TranscribeMe is a cloud-based transcription app with a disruptive price point

TranscribeMe's Alexei giving his presentation.

The first startup to pitch at DEMO Asia 2012 turned out to be among the most promising ones. TranscribeMe is a mobile app by New Zealand startup Audio Scribe that promises to transcribe audio recordings within a day.

While the idea isn’t new, what sets TranscribeMe apart from its competitors is that it crowdsources for transcribers from around the world, and charges a much cheaper rate, under half of the nearest competitor.

The founder, Alexei Dunayev, gave a confident, succinct pitch and declared that transcripts of the DEMO Asia conference will be made available to all. The app, which will be free to download, is currently in closed beta. They’ll open it to the public in the middle of the year. Read more

A bird’s eye view of DEMO Asia 2012

On day zero, startups were busy preparing for their pitches.

DEMO Asia is the premier tech startup launchpad in Asia, part of the DEMO brand of conferences. Over its illustrious history, it has debuted many well-known products such as Salesforce.com, Adobe Acrobat, and Skype for mobile. In DEMO Asia 2012, held in Singapore, we’ve seen 76 startups from 14 countries launch their products and pitch their ideas in front of a live audience.

SGE was the official online media partner for DEMO Asia 2012, and we’ve provide complete coverage of the conference (full program). Below is a compilation of all the live blogs, interviews, and articles we’ve written about the landmark event. Read more

Unofficial DEMO Asia Day 1 Drinks (1st March): Chillin’ With media, investors, startups (Badge-only)

The unofficial informal drinks session after day one (tomorrow THURSDAY 1st March) of DEMO Asia 2012. Only open to attendees of DEMO Asia. We will be meeting at Krish: 9 Rochester Park. It’s a 10-minute walk from Matrix@Biopolis. Directions here. We are happy to have Krish extend their Happy Hour till 10pm for us. Beers only! Please help us by registering here so we can cater for logistics! (I would like to thank Chengxi of RGS Connect and TranscribeMe for helping make this happen!)

DEMO Asia: 76 startups from 14 countries will launch or pitch their products

We’re just two days away from DEMO Asia, one of the largest tech startup launchpads in the region. Expect a tech startup bonanza as entrepreneurs head on stage to showcase their products to the world. We at SGE are in a mad scramble to get ready for the sheer scale of the event: 76 startups from 14 countries will go on stage, and over a hundred more will be at the booths.

In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on this infographic that shows you just where these startups are coming from. We’ll reveal more details really soon. Read more

Singapore developer unveils unofficial Path client for OS X

Arun Thampi, a Singapore-based app developer and co-founder of Anideo, a mobile app development startup, has finally launched his unofficial Path client for OS X, named Journey.

The app is developed in collaboration with the other founders of Anideo and Peter Jihoon Kim, a software development consultant. Path is a new social network created in the United States that enables social sharing between a user’s close friends and family.

It was only previously available on the iPhone and Android. Read more

Startups leapfrog ahead at JFDI-Innov8 bootcamp

Lizz Buenaventura from HobbyMash appreciates the time mentors are giving to nurture startups at the bootcamp. Photo: JFDI.Asia

It’s past day 30 at the JFDI-Innov8 Bootcamp, a technology startup accelerator program (part of the Global Accelerator Network) where participants build a prototype within 100 days.

While some startups are still busy hatching their idea and creating their minimum viable products, others are frantically swimming around like tadpoles.

Flocations and Fetch Plus are two startups that were quick off the starting block. Singapore-based Tudor Coman, co-founder of Flocations, an online search-by-price air travel directory, already has a prototype up and running. His team is now working on ‘Project Picasso’, which aims to beautify and improve the user interface.

With any luck, they’ll unveil the new features by March. “We are big lean startup buffs, so we are releasing these cool functions exclusively to members that have been active on the site and getting direct feedback from them on a daily basis,” he said. Read more

Events For The Week – 25 Feb-3 Mar

For a one-stop to all events related to or concerning entrepreneurship, certain industry-meets-business forums and seminars in Singapore, check out our Calendar. If not, you can also follow our bite-size updated posts for upcoming events for the week.

Events range from simple get-togethers to full-blown conferences. Get to meet fellow developers, entrepreneurs, startup CEOs & founders, and meet & learn from CEOs of established companies who have seen it all.

Our aim here at SGE is to make it easy for you to pick & choose from the event buffet. Enjoy.

Here are the events for this week. Events are mostly in Singapore (generally 30 minutes drive from anywhere), but we also include key events from around Southeast Asia and beyond. Read more

Socialico rebrands as Gametize; to unveil Gamemaki mobile app

Socialico, a Singapore-based gamification company, announced today that it is rebranding itself as Gametize. It will soon officially launch the mobile app version of its flagship social discovery product GameMaki.

The app is already available for download on the iTunes App Store. Read more

How Standard Chartered Bank serves customers better by taking a 360° view of them

This geek has been following with increasing interest how banks operating in Singapore are innovating to better serve their customers in this day and age. From OCBC’s credit cards with personalized designs, UOB’s mobile cash (Barclay’s just announced their mobile cash service this week too), banks like Standard Charter Bank (SCB) have been innovating hard to improve their offerings.

They’ve recently well-received Breeze iOS app, which unfortunately cannot be used by corporate customers, and announced a 1.88 percent per annum return on your current account up to a maximum of S$25,000,  under the Bonus$aver‘s scheme.

That is substantial, especially in a time where local interest rates are much lower (you can check how SIBOR rates have dropped over here). This geek was curious to find the catch. Read more

Founder of Frambie, an online picture frame store, wins 2nd Young Entrepreneur Awards

Teo Ser Luck, Minister of State for Trade and Industry (left), with Beh Weng Wei, grand prize winner of the YEA.

Malaysian Beh Weng Wei, founder of Frambie, an online premium picture frame store, has won the 2nd Young Entrepreneur Awards (YEA), a competition jointly organized by Canon Singapore and MediaCorp.

The ceremony, held on 24th February, saw him walk away with S$10,000 (US$8,000) worth of Canon business products and S$7,000 in cash prizes, sponsored by Canon, MediaCorp, Spring Singapore, and Nanyang Technological University.

Frambie allows users to upload their images and photos to the site, and pick personalized frames for them. The final product will then be printed, produced, and delivered to the customer. Read more