IFC, and IFC Emerging Asia Fund made initial investments totalling US$215 million into Voyager. In doing so, they showcased their supports of Voyager and its strategy to provide access to digital financial services across the Philippines through PayMaya.

PayMaya a digital payments ecosystem enabler offering platforms and services cutting across consumers, merchants, and government. Aside from providing the acceptance of the payment for the largest e-commerce, food, retail and gas merchants in the Philippines, PayMaya also enables national and social services agencies as well as local government units with digital payments and disbursement services.

Wing Bank’s parent company to make investment in online ticket booking platform CamboTicket

Inter Logistics (Cambodia), the parent of Wing Limited Specialised Bank, has expressed its intention to invest in CamboTicket.

According to Khmer Times, the investment is aimed at scaling up online tickets and holiday bookings in Cambodia.

Operated by Sea Venture, CamboTicket offers online ticket booking and holiday planning experience in the country through Wing App and CamboTicket.com.

Established in early 2015, the startup expanded its presence into Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos covering the route to and from the major destinations of the region such as Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh, Kep, Kampot, Battambang, Pakse, and others.

The deal is subject to approval from the authorities, and both partners will provide strategic support on key functions.

Singapore-based edutech startup KooBits launches home-based learning, live tutoring

Singapore-based edutech startup KooBits has announced the launch of two new products — ‘Home-Based Learning’, an online mathematics learning platform, and ‘Live Tutoring’, an AI-enabled online live tutoring service — both with accompanying apps for parents to track learning progress.

This makes the first official launch of KooBits e-learning products to the consumer market, catering to parents and kids across households in Singapore and beyond.

Also Read: These Indonesian edutech startups are helping students cope and thrive during the COVID-19 crisis

The KooBits platform uses personalisation technology and gamification to support students to learn on their own; and at the same time, uses AI and big data to generate learning insights and make them visible to parents and teachers.

Through a short pre-class assignment that is part of every session, the platform automatically identifies each child’s weaknesses and gaps in learning and automatically groups them, so tutors can personalise their lesson and address relevant issues for the students during each class.

The platform also enables assignment of homework to follow up on the concepts that require reinforcement, to ensure that understanding has been achieved. Parents can also monitor what milestones their children have reached in relation to the national syllabus, and can also benchmark their child’s progress against their peers.

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Image Credit: BukuWarung

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