ad:tech Singapore 2012 is a regional event for the interactive marketing community at its 5th edition. ad:tech Singapore brings together brand advertisers, traditional & interactive agencies, portals, on-line publishers and technology providers. With the continued growth in technology and use of digital media, ad:tech offers an unrivalled opportunity to discover new practices and technologies, and to learn how many of the great names have utilized the net, built brand recognition and immersed themselves in digital technologies. Companies are realizing the meaning of ROI on ad spend like never before.

Check out the speaker list and the schedule.

This means that you won’t see any front row VIPs scrutinizing the models up close. Yes, no Anna Wintour-type tastemakers or wealthy celebrities.

In addition, this fashion week will let live viewers pre-order their favorite looks immediately after they spot it on the runway, and have it delivered to their doorstep within weeks. The show will feature the Spring/Summer 2013 collections from Singapore’s distinguished designers, as well as an unannounced guest designer.

DFW is a company set up by Keyis Ng and Charina Widjaja, and both used to work under Singapore celebrity singer Dick Lee in the advertising industry. Keyis also runs STORM Creative Events Agency, a public relations company.

In addition to the live coverage of the show and the backstage buzz, DFW will interview designers, models, hair and makeup artists, as well as performers from fringe events, feature live commentaries by key fashion figures and pre-show performances by international artistes.

Fashionistas can also download a mobile app to check out the livestreams, videos, photos, and even shop for items.

Fashion designers will be able to receive immediate feedback, both good and bad, from viewers. Pre-orders made by customers will give fashion entrepreneurs quick market insights about the pieces that sell.

In conjunction with the fashion show, an online B2B platform called DFW Digital Showroom will also be launched. Designers will be able to display lookbook images and pre-recorded videos on the platform, which is targeted at the press, buyers, and retailers.

Keyis is aiming for seven million viewers for this inaugural show, and he plans to announce DFW for other major cities soon. This is not the first time he has live streamed a fashion event.

His previous project, Fashforward.com, gave users virtual front-row seats to traditional fashion events. In May 2011, he and his team garnered some 500,000 visitors from 90 countries within a week.

“We aim to harness technology and creativity to promote home-grown designers in each city to the global audiences by capitalizing on the hype generated from the fashion shows. The buzz created will then be directly converted into sales and sync the fashion communication cycle with its retail cycle,” he says.

While there’s no telling how DFW will perform — so much depends on execution — an event like this is a refreshing take on an elitist industry that is dependent on upper echelon tastemakers to set the tone for an entire season.

For example, critically acclaimed documentary The September Issue shows that a single woman, Anna Wintour, who is the authoritative editor-in-chief of American Vogue, can singlehandedly decide what will be trendy in a US$300B global industry. Young designers anointed by Anna are put on a fast track to success.

However, ground-up initiatives like the DFW turn the industry upside down by giving independent designers more visibility, and letting ordinary consumers be the tastemakers for once.

Is seven million viewers an attainable goal? Maybe not. But props to them for aiming high.

With the extension of the National Research Foundation’s Technology Incubator Scheme (NRF-TIS), eight new incubator-funds have emerged last year. Among them is TNF Ventures (TNFV), which held an official launch last Friday.

The fund is founded by several veterans, consisting of a good mix of entrepreneurs, senior corporate executives and venture capitalists, mostly in the IT industry.

Specifically, the team members include Eddie Chau, founder of E-Cop and Brandtology, Shirley Wong and Steve Ting, both co-founders of the public listed BT Frontline, Tan Yen Yen, senior VP of Oracle, as well as David Su, Foo Jixun and Terence Tan, who are managing partners of their respective VC funds Matrix Partners, GGV and IPV Capital, all based in Shanghai.

Calling themselves investor-mentors (IMs), the partners of TNFV have vast experiences in building or nurturing companies from their infancy to success.  Taking the reigns to lead this stellar team is managing partner, Shirley Wong.

“We aim to to nurture the next generation of successful entrepreneurs. The by-product? To have wealth creation and job creation,” she says.

(More photos of the event on SGE’s Facebook Page)

TNFV stands out with its sizeable network of IMs. As the managing partner, Shirley will assign two IMs with the relevant expertise and experiences to each startup.

As a team, the IMs review their operations on a weekly basis, providing a platform to enlist any additional help from the other mentors.

As an NRF-TIS incubator, TNFV will invest up to S$600k per startup be it seed or Series A funding. It is seeking startups in the telecommunications, media, medical, and eco-related industries.

Staying true to its mantra of having fun, TNFV ended the day with a group of start-ups, who were pre-selected from a pool, playing poker.

The top three startups from the tournament won an exclusive dinner with the TNF Team to further fine-tune their pitch for potential funding.

For a hint of how the game went, even a pair of Aces (picture) could not win the game — a close semblance to reality where having the best team and idea may not be enough to make a successful start-up.

We’ve got to deal with market environment too.

What do you get when you combine two of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups and apply the concept to an entirely different vertical? You get EvenPanda.

Launching today, the Singapore-based site is an online activities marketplace that lets users sell experiences to customers. A sampling of activities include a Triathlon Starter Bootcamp, a tutorial on creative processes and design, and a Sunday brunch with Russian homemade pancakes.

Like Airbnb, hosts can decide what price they want to charge. Payment is also made through the site, and will only be released to the organizer after the event, once customers are satisfied. Listing an activity is free, but EvenPanda takes an 18 percent cut of transactions.

Unlike Airbnb however, EvenPanda appears to be stricter about the offers that go up on the site. All experiences are vetted by the EvenPanda team before they go live, after a chat with the host. But community moderation still matters — customers can leave reviews about activities they’ve participated in.

For activity seekers, they can browse the site’s Pinterest-like user interface, view at a glance the price and description of the event. They can “collect” events they’re interested in and browse them later at their convenience. Users with a good  idea of what they want can search by category, location, price, and date of the activity.

The site currently has activities in Singapore, Bali, and Vienna, with plans to launch in other countries soon. EvenPanda is founded by Maria Kuvshinova, a Founder Institute Singapore graduate, and her husband Andries De Vos.

The idea of an ‘Airbnb for activities’ is not exactly new — San Francisco-based Skyara and Vayable, as well as Berlin’s Gidsy are companies with similar concepts, a testament to Airbnb’s successful business model, which generated a monthly revenue of US$1.5M as of early 2011.

The attraction of such services is that it offers travelers and locals many off-the-beaten-track activities that can’t be found in tour packages. Its also an easy way for hosts to generate additional income.

”We’ve learned that the sharing economy applies to many different kinds of verticals,” Airbnb founder Joe Gebbia told TheNextWeb. “But it’s in its nacent stage. We’re all just learning from each other right now.”

Airbnb could become a competitor itself — although there’s no indication at this point that they are venturing outside the short-term rental space either through developing their own sites or acquiring other startups.

In Asia, however, I haven’t yet come across anyone doing something like EvenPanda, although it’s only a matter of time.

Hear it from the industry leaders.

As mobile broadband adoption continues unabated in 2012, the telecom industry is facing a new era of opportunity and challenges to deliver a smooth experience in the increasingly important mobile cloud.

Listen to the chief protagonists in Singapore and Southeast Asia, from Google, StarHub, HP, Tellabs, Samsung and other distinguished speakers discuss a way forward, as apps demand increasingly more resources on networks as well as spectrum.

How can telcos deliver a smoother experience for consumers? Will there be enough spectrum to cater to machine-to-machine communications in future? Can users enjoy a truly unified interface for cloud services on the phone, tablet and PC?

Returning in its third year, Singapore’s independent seminar on future mobile and wireless trends, UNWIRED Conference 2012 will shed light on these issues. There will also be a demo of the first Windows 8 devices this year.

In previous events, more than 160 telecom executives, developers, academics, analysts and journalists participated in highly-interactive interactive discussions with panelists who shared their in-depth knowledge and experiences with the audience.

When: Thursday May 31, 2012
Time: 1pm – 5.30pm
Where: Angsana 3F, Level 3, Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre, 10 Bayfront Avenue, Singapore 018956

Register here.

Constantine (Con) Frantzeskos is a passionate and experienced digital marketer whose role is to turn business problems into multi-platform, multi-channel brand solutions with digital at their core. With over 23 years (yes, since 1989!) of experience in digital marketing, Con provides digital solutions for strategic and creative challenges, and creates comprehensive communications strategies and programs for a range of international and local Ogilvy clients, including Unilever, BP, Diageo, Coca-Cola, and Singapore’s Health Promotion Board.

When: Wednesday May 23rd 2012
Time: 630pm onwards
Where: BEER MARKET at Clarke Quay, 177A River Valley Rd, Clarke Quay, Singapore 179021

Loyalty cards are inefficient and generate a lot of waste. Even digital ones. A while ago, I was at a music shop and decided to preorder a music album for a friend.

To my delight, I received two chops on Perx, a loyalty card app I recently featured. But to my dismay, I was eight chops away from getting my reward. And it’s extremely unlikely I’ll step into the store ever again — I’m just not an avid music listener.

Here’s the problem with loyalty cards: They don’t always capture loyal customers. And when they don’t, they’re a burden to merchants.

This is a problem Singapore-based startup Squiryl hopes to solve. Unlike other loyalty card apps, it allows users to swap stamps — or acorns, in their lingo — with one another.

Suppose I have two acorns at a restaurant I’ll never visit again. I can use the Trades feature to exchange acorns with others by putting up an offer. For example, I can offer two acorns from Fisherios Fish n Chips in exchange for three acorns at a Puma store.

While critics might argue that such trades defeat the purpose of loyalty cards since it diverts customers away, Squiryl co-founder Mulyadi Syariffudin disagrees.

“We gave up the [advertising] agency because we believe in burning our boats so that we can’t turn back.”

Customers who don’t like a product are unlikely to come back to the store anyway. So, why not exchange them for another customer who willingly traded for your acorns? With some acorns in hand, customers are more likely to visit a store since rewards are more easily attainable.

“If you lose one, you get another one. That’s the worst scenario. In the best situation, customers that get acorns spread the word, resulting in more sales for merchants,” he says.

While past apps have tried universal currency, merchants revolted because consumers can effectively get points at one brand and use it to redeem rewards at another. Acorns, on the other hand, are always tied to a merchant. They can only be used on one particular brand at a time.

The net effect is greater market efficiency. Instead of taking a slice of a small pie, Squiryl hopes to enlarge it by making the concept of loyalty points more relevant for customers.

They’re essentially hoping to do what Google did with Adsense: Making an entire industry more efficient, resulting in better returns for both merchants and consumers. Except that while Google is achieving this with algorithms, Squiryl is doing it with social exchange.

This social element is at the heart of Squiryl’s vision. Ultimately, they aim to be the universal social network for loyalty points — a fundamentally different approach from their competitor Perx, which is more of a marketing tool than anything else. Squiryl is working on more social features right now.

How Squiryl works:

Mulyadi was candid in his interview about competing with the more well-funded Perx, and how Squiryl lost out initially in the battle for merchants. Perx gained the advantage in Singapore with a clustering strategy — by targeting merchants in a particular area, those who didn’t use the app felt left out and wanted in too.

Even though Squiryl is forever free, merchants on Perx were hesitant to switch to another loyalty card program. Another painful lesson Mulyadi learnt was the importance of putting their product out there fast, even though it may be flawed.

Mulyadi also admits that Squiryl doesn’t have as much marketing muscle as their Saverin-funded competitor, and as such are less visible to consumers. This is painfully obvious to me — as I stroll around Singapore, the Perx logo is visible on storefronts everywhere, while Squiryl seems obscure.

But he and co-founder Alan Lee are a scrappy bunch: They’ve managed to amass 15,000 downloads and 6,000 monthly active users despite their constraints. About 100 store locations are on their program, issuing out a total of 9,400 acorns in March and April. They officially launched at DEMO Asia 2012 in March, six months after Perx.

Squiryl is determined to catch up. They have already set up an office in Indonesia and hired a sales team there. Their BlackBerry app will launch in a few days time, while their Android app will unveil in mid-June. They are working feverishly hard to get Indonesian merchants on board, aiming for 500 outlets and 150,000 users in Indonesia by November.

Mulyadi isn’t aware of any prominent mobile loyalty card app in Indonesia. Over there, the loyalty card scene is dominated by credit card programs, but he argues that these loyalty schemes build brand affinity for the credit cards rather than merchants.

It’s still too early to tell how the loyalty card battle will pan out. There’s still a lot of untapped retail real estate in Asia, and I’m curious to see who will be the first to develop loyalty programs for the white-hot mobile commerce industry. I’m also interested to see how Mobipoint and Spoqa will perform in South Korea.

The Squiryl team. Photo: Squiryl

For both Alan and Mulyadi, it’s a race not just against competitors, but against the clock. Both of them are married, and Mulyadi has four young daughters. Having bootstrapped all the way, the co-founders find themselves with a runway of six to twelve months.

Mulyadi himself was running an advertising agency before giving it up to pursue his dream. Alan is a serial entrepreneur who is proficient in web development.

“Me and Alan, we’re very particular, we gave up the agency because we believe in burning our boats so that we can’t turn back,” he says.

Their immediate concern for now isn’t revenue — but getting user traction. They’re also seeking the right investors, having previously rejected one who wanted Squiryl to scrape its trading program.

Having family commitments have imbued them with a sense of desperation — and this could work in their favor.

“We’re different from other startups because we’re no longer in our early twenties, so there’s more urgency for us. This thing has to work.”

The company won due to its ClearCell System, a cell-based invitro diagnostic device that isolates and retrieves intact and viable circulating tumor cells from blood.

It was the only Singaporean participant out of 18 total startup companies representing 12 countries. As the winner, it took home three million yen (S$47,000) and three years of free tenancy at the Tokatsu Techno Plaza in Chiba Prefecture.

Clearbridge BioMedics is a spin-off company from the Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore.

“Participating in this event was a great experience for us. We were able to network and present to an audience, including venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and potential partners. Japan is a very important market for us, winning this award will be a launch pad for us to bring the technology there,” says Dr Andrew Wu, project director, Clearbridge BioMedics.

The majority of the finalists came from business incubators or consisted of University spin-offs. The judging panel looked for innovativeness, the businesses’ economic and social impact, as well as the companies’ ability to implement their business strategies.

Moving forward, Clearbridge BioMedics plan to use the prize money to further accelerate the development of its next-generation microfluidics biochips. They also hope to explore a wider number of applications in the life sciences and medical diagnostic fields.

It is also a great opportunity to network with investors, leading researchers, business & industry leaders and budding & experienced entrepreneurs.

Who should attend: Investors, entrepreneurs/technopreneurs, industry, start-up partners, government agencies and SMEs seeking technology adoption

Program

1.30 pm Registration & Technology Showcase
2.00 pm Opening Address: Mr Teo Ser Luck, ACE Chairman and Minister of State for Trade and Industry
2.20 pm Keynote Address: Johnson Chen, Managing Director, Clearbridge Accelerator “The Technology Start-up Landscape in Singapore – Trends and Opportunities”
2.45 pm Discussion Panel: “Does Singapore Have a Conducive Ecosystem to Support Technology Start-ups? What Else Can Be Done?”
3.30 pm Break
3.45 pm Start-up Elevator Pitching Competition
5.00 pm A*STAR Technologies Pitching by Exploit Technologies
5.30 pm Awards and Closing Remarks
6.00 pm Cocktails & Networking

When: Friday 1st June 2012
Time: 1:30– 6:00pm
Where: Breakthrough and Discovery Theatrettes, 30 Biopolis Street, Matrix Building Level 4, Singapore 139671

Register here.