UX workshop: “Practical approaches to user experience design”

Ben Hamey, Lead UX Designer from App Development Studio Bonobo, is flying in from Melbourne to host an hour-long ideas & implementation session around their unique approach to UX and design.

Forget all the mindless theory you’ve been taught. This talk is focused on the practical steps you can take now to implement UX successfully in your startup or next project, followed by the chance to grill Ben, throw questions, ideas and underwear at him, and get valuable help & support on your upcoming projects. Read more

Horizon wants to power every home with fuel cells

This electric car from London uses Horizon's fuel cells.

We just love hearing stories of regional startups that’ve made it big internationally. Southeast Asian companies like Charles & Keith, Banyan Tree Holdings and 77th Street have held the limelight in recent years and are still going strong.

Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, a Singapore company dealing with ultra-light and low-cost energy storage solutions, is right up there with the best of them.

Making hydrogen fuel cells, which are essentially long lasting power generators that generate electricity from gas, has been a global challenge for decades now and this was where Horizon decided to step in and make fuel cell their main focus.

That was in 2004. Eight years on, they are now the world’s largest producers of micro-fuel cells in consumer and industrial applications. It has successfully brought a wide range of products out into the market, with sales spanning 65 countries in total.

We spoke to Taras Wankewycz, Executive Director and one of the co-founders of this green technology company, on its success formula and what it takes to be on top of their game. Read more

Two Southeast Asian startups aim to make bamboo bicycles trendy

Even though demand is picking up in the Western world, riding a bamboo bike is virtually unheard of in Asia.

As much as bamboo is commonly associated with this region, it is Western companies like FlavioDeslandes, Calfee Design and Biomega that have taken the concept and run with it.

But two startups – KawayanTech from the Philippines and Bamboobee from Singapore — are finally emerging and entering the market.

KawayanTech, recently featured in the Wall Street Journal, is founded in 2009 by members of the University of the Philippines Moutaineers Club. Their main products are individualized, handcrafted bamboo bikes that allow customers to pick their own components.  Read more

Burpple, a foodie app for the forgetful, launches for the iPhone

Updated: 8th May, 2012

Burpple, a mobile app that first made waves at DEMO Asia in Singapore, has launched for the iPhone.

No, it doesn’t make loud burping noises (although if you press the founders hard enough, they might do it for you).

Rather, it is a mobile-social food journal that finds your favorite food by letting you ‘reburp’ them from your friends, and record memorable dishes  in a visual journal you can refer to perpetually.

The app is similar to US-based FoodSpotting, but one main difference is the journal feature, which allows users to group their entries into categories, or ‘boxes’. Read more

ON3: A 3-Day Event. A 3-Minute Pitch. A 3-Month Immersion at Silicon Valley.

Plug and Play Tech Center from the US and the Science and Technology Advisory Council of Silicon Valley (STAC-SV) in cooperation with UP Cebu and CeBuinIT brings you this year’s Visayas round of the ON3 Startup Pitching Competition. The competition provides an opportunity for young Philippines entrepreneurs to present their technology business ideas and be heard by the same group of venture capitalists who have funded global internet brands such as Google and Facebook, among others. Read more

InnovFest 2012

InnovFest 2012 is an exciting festival of innovation-related activities. Organised by NUS Enterprise for the third year running, this event aims to boost technology transfer, entrepreneurship and investment amongst Asia’s business, academic and technology communities. Plenary sessions, workshops and networking events will update participants on the latest trends in intellectual property management and commercialisation, as well as provide direct access to leading startups, business professionals, and investors. Read more

ToGather, Asia’s first crowdfunding site, opens for business

Crowdfunding has taken off in a big way in the United States, with startups like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, and Quirky getting huge traction.

In Asia however, crowdfunding is a foreign notion. But ToGather.Asia, a Singapore-based startup that claims to be the first in Asia, hopes this will change soon.

Their website essentially allows anyone to post up ideas for creative projects, social initiatives, and innovations and seek funding from the public to turn them into reality. The money will only be passed to the project creators once the target is met.

There’s no equity exchange involved, so the funding is the form of donation pledges.

The site has just entered public beta this month, and five projects are open to public donations.  Read more

[VIDEO] Marc Co-founder of Tudou advises foreign entrepreneurs entering Asia

So, a few videos interviews I did at DEMO Asia 2012 two weeks ago mysteriously disappeared and now have reappeared on my (i)phone. This short interview with Marc van der Chijs, Dutch founder of Chinese video-sharing site, Tudou, is thus a bit delayed but nevertheless still relevant.

In here, he talks about the diversity of ideas but yet how some of the companies he saw at DEMO Asia — a launchpad for emerging technology – had small visions, but “it’s okay, you can start with a small vision but still build it up to a bigger company eventually”.

Watch out also for his advice to foreign entrepreneurs trying to enter Asia. Read more

Best places for social entrepreneurs: Singapore, Silicon Valley, London

The best place for social entrepreneurship?

“Where’s the best place in the world for a social entrepreneur to live and build a social enterprise?”

That’s a tough question. It appears there are two schools of thought when it comes to attempting an answer: Get close or go big.

Some people believe that a social entrepreneur should be physically near to her target market. If she is working on poverty alleviation, then perhaps she should be in a city like Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Or if she is fighting air or water pollution then perhaps Dhaka, Bangladesh. That certainly makes sense for a number of social entrepreneurs.

But then there are those of us who think that a social enterprise with the greatest potential for global impact requires a very specific type of climate to flourish. In my research, I’ve identified a few factors that deeply matter: Access to talent, access to funding, access to markets, a good business climate, and a supportive culture. From that perspective, highly developed cities rise to the top. Read more

Are the Samwer Brothers, a.k.a Rocket Internet really that bad for Southeast Asia?

Many months back, I tweeted about the entrance of Rocket Internet in Southeast Asia with the comment, “Winter is coming.” Not long after, they have gotten off the ground running with an aggressive hiring spree and clones in the e-commerce space.

Rocket Internet is a company that belongs to the Samwer Brothers. They are known for their amazing execution prowess and their ruthlessness in cloning successful US Internet companies. Of course, their tactics and methods have raised the ire of many, including pro-Silicon Valley reporters such as Sarah Lacy who mounted a campaign against them.

But is the company’s impact on the Southeast Asia digital market all bad? I’ll examine this issue in detail and argue that while it may have some impact on innovation, it isn’t bad for the industry as a whole. Read more