Adeo Ressi: Singapore has the highest funding rate, but that may not be a good thing

Adeo (left) with Matt Marshall, founder of VentureBeat.

We managed to catch Adeo Ressi, CEO of The Founder Institute and CEO of TheFunded.com briefly at the sidelines of DEMO Asia 2012 to get his views on the startup scene here in Asia.

Quality of ideas the same?

Although Adeo expressed in earlier interviews that the quality of ideas, whether in Silicon Valley, or Europe, or Asia are the same, he thought that it is more “fine tuned” now as The Founder Institute is operating in 25 cities. Adeo feels that there are some differences in ideas in different markets but on the whole, it’s “more consistent than you would imagine”.

He also believes that some of the most innovative ideas are coming out of Paris and the highest rate of ideas being funded are in Berlin and in Singapore, the latter due to the active involvement of the government. Read more

Vickers Venture Partners’ Jeff Chi seeks young, talented, world-changing entrepreneurs

Gwen and I caught up with Dr Jeff Chi of Vickers Venture Partners (VVP) at the sidelines of DEMO Asia to catch his views on the startup scene here in Asia. Jeff is currently based out of both Singapore and China and he is always looking for “young talented entrepreneurs with a dream to change the world”. 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

US$300 million Ultrabook Fund available for Intel AppUp developers

Last month, Intel Capital announced the launch of a US$300 million Ultrabook Fund to drive hardware and software innovations in this new category of devices.

The fund was highlighted again last week by Director of Developer Programs, Intel Consumer Services, Scott Apeland in his keynote address for Intel’s AppUp Elements 2011 conference in Seattle. Read more

Students Awarded By SPH Magazines For Fresh Digital Ideas In Ignite

Singapore Press Holdings Magazines (SPHM) held a digital crowd-sourcing competition together with Singapore Computer Society (SCS) Interactive Digital Media and Student Chapters called Ignite 2010. The competition’s deadline was 31st Dec 2010 but the award ceremony was held just two days ago. Ignite 2010 called on tertiary students to submit fresh ideas for digitizing SPHM’s publications. We look here at some of the winning teams. Read more

Intel AppUp Developer Home Innovation Challenge

The advent of online App stores is rapidly changing app distribution models and it’s interesting to see Intel upping the ante by partnering with big retailers like Best Buy, Dixons (UK) and Croma (India). Read more

Geodelic Enables Location Based Services For Venue Owners

This geek met serial entrepreneur and CEO of Geodelic Rahul Sonnad in San Francisco last month and understood that they may be expanding to South East Asia soon, although details are not announced at this point as discussions are ongoing.

Geodelic’s product GeoGuides beta which was introduced for smart phones last month is an interesting geolocation app where you can instantly turn your venue into an online and mobile app and people can check in, discover interesting services, as well as find friends. Their customers include Clear Channel, with their FLYsmart Airport Guides, and the Santa Monica Convention & Visitors Bureau to engage with consumers in and around their location. Read more

[Video] Interview with Eric Wittman, Head, Adobe Flash Platform Services

This geek managed to get hold of Eric for an interview in during Intel AppUp Elements 2010 Conference in Marriott Hotel, San Francisco and we discussed about what Adobe’s strategy for developers are and how Adobe sees themselves helping developers, why they got into a partnership with Intel AppUp, their new service for developers called Melrose, about their thoughts on MeeGo and the status of Flash and AIR support for MeeGo as well as product roadmap.

A special one for the tech startups who are developing apps on Flash and thinking about the business viability of MeeGo and AppUp. Pardon the pretty raw editing though, this geek is so not a video editor and I tried to shorten the video to fast forward to the important parts. Read more

Kawasaki, Seesmic, Mashable, NBA Discuss App Monetization

This geek was pleasantly surprised to see a star-studded panel on Day 1 of the Intel AppUp Elements Conference in Marriott Hotel, San Francisco, and thought it would be interesting to developers looking to monetize their apps. Read more

Intel Launches the AppUp Center and Developer Program

Over at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco’s Moscone West Convention Center and the developer conference Appnation happening next door, Intel showcased and made a few announcements regarding their developer program and app store which should be of interest to our local developers and tech startups. Read more