Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

DISRUPTIVE CHALLENGES IN EMERGING COUNTRIES Disruptive challenges are affecting the growth perspectives and dimensions of emerging countries. This book covers those challenges and opportunities to procure for the betterment of the organizations and people in emerging countries

Edited by

Dr. B. Ramanathan Published by ACE International Pte Ltd, Singapore ISBN: 978-981-14-0572-3

Dedicated to those people who support to develop “Aspiring Community for Excellence� in Emerging Countries

Notice of Disclaimer Copyright@2019 by ACE International Pte Ltd, Singapore All rights reserved!

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Email: office@aceinternational.com.sg / aceintl.office@gmail.com Website: www.aceinternational.com.sg ACE International Publication ISBN: 978-981-14-0572-3

Contents 1. Workforce Skills Challenges and Essential Training Needs in Emerging Countries – Dr. Balakrishnan Ramanathan

1

2. Creating a Learning Institution for Continuous Professional Development – Mr. Varada Murthy K.S.

7

3. Monetise Your Talent – Mr. Arun Sharma

10

4. From Depression to Rediscovery – Ms. Suchi Deshpande

15

5. Why there is a need to be a ‘Creative’ you? – Mr. Hazriq

18

6. Importance of Research and Innovations in Emerging Countries – Prof. Dr. S. Sudhakar

21

7. Responsible Research and Innovation – Dr. Eswar Shankar

24

8. Scientific Research and Innovation – Dr. S. Kothandaraman Subramaniam

28

9. Disruptive Innovations in Pharma – Dr. J. C. Thenmozhiyal

30

10. Digitalization: The 4th Industrial Revolution for Risk Management – Ms. Victoria Robinson

36

11. Business & Management – Prof. Dr. R. Ganesan

40

12. Food & Product Safety - Counterfeiting of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and other products in Emerging market – Mr. Guankai NG

43

13. Smart transformation towards future proof business – Mr. Nagarajan Ramamurthy

47

14. An Introduction – ORCA – Mr. Saurav Mukherjee

50

15. Harmful effects of single usage plastics – Mr. R. Selvaraj

55

16. Optimum Health and Wellness through Holistic Health Management – Dr. Saravanan

60

17. Impact Therapy: A Healthier Lifestyle – Reimond Quek

65

18. Hydrogen as a Potential Therapeutic Anti-oxidant – Dr. J. C.

69

Ingersoll

19. Adopting to Disruption: A Sailor’s Story – Captain N. Shankar

72

20. Startups Ecosystem in Emerging Countries – Dr. Balakrishnan

75

Ramanathan

From the Publisher Dear Readers, First of all, we wish to congratulate you on making your journey of professional development, the intention why you are reading this book to empower your strategies.

Aspiring Community for Excellence was established with my dream and confident to create through ACE International Pte Ltd to provide the sources and resources that empower our strategies and plans to support our better living conditions and lifestyles. We believe that knowledge, skills and attitude are very important to unleash the thought processing of us when we pay more attention, give enough observation and listening to all happenings and requirements that are surrounding us.

We all know that world is drastically changing a lot due to disruptive challenges as the new generation technologies are hitting strongly to change the infrastructure, social establishments and new opportunities in emerged countries. But we don’t have more ideas and plans to face all these disruptive challenges to tackle when it may hit the emerging countries especially the atmosphere and the people.

Hence we formulate and create the topics which may address the needs and requirements for the necessary tips, sources and resources which may support to engage, envisage and explore the ways to face the disruptive challenges in emergence countries. Many business owners, professional experts and eminent personalities have generously contributed by sharing their articles comprising with their views, strategies and action plans for the benefits of the readers in this book.

It is the time we all must think and need to take the steps as well as action to reform our futuristic vision and mission to support for the environment of emerging countries and the people life must be empowered.

The information and proceeds from this book will definitely support as a value proposition to sustain the initiatives and attempts that will surely impact and change the qualities and lives positively in emerging countries.

We appreciate that most of the authors are very generous and kind enough to provide their contact details to be reachable and serve better as per your needs.

We also welcome your feedback to comment about this book and the articles to applaud the contributors and also to improve our future commitments to serve the society in a better way. If you wish to get more support for all your needs kindly let us know and share with necessary details or information.

Thankfully yours Dr. B. Ramanathan Founder and Managing Director ACE International Pte Ltd Singapore www.aceinternational.com.sg

Editor’s Profile: Dr. Balakrishnan Ramanathan, M.Sc., M. Phil., P.D.C.R., A.C.T.A., QEHS-IAC., Ph.D.,

Founder and Managing Director ACE International Pte Ltd (Aspiring Community for Excellence) Email: office@aceinternational.com.sg dr.ram.biomed@gmail.com Web: www.aceinternational.com.sg LinkedIn: Dr Balakrishnan Ramanathan Facebook Page: ACE International

Dr. B. Ramanathan is the Founder and Managing Director of ACE International Pte Ltd, Singapore. He has 20 years of experiences both in Research & Development and Learning & Development sectors. His research experiences comprised with biomedical science and clinical research areas in a number of renowned institutions including: Bharathidasan University (India), Indian Institute of Science (India), Chang-Gung University (Taiwan), Academia Sinica (Taiwan), National University of Singapore & SingHealth (Singapore), Taipei Veterans General Hospital, National Yang-Ming University (Taiwan). During his career he has published books and peer reviewed articles as well as provided lead talks in seminars, workshops and conferences. Further he has acted as mentors for research projects and received several awards to his academic and research credits.

He is a WSQ-Advanced Certificate in Training and Assessment (ACTA) certified trainer cum assessor and significantly governed the training management and operation including regulatory compliance, auditing, facilitation and course content development for the Workplace Safety & Health, Occupational Hygiene, Company Emergency Response Team, Occupational First Aider, Risk Management and Lead Auditor courses for the Approved Training Provider (ATP) and Approved Training Organization (ATO) affiliated to Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Workforce Development Authority (WDA) Singapore. He has expertise in

Quality Environment Health and Safety internal auditing procedures and supports.

He is currently holding positions and memberships as:            

National Vice President, Guild of International Speakers and Trainers, Singapore Founding Member, Business Network International (BNI), Vision Chapter, Singapore Associate Member, Singapore Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Singapore Business Advisor, Organization for Professional and Entrepreneurs Network, Singapore Member in Adult Education Network, Institute of Adult Learning, Singapore Vice-President, Vanigam Singapore Chapter, Singapore Life Member in National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development, India Member in International Association of Innovation Professionals Life Member in Science and Technical Research Association, Eurasia Research Assistant Treasurer in Singapore Tamil Pattimandra Kalai Kazhagam, Singapore Life Membership in Abdul Kalam Vision Society, Singapore Life Membership in Bharathidasan University Alumni Association, India

Currently, he offers the professional consultancy services in business and management, learning and development, career development, technology transfer segments and also establishing the business network in science and technology areas to adopt modern technical and technological sources and resources. Moreover he is passionate to conduct Capability Building and Professional Development Programs, Workshops and Trainings in New Generation Technologies, Entrepreneurship and Leadership Skills for Institutions, Industries and Companies.

Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

1. Workforce skills challenges and essential training needs in emerging countries

Capability building for employment suitability and sustainability of employee in workplaces This is the right time to think, revisit and create the awareness about the ways and strategies to adopt and manage the new workforce skills challenges in workplaces. i)

Among the population how many of the women and men are in employment and also able to be fit as well as sustained in the environment of workforce challenges?

ii)

Comparably in the workforces how many of the employees are productive at workplaces and have the ability to face a lot to do with the available opportunities to acquire and maintain relevant knowledge, skill and attitude to fit?

By asking these questions we may enlighten our understanding about the requirement of current qualification to employment and employee sustainability in disruptive environment of working places. It is not only

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries depending on the academic qualifications, professional and technical expertise but also the task completing competencies correctly addressed to the needs and challenges of workplaces.

In most of the emerging countries, the enterprises and persons need to perceive skills development as strategic planning and consequently seeking to step up investments in upgrading and transforming skill sets.

In ambitious to realize the possibility of skills development, they face common challenges to acquire the right and suitable skill based trainings that must be assessed through their performance oriented competencies.

Workforce skills challenges in workplaces Eventually, every country‘s wealth depends on how many of its people are engaged in current workforces and how much of them are creative as well as productive which in turn restorations on the skills they have and how efficiently those skills are utilized and applied in the workplaces. Despite the diversity among the emerging countries, they share a number of common skills challenges, although with different degrees of threats and significance to consider. The ability to respond to these challenges also varies among the emerging countries and identified few key common challenges as specified below: 1. A deficiency of a complete skills development roadmap to support economic growth 2. Incapability and inadequacy of the educational institutions to meet industrial demands 3. Deficiency or non-competency in English proficiency and other professional as well as soft skill performances 4. Over-dependence on the public sector to meet the skills challenges

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries 5. Weakness in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) based applied learning, technical and vocational education training programs 6. Skills challenges arising from intra-regional or cross cultural labour and work flows among emerging countries 7. Skills demands formulated by disruptive technologies and digital transformations 8. Skills modifications coming from industrial restructuring and reformation strategies according to the current trends and demands 9. Lacking of continuing educational supports as well as lifelong learning opportunities for the workforce 10. Importance of youth unemployment and returning of retired workforces in the organization and society Establishment of vibrant workforces and workplaces to meet out best organizational standards For equipping the workforces with the respective skills required for the jobs of today and those of tomorrow is a major concern of strategic planning and perfect execution in the national growth and development perspectives of all emerging countries.

When consider globally together with all organizational leaders need to pledge and support healthy training strategies to meet the challenges of nurturing strong, sustainable and stable growth in every country.

The globalization of businesses and marketplaces are accelerating the distribution of renowned technologies and the adoption of new innovations.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries New professional, managerial, executive and technical jobs are emerging and swapping many other existing working conditions and ecosystems. In every occupation, requirement of new skills and competencies are evolving, as the knowledge content and performance criteria of production processes and services are also improving. A major challenge in all emerging countries is simultaneously to improve the responsiveness of education and training systems to equip with these changes in formulating the competency skill requirements and to admit the necessary integrated training platforms and skill development arrangements. Many organizations in emerging countries have used training and retraining sessions as per their responses to the employment challenges arising from the global economic crisis.

Prospects and benefits to upgrade relevant workforce skills ACE International Pte Ltd, Singapore has the commitment to voice and formulate ―Aspiring Community for Excellence‖ by procuring the sources and resources with our wide range of emerging technological products, solutions and services to successfully overcome the disruptive challenges. We support  Overseas capability building and professional development programs  International trade missions, conferences, seminars and business promotion programs  Immersion and cross culture learning programs  Internship or On-job or simulated environmental facilities training opportunities  Institutional and Industrial visits  Summer or winter training and workshop programs  Student educational exchange programs  STEM education and applied learning programs

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries All these programs are designed and developed in order to address the need of current workforce skill sets and also value addition to upgrade the workforce‘s talents and performances criteria. These categories of strategies and capability development activities will definitely supporting the formation of better adoptive and rewarding workplace cultures that lead towards the journey of successful organizational standards. By these ways, to adopt and manage the new workforce skills and workplace challenges in current disruptive environmental ecosystem will be ultimately reflecting and empowering on emerging country‘s sustainable growth and wealth.

Author‟s Profile  I am a Biomedical Scientist having 20 years of working experience in Research and Development, Learning and Development as well as in Business and Development sectors.  I have published several lead article publications in reviewed journals and lead talk presentations in conferences and seminars.  Currently, I engage the business management consultancy services and career support services, technology transfer and establishing the business network, interdisciplinary translational research and development programs.  I am also passionate to provide motivational talks, capability building workshops, trainings and research mentorship supports.

I am currently holding positions and memberships as:



National Vice President, Guild of International Speakers and Trainers, Singapore



Associate Member, Singapore Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Singapore



Member in Adult Education Network, Institute of Adult Learning, Singapore

 

Member in Business Network International (BNI) Member in Indian Innovative Arts Centre, Singapore

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries



Core Committee Member, Organization for Personality Development and Entrepreneurs Network, Singapore (OPEN Group Asia)



Life Member in National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development, India

 

Member in International Association of Innovation Professionals



Assistant Treasurer in Singapore Tamil Pattimandra Kalai Kazhagam, Singapore

 

Life Membership in Abdul Kalam Vision Society, Singapore

Life Member in Science and Technical Research Association, Eurasia Research

Life Membership Association, India

in

Bharathidasan

University

Alumni

Dr. Balakrishnan Ramanathan, M.Sc., M. Phil., P.D.C.R., A.C.T.A., QEHS-IAC., Ph.D.,

Founder and Managing Director ACE International Pte Ltd (Aspiring Community for Excellence) Email: office@aceinternational.com.sg Web: www.aceinternational.com.sg LinkedIn: Dr Balakrishnan Ramanathan Facebook Page: ACE International

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

2. Creating a Learning Institution for Continuous Professional Development

Creating a Learning Environment means embracing “Change” and change especially the attempt to shift to a learning institution is a huge task where people, usually after completion of their formal education comes with an attitude that they know it all. Attempting to change an Institutional culture requires a vision, energy, focus, and ultimately buy-in from those that are part of an already established deep-rooted culture in an Institute or organization they are working.

It is critical that the Leader of the Institution creates a culture within the Institute to develop it as a “Learning Institute”. Top Management and key Decision makers of the Institute play a significant role in creating a culture that is essential for its Faculty and other employees to cultivate the habit of continuous professional development. The culture of continuous improvement can happen through a culture of paradigm shift.

Schools and Colleges today must equip students with the knowledge and skills they‘ll need to succeed in an uncertain, constantly changing and challenging tomorrow and meet the diverse needs of 21st century learners. What we did a generation ago does not work today. The learning styles of students are different; the needs are different now so

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries without Teachers embracing Continuous Professional Development, addressing the real issues in a classroom is not practically possible.

Predominantly, we observe four types of learners in a classroom.    

Visual Learner Auditory Learner Read and Write type Learner Kinaesthetic Learner

A Teacher cannot step into the classroom with one style of teaching; he/she must wear many hats to connect with all those different types of learners and to ensure the teaching reaches to all the students in the classroom.

Therefore, the need of creating a Learning Institution that can react more quickly to changing external environments to improve student outcomes is essential.

At the same time, another very important factor the Institute needs to emphasize today is “Skill Development” of its students. Mere academic brilliance does not guarantee jobs or success. Developing skills and making them employable is key to their success and eventually for the Institute‘s success as well.

The purpose of education which used to be during 60s 70s was to make a child a good human being, good citizen for the nation, community so that the long term problems of nation can be solved with human engineering. But post 1990 and more so in the 21st century with the boom in private education and the needs of Industry, with a focus on value education the emphasize should be more on developing employability skills of students.

The learning must be integrated with focus on creating employable students. Here are few suggestions that I can think of:    

Industry and Institution collaboration for practical learning Experiential learning Project based learning Creating and supporting learning opportunities and continuous professional development for its faculty and other members of the institution

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries    

promoting peer learning and group learning among all staff Creating a culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration in classrooms Make students think thus help them become “Thinkers and Problem Solvers” Modelling and growing learning leadership

When we are students, we are more concerned about getting our degrees than learning. Our main priority is to get a job. When we find a job, we start getting comfortable. Our priority shifts and we start looking for more stability and the family becomes our sole concern. After five years and more, we start getting frustrated and threatened as our degrees and skills start becoming obsolete. To find a solution to this issue, some will go back to Professional Institutes to develop new skills and competencies.   

How many transitions would you like to handle in your life?

Do you feel stuck?

Do you need to learn new skills or do you feel like you have never learned anything as you were busy handling your life transitions?

Learning has never been something limited to a specific phase in our lives. When you keep learning, you keep evolving. This is how you build self-esteem and then confidence.

Learning is not about earning a degree. It is a kind of a self-care as you keep nurturing your mind to keep progressing. Keep Learning and keep progressing.

Varada Murthy KS Founder Director Founder People First Leadership Academy Email: info@pfla.in www.pfla.in https://www.facebook.com/pfla.in

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

3. MONETISE YOUR TALENT

Blueprint Are you money-wise or otherwise? Do you have - a strategy to succeed or a blueprint to go beyond barriers? Shouldn't we self-optimize to MONETISE our TALENT so that our life be shining, sparkling, satisfying and stimulating?

Life: A vehicle Life is like a vehicle, which has 4 wheels. 1st wheel is PASSION, 2nd wheel is ATTITUDE, 3rd wheel is KNOWLEDGE, 4th wheel is SKILL. If these 4 wheels are optimized, oriented, aligned and balanced, then the vehicle can reach to the desired destination.

ď ś PASSION Pursue your passion. Passion never goes out of fashion. Passion propels productivity and profitability. Do what you love, love what you do - is the maxim and mantra for moneyed men and women. Take up a job you love and you never have to work in life.

Passion comes from purpose. If there is no purpose, and you win the whole world, but lose to your own soul. Money is the derivative of purpose. Purpose must be challenging because without challenge there is no satisfaction in life.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

Align your work to life style & life style to your work. It must be harmonious and complementary.

It is not hard work which gives you more money. It is high energy that gives you more money.

Therefore maintain distance from energy vampires, who suck your energy and lower your passion.

 ATTITUDE Your attitude determines your altitude. Skill can get you hired, and attitude can get you fired. Positivity Some think money is boon in life. Some think money is bane in life. This attitude of boon or bane will translate appropriately. If there is no healthy relationship with and positivity towards money, money will elude you.

Remember, profit maximization is the common objective for you and your company. Positive attitude is working from happiness, and not working for happiness  Mind-set Mind-set to excel is not possible without congruence of thoughts, words & deeds.  Loyalty Loyalty is always towards values and not towards boss or company.

Values are universal and beyond time.  Change Constantly change the changeable, while steadfastly clinging to the unchangeable Everyone, must possess, at least 4 aspects of attitude:  Acceptance  Gratitude  Enriching  Learning

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 KNOWLEDGE Knowledge is a journey not a destination. Constantly upgrade your knowledge else it will either depreciate or become redundant. Domain expertise is essential. Normally, your qualification or university degree refers to knowledge. For some, knowledge is for life and for some others, knowledge is life.

 SKILL Skill and not strength that governs the ship. Skill is a pill to fulfil your will.

Don‘t limit yourself, learn more and more skills. There are 6 skills which are crucial.  Innovation Creativity is thinking about new things. Whereas innovation is doing new things. Innovation is not about ideas. Innovation is about making ideas happen. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower, says Steve Jobs.  Networking Network is net worth. Bigger is your network, higher is your net worth.

This is one skill which you should never outsource. Crux of networking is giving and not getting. Constantly work and improve upon - Elevator pitch, time management and response to time after getting a new business card.  Selling How you sell is more important than what you sell. You can‘t expect to take a fishing boat out and just watch the fish jump into the boat. We need to employ and deploy the selling skill to capture clients. If you are not taking care of your clients, your competitors will.

In this age, where everything branded commands a higher price, your personality is your brand. Gist of your personality is - Trust, Integrity & Ethics (TIE). Your brand is your reputation. Strengthen your strength and weaken your weakness.

If all you‘ve got is a hammer in your hand, then everything will look like a nail. If we possess Selling skill, we can capitalize on the prospects.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Writing a blog, and writing a book may also be considered so as to advertise and popularize you.  Prioritizing Priority is a function of - value of work, time taken and point of time. What is important now, may not be important an hour later. One has to plan as to frequency of checking email inbox, WhatsApp messages and other social media sites.

First thing must first. Make realistic deadlines. 80% work takes 20% time and vice versa. Do your work in full, and not in parts and then move to the next one. Give your undivided attention to every work. A manager who doesn't delegate is a glorified clerk. Delegate and review them regularly.  Communication Words are free, if you use words wrongly, words may cost you. If one skill influences the most, it is communication. You can become a head of a state, if you are a prolific public speaker. You are a good communicator if you - touch your listeners' heart, stimulate your listeners' mind, and tickle their funny bones. Can you vote for a person who can‘t make a public speech? If you lack communication skill, you can't be a thought leader or a chairperson.  Technology One must use technology to one's advantage. He must be aware and competent to use the latest productivity tools. Best usage of time and skill, can be made by various apps. Time management is life management. Disruption is the new norm. Salesman said to CEO: ―This software will cut your workload by 50 %‖, CEO: ―That‘s great! Then I‘ll take 2 of the same software.‖ You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer.

Summary Talent = Passion + Attitude + Knowledge + Skill Time + Talent = Money Work Life balance => minimize TIME + maximize TALENT = maximize MONEY

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Talent makes money, then money makes talent, and it goes on, till you become an Intellectual Billionaire.

Those who have the gold, they make the rule. Hence it is called Golden Rule. And the Golden rule is your money can convert - your signature into autograph, your statements into quotations and your knowledge into wisdom Do you still ….. believe in …… DEFAULT DESTINY Or Now you …... believe in ….... DESIGNER DESTINY

Author‟s Profile Arun Sharma the Coach & Trainer in eDGEWISe TRAINING, Singapore, provides Business coaching, Personality coaching and Life skill coaching and training.

Arun is professionally a Chartered Accountant possessing 34 years of experience in projects and assignments on business re-engineering, due diligence, corporate valuations, project management and international trade.

Arun practices and believes in - detached involvement, passion with awareness, enlightened billionaire and enriching society. He is associated with various social organizations including a school in tribal belt of eastern India. He has been - a President of a Toastmasters Club; a Judge in International Inter school contest; keynote speaker on various occasions. He has delivered various speeches in Indonesia, India, Thailand and Singapore.

Mr. Arun Sharma Coach & Trainer

eDGEWISe Training #02-49, 122 McNair Road, Singapore 320122 HP: 97816173 Email: wewu@hotmail.com Web: www.eDGEWISe.sg

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

4. From Depression to Rediscovery

My journey is from being an unhappy person to become the Laughter Coach now.

I was an unhappy person. I explored various ways including attending Stress management courses & learning a few laughter exercises.

I studied brain development and its functions. I became interested in knowing more about happy hormones. I was very keen to explore if it‘s possible for human beings to get the dosage of happy hormones endorphins, dopamine and serotonin on their own by making some changes in their lifestyle and routines.

I realized that I get a feeling of pure satisfaction and joy after a completed workout. I felt that after the workout my confidence grew in my own capabilities. I read that responsible for these senses of joy are biochemical processes and the release of happiness hormones. Dopamine is the main reason why we feel good while exercising.

I then explored how to get endorphins, dopamine and serotonin and included all those actions needed in the Laughter Therapy I conducted.

I resigned as the International Pre School Manager and spent time reading and applying the knowledge learnt. After applying the

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries knowledge, I experienced positive changes in my moods and everyone around me commented on my high energy levels.

I became a happy person full of positive energy. I had a pure intention of wanting to see others happy. I started conducting Laughter Therapy at Hospitals, Parks, Club houses, Dormitories, Senior Citizen Centers and Schools etc.

Feedback of Laughter Therapy sessions was very positive. Participants shared that they felt happy, energetic, calm and peaceful. Some participants shared that slight pain which they were experiencing before attending the therapy was gone. Some of them shared that after attending the therapy, they stopped taking their depression medicine.

I became very enthusiastic and positive about the therapy I have designed; I wanted to share it with the rest of the world.

I joined social media platforms in 2017. By 2018, I could create awareness about it to a few thousands. I then started receiving Conference and summit invitations for speaking about the Art Of Laughter and how to reach top performance by getting your happy hormones.

Laughter Therapy which includes Simple stretching, Deep breathing, Practicing various laughter types, Saying positive affirmations aloud and Progressive muscle relaxation with water sounds is an effective way to get rid of any addiction, slight pain and low moods.

Too much thinking, getting overwhelmed by the technology can have an opposite effect and it turns up your cortisol level. Your body perceives it as a form of negative stress. Relaxation with music allows you to listen to your body to find out whether the stress is of physical or of mental origin.

With every little sense of achievement after attending the Laughter therapy, your self-confidence may increase step-by-step – and this, in turn, pushes you towards top performances. So you will not only feel lighter and more but also more optimistic, confident, satisfied, powerful – and happier!

Effects of these happy making hormones is not only restricted to the immediate time during training. In the course of actual practice, the brain releases endorphins, Dopamine and Serotonin only within certain regions. But if you practice these exercise regularly, the hormone

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries concentration grows continuously in many areas of the brain. A sustainable improvement of confidence levels and an increase of happiness and satisfaction are then pleasant side effects.

Experience it yourself and let‘s go for being happier in the long term!

Ms. Suchi Deshpande Chair - Asia Global Goodwill Ambassadors Facebook- Suchi Deshpande LinkedIn: MS. SUCHI

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

5. WHY THERE IS A NEED TO BE A „CREATIVE‟ YOU? In one of my speaking engagements, I had the opportunity to connect with one of the audience members. He was curious as to how "Creativity" could be used in Business, Career and Life. He had this understanding that "creativity" was only about being in the "Creative Industries‖; i.e. doing stuff like painting, sculpturing, stage performances etc.

It was a genuine question. He was not alone. True to what most people understands about creativity, it is highly synonymous with the visual and performing arts.

While creativity is highly required in the arts, however, the elements of creativity can be applied in ALL other aspects of life. Creativity guru, Frederik Haren, once said, "...there is no such thing as creative industries".

Creativity is not just about being in the "creative expression" mode. It is an important skill to have. We need creativity to live. To me creativity is the language of life.

Let us look at some of the areas in life as to why there is a need for us to be creative.

1) Creativity solves problems We face with challenges and problems every day. When presented with such adversities, humans have two options - to run away or fight (resolve) it. Of course, if we choose to run away, the problems / challenges will "go away" temporarily, but will surface again in future.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries However, if we choose to stay put, deal and resolve the challenges, we need to know on how to solve them. This is where creativity comes in handy.

Some examples on how we need creativity to solve problems:

1) 2) 3)

You are about to make a presentation but just moments before the presentation starts, there's blackout. How to we respond to that?

There‘s a rise in electrical bike accidents. How do we curb this problem?

Students turning up late for classes. How do we resolve these latecoming issues?

These are just examples of problems that we need to solve. With creative problem solving, these problems can be easily addressed.

2) Creativity opens doors for career progression and personal development We are now living in an ever-changing world. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), an international organization committed to improve the state of the world, there will be new developments in the areas of robotics, artificial intelligence and automation by the year 2020.

These will transform the way we live and work. Some jobs will grow and some will disappear. There will be a lot of complexity and ambiguity.

To ―survive‖ and move up in the corporate ladder in this ever-changing economy, employees need to be creative and keep innovating. This is one of the top skills recommended by the WEF. 3) Creativity encourages celebration of failures and has positivemindsets Failure will not be in your dictionary. Famous Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan spoke in an interview with NDTV and he shared his late father's advice. His late father said, "Success in the worst teacher in the world. It makes you feel invincible but you cannot pass down success to other people....but FAILURE is a fantastic teacher. It teaches you to work harder and be better."

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Creative thinking will transform you from being passive and into a more active role. You will start to feel "responsible" in whatever you are doing and enjoy taking initiatives; thus keep coming up with new ways of doing things. You will then go all out to get them being implemented. In the process, it exudes your positive energy and optimism to get the job done.

Thomas Edison, the inventor of light bulb, was famous for ‗celebrating failures‘. His light bulb idea was his 10,000th idea. Interestingly, he did not regard ‗his earlier 9,999 ideas as failures. He said ‗he found 9999 different ways of NOT inventing a light bulb‘. He patented some of his 9,999 ideas.

About the author: Hazriq Idrus is a stage actor turned Professional Speaker who specialises in the areas of Applied Creativity/ Creative Leadership & Team Engagement. In 2011, he started The Speaking Factory Pte Ltd, and has trained & spoken for organizations such as BMW, PETRONAS, Starhub & various other government agencies. Hazriq is also currently an adjunct lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, where he delivers modules on Creativity & Innovation. Hazriq authored his first book, ‗The Stage Fright Antidote!‘ in 2013 and has since co-authored 7 other books.

Hazriq is still performing on stage and television as an actor to keep himself adept in creativity and creative-thinking.

Get connected with Hazriq at www.linkedin/in/hazriq or send him an email to info@thespeakingfactory.com

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6. Importance of Research and Innovations in Emerging Countries

To explain the status of research and innovations in emerging countries, the best way is to look at the contrasting geographical location of the African and European continents in the globe. The African continent is near the equator and hence, most of the countries in the continent have great capacity for production of grains and vegetables but the countries in the European continent are comparatively weak in production of vegetables and food grain. The vegetables and grains are major part of food. The African continent has rich resources for cattle rearing than the European continent. The point is ―African continent is the best place for the production of agriculture and animal based food than the European continent‖. In addition, there is an acceptable weather throughout the year in the African continent and hence, a set of simple cotton dress is good enough throughout the year to live in that geographical location.

Rich resources for easy production of grains, vegetables, meat and natural free liveable weather are available in the African continent.

These two factors, food and free liveable weather provide easy and effortless life in the geographical regions which are closer to the equator.

Since the life is easy, the research and innovations are rare in the region.

To certain extent, the same views fit perfectly for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and most of the east but a few exceptions are always possible.

The people in the European continent have to work for importing grains and vegetables, sophisticated dress for winter and having air conditioned

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries houses which are inevitable to save life in winter. Hence, research and innovations are the best tools to avail comfortable life in the region. The people over there accept new innovations readily. There is always a crush on innovation in the region for survival. Observation of the countries in the north side of 35.6 N latitude (close to Japan) tempts me to make the above conclusion.

The birthplaces of innovations are Universities and Institutions. Almost all antibiotics and the concept of vaccines were found in the Universities.

Outstanding inventions, from the internet to the Nylon fibres, were found in the Universities. The countries which have many world class Universities and Institutions are stronger in economy and also considered as super powers. The steps of establishing world class Universities/Institutions in the emerging countries are many. Among them, continuous power and water supply are the important. The emerging countries should plan to provide uninterrupted power and water supplies for Universities and Institutions. The investments are the breath of research activity. Hence, country should do the followings: 1. Surplus funding opportunities for research 2. Strict norms for sanctioning research grants 3. The top achiever (in publications in SCI journals and successfully commercialized patent rights) of an area of research in last five years should be appointed as chairman and members of research proposals scrutiny and sanctioning bodies 4. Creation of award system to honour the research proposals scrutiny and sanctioning bodies in the case of successful achievement of the goal (publication in NEJM, Cell, Nature, Science/successful commercialization of a patented product(s)) by the researcher to whom the research grant was sanctioned 5. Adequate honour and awards for innovative research outputs in the national level 6. The funding agencies should have adequate clerical capacities and infrastructure including computers and internet facility The Universities and Institutions have their own responsibilities. Here, in the emerging countries, the quarters for researchers, clericals and students inside the campus are inevitable because the road and

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries transport system are not up to the standard. The availability of residence inside the campus will save significant quantum of time and energy which can be spent meaningfully for the development of institutions. The Universities/Institutions should strictly adhere to the following criteria: 1. The best applicant in terms of publications/successfully commercialized patents/books on his innovative concepts should be appointed as the Vice chancellors of Universities and directors of Institutions 2. Appointment of the best researchers in the Universities & Institutions, 3. In the unavailability of suitable candidate, the vacancy should be filled from national/international level 4. Strict norms for declaration of probation, and promotion 5. Salary based on the research funds and research outputs, the space for research laboratories should be based on the research funds, publications and achievements 6. Clear norms and opportunity to create innovative business in the University/Institutions 7. Introduction of adequate honours and awards for innovative research outputs in the institutional level The implementation of the above in the Universities and Institutions certainly will elevate the research and innovations in the emerging countries. The diversity of fauna and flora and other natural resources are abundant in the equator region. Most of the emerging countries are in the region. Hence, they can do wonders in the area of research and innovation. Here, careless recruitments and poor management of manpower in the Universities/Institutions are the key factors which ultimately spoil the research and innovation in the emerging countries.

Here, the national development also is heavily affected.

Dr. Sudhakar Sivasubramaniam, M.Sc., Ph.D., Professor, Department of Biotechnology, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, Tamilnadu-627412, India sudhakar@msuniv.ac.in

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7. Responsible Research and Innovation Responsible Research leads to Innovation. There is an immense need for responsible research in order to bring innovation in science and technology for development, meeting societal challenges adopting validated methodologies to achieve the goals. The term Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has been used by the European Union's Framework Programs since the year 2010 stems from the studies organized by ELSA (Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects) and Human Genome Project. RRI ensures the research performed is of high ethical standards, safeguarding gender equality in the scientific community, motivating policy-makers to bring out norms to avoid harmful effects of innovation in the communities. In this manner make sure the knowledge necessary to understand the implications by furthering science education. RRI has several definitions from the perspectives of administrative and academic definitions as defined by several authors and thinkers.

RRI is gaining importance today due to ‗grand challenges' such as questions of employment, economic well-being and growth, issues of social coherence, and the resilience of democratic societies, demographic developments, social innovations, and other topics. The concurrence among grand challenges is that they significantly impact, the working of modern societies whose resolutions are likely to benefit from research and innovation. Therefore successfully addressing the grand challenges lead to the prospect of increased quality of life ensuring safety. Thus, in today‘s circumstances societies depend on research and innovation for

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries solutions to mitigate their problems, despite uncertainty on the future predictions of consequences from research and innovation.

This skepticism about the future is associated with the problems that research and innovation face, along with the challenges they address globally along with the traditional mechanisms of technology governance that are not in harmony with them. These are rooted in the numerous developments concerning modernization such as loss of religious certainty and the secularization of Western states, increasing individualization, and pluralization of societies and changing governance models, about science and technology. Thus, today the relevance of RRI has become very important in the development of research and innovation with diminishing the role of conventional science and innovation governance measures.

The dimensions that RRI occupy include the activities, actors and the norms or normative foundations. Activities include various aspects of risk assessments, technological assessments, foresight activates, deliberative democracy where RRI covers researcher or expert-centered view of research and innovation bringing the broader set of stakeholders under the same umbrella. Furthermore to strengthen the RRI, activities such as scrutiny of research by bodies independent of the actual research to ensure ethical practices thereby to develop internal reflexivity bringing realistic standards to maintain integrity. To maintain stringency, literature and normative thinkers recommend awareness and accountability structures covering research processes and methodologies.

The groups/actors involved in RRI are individual researchers, research organizations (both publicly and privately funded), research ethics committees and their members, users of research and innovation, policy-makers at different levels, professional bodies, legislators, educational organizations (e.g. schools and universities) and public bodies (from local authorities to regional structures).

The normative foundations lay down the principles to evaluate whether a particular type of research or innovation is indeed desirable or acceptable. This facilitates RRI to implement lawful changes helping research to succeed by reflecting on the normative principles on which it is built. There are several normative principles determining RRI, governed globally, nation wise with treaties among countries to safeguard the ethical issues, human rights, women‘s rights and other

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries issues that may harm the society if not paid attention to. Therefore, these foundations help to uphold the moral values of research necessary for responsible innovation for the betterment of the society.

Thus, in the words of B.C. Stahl, the definition of RRI runs as a higher level responsibility or meta-responsibility that aims to shape, maintain, develop, coordinate and align existing and novel research and innovation-related processes, actors and responsibilities with a view to ensuring desirable and acceptable research outcomes. The reason RRI is termed a meta-responsibility because everyone involved in research and innovation owe accountability to maintenance, development, and coordination of existing responsibilities. The uniqueness of RRI is it connects the present or existing responsibilities with new ones laid down for continuous improvement and coordinates their successful execution 1, 2 preserving privacy .

Can we say RRI is our panacea? No, we cannot. Because it does not completely mitigate the need or the circumstances to have controversial debates because of new information arising from research, questioning the future and the role a particular research or innovation could play. Therefore, RRI would continue to raise ethical and social challenges to improvise the quality of research and innovation. RRI helps us make better decisions on challenging questions. It is a resource of creativity allowing stakeholders to improve the quality of debate and thereby contribute to better and come up with standardized decisions about questioned developments.

Research to me is a career with a purpose allowing me to find answers for legitimate questions that benefit the society. As a cancer researcher, my goal is to find a cure for the disease. Having said so it is very important to follow the rules lay down to perform responsible research by the institutions of learning that nurture research. Primarily be thorough in the current development in the subject. Maintain absolute records with all observations in a systematic manner. Practice good laboratory practices and follow the ethical rules that prevail while working with animals and humans as stated in protocols. These rules ensure that you perform original research to publish them without duplication, plagiarism or other malpractices. Always be open to constructive criticisms and take corrective measures right away when you make a mistake. These practices enhance your critical thinking and originality that ultimately leads to innovation. Today responsible research is a team

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries and collaborative effort. The research has to be cross-cultural and global thus involving a lot of constructive project management. As a researcher, I am a learner and a mentor, who assimilate knowledge as it flows and passes it to my mentees who are the future. No matter in what level you are in the research hierarchy a researcher has to readily pass on the knowledge very eloquently to the next generation keeping in mind he/she is grooming the future.

As a researcher, I am answerable to society. You may ask how? The grants funded by the federal government and other funding agencies are the taxpayer money or from philanthropy. I owe every discovery and finding to the society. Hence, it becomes my duty to keep responsible research in front of me always to bring about the right kind of innovation and be prepared to explain them to all walks of society.

Furthermore, as researchers, we need to implement good financial practices. Lower or minimize wastage. Develop the habit of responsible purchases that are only pertinent for research. The money we get is for research; therefore, use them for the right cause, in my case finding a cure. Responsible research is a way of life that leads to responsible innovation. To keep up the quality we need to practice them continuously, I mean RRI. References: 1. B C Stahl, Responsible research and innovation: The role of privacy in an emerging framework. Science and Public Policy 40 (2013) pp. 708–716.

2. B C Stahl, J Timmermans, C Flick, Ethics of Emerging Information and Communication Technologies. Science and Public Policy, 44(3), 2017, 369– 38.

Acknowledgement: I thank all my mentors who have made me what I am today. I thank Dr. Senthil Saravanamuthu, Ph.D. Director of Business Development & Sales (US), Bio Basic Inc. for critical reading.

Dr. Eswar Shankar, Ph.D. Research Scientist, Department of Urology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

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8. Scientific Research and Innovation The terms ‗Research‘ and ‗Innovation‘ are always inseparable as novelty arises only from these, by creative minds. It could be either, research leading to new innovative processes/products or by new innovative ideas leading to good research, which in turn leads to developing novel solutions to unravel scientific jigsaw puzzles.

Scientific and economic progress depends upon our interest to innovate and/or improve the existing products or processes, which is the key for the development of a strong nation. Scientific world continues to research and develop new therapies, diagnostics, treatments, drugs, alternative fuels, advanced weather information systems, digital solutions, so on and so forth. Such activities lead to growth of scientific knowledge and employment opportunities, besides providing solutions to our complex problems in various fields. However, with the rapid digitalization replacing the existing technologies, numerous disruptive challenges unfold; thereby making the innovative research processes to be more stringent and highly specific to suit the needy. More and more new technological inputs lead to the latest know-how to the society and also facilitate further exploration in the field of research. Research leading to novel inventions, should be validated and patent protected before passed to the public, by open access. A proposed new research model thus introduces a paradigm shift in our scientific progress leading to the evolution of new scientific theories.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries New and varied data arising from various laboratories to address a specific aspect of scientific question in common should be transformed digitally into a database to analyse critically to arrive at a common consensus on the advantage and usage by the mass. However, basic science research although contributes to the development of novel, new and innovative products, it is imperative for the team to get it published to claim their prime status in the contribution. Although the common goal of the scientific research in various laboratories is to develop new products, the path taken by them could be different and with varying time limits.

Scientific research in developing countries like India, China, Singapore and Taiwan, have already made a strong platform and provided guidelines for ‗research and innovation‘ in various fields to be followed in order not to duplicate the data which could bring in infringement policies, besides wastage of time and money.

Digital transformations of the current scientific world thus have a tremendous impact on research and innovation in emerging countries, by continuously updating their new operations and novel technologies. The debate surrounding digitalization has therefore gained increased practical importance for politics, business and social issues, and is linked to work related issues for community development, new changes in the practical business approaches, effective opportunities for organizations in operational and business process development.

Last but not the least, true scientific innovations arise from genuine creative ideas, through the concerted efforts using, Intelligence, Hard work, Smartness and of course with good Luck!!!

Dr. Kothandaraman Subramaniam, M.Sc., M. Phil., Ph.D., Freelance Scientific Writer & Editor, Whitefield, Bangalore, Karnataka, India.

Email: skraman143@gmail.com Face Book: Kothandharaman Subramaniam LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kothandharamansubramaniam-904bb716/

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9. Disruptive Innovations in Pharma The human life span of the current generation is undoubtedly longer than before, gifted with the life expectancy of almost double, compared to earlier generations over the last 150 years. This is due to the incredible advancements in science and technology that greatly revolutionized the public health.

However, due to changes in lifestyles and related consequences, more new diseases are emerging simultaneously, while many old diseases and health issues still remain incurable and unresolved. This is a demanding long-term challenge imposed on pharmaceutical industries and research institutions to produce innovative new therapies of high therapeutic index and low toxicity.

Nonetheless, the drug companies are facing a serious innovation deficit despite the advancements in technology. This is mainly because that the process of making a new drug is a complex, labour-intensive, excessively expensive, time-consuming endeavour (Figure-1).

Figure-1: The process of Drug Discovery and Development (Image credit: Genome Research Limited) Over the last few decades the cost invested in this field has escalated dramatically while the number of new therapeutics brought to the market has significantly lagged behind. The number of

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries drug withdrawals from market has also increased.

Cost and Time of a New Drug A typical R & D process lasts up to 10-13 years on an average to reach Food and Drug Analysis (FDA) approval of a new drug, where only one out of 10,000 compounds becomes a marketable drug product.

According to a recent study by Tufts Centre for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD), USA, the cost of completely developing a new drug to market was estimated to cost US$ 3.0 billion in the year 2018.

The number of new medicines invented per billions of dollars through this process has halved every 9 years in the last few decades. In order to improve their return-on-investment and fix this apparent ‗innovation gap‘, the pharma industry has started to re-evaluate their R&D strategies by reorganizing their entire system through a multidimensional approach.

Although the transition from lab to patients has been a long expensive process, disruption in any system has been the fundamental mechanism that constantly brings innovation towards high quality, best convenience and cost-effective outcomes. This article presents the importance of recent pharmaceutical innovations that transformed the drug discovery and developments into a precise, fast and cost-effective process.

Disruptive Innovations in Drug Discovery and Development Many innovation platforms are recently evolved in the field of drug discovery and development to overcome disruptions: Nanotechnology, Automation, Artificial Intelligence, Big data, Machine learning, 3D printing, etc. are important ones to name a few.

Nanotechnology Nanotechnology is a rapidly emerging branch of medical science that utilizes infinitesimally small nanoscale (10-100 nm) particles to enhance the site-specific targeted oriented delivery of precise medicines. Their smallest size gives them the abil ity to travel freely throughout the body as an efficient drug delivery system and a diagnostic tool.

Nano-delivery offers protection of the ―drug payload‖ against a potentially destructive biological environment and extends bioavailability of medicines. Nanomedicines are extensively used as

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries chemotherapeutic agents. Nanogold is used as biomarkers and tumour labels in biomolecules detection assays. Nanosilver is an efficient antibiotics.

Big Data The ―big data‖ is an information technology based on the concept of having large volumes of data from various channels in multiple formats, which are arranged and processed in such a way that for easy and quick access, searches, updates and analysis for deriving useful patterns, trends and information from them.

The genomics, proteomics, sequencing, gene expression and high throughput technologies, clinical trial data, data of regulatory monitoring, and literatures of protein-protein interactions, drug-protein interactions, repurposing of drugs, patient records, etc. have all led to the creation of large volumes of diverse datasets that could be used effectively for drug discovery.

The process of drug discovery using ‗big data‘ may also include the processing and analysis of unstructured large volume of data from surveys and study reports obtained in pharmaceutical companies, laboratories, hospitals into a structured biomedical data that might lead to useful patterns and trends of diseases and specialized treatment options. Precision medicines are thus designed to tailor treatment for diseases by taking into account the individual variability in molecular and cellular spaces.

Artificial Intelligence The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and ‗cloud‘ computing is to search for virtual molecular space and design novel drugs, to perform highly accurate drug binding affinity predictions, to derive drug-like properties, to predict safety and synthesizability of a drug molecule.

A recently founded biotech startup TwoXAR, a Drug Discovery platform based on artificial intelligence to evaluate large public and proprietary datasets to identify and rank high probability ―Drug-Disease‖ matches.

The obtained matches can be used to cross-validate clinical research and ―Repurpose‖ the existing medicines or identify novel drug candidates.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Similarly, a health tech start-up company Atomwise uses Deep Learning Neural Networks to discover new medicines and was able to go through 8.2 million compounds to find potential cures for multiple sclerosis in a matter of days. In another project, Atomwise‘s artificial intelligence was able to ―Repurpose‖ some of the existing drugs to suppress Ebola, a fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans.

Machine Learning ―Machine Learning‖ is a form of Artificial Intelligence that enables system to learn and produce models from input data rather than through explicit programming. This algorithm teaches computers to adjust themselves so that a human intervention and instructions need not overtly describe how to perform a particular task. One of the revolutionary things about machine learning is that computers can themselves learn to perform complex tasks, which are hard or even impossible for humans to describe and instruct.

3D printing Technology The 3D printing is a rapidly developing technology that could be used for a quick and cheap manufacturing of new drugs.

Interestingly, it is possible to develop 3D-bioprinted liver or renal tissues and use it to evaluate the likely excretion profiles of ne w drugs through them. Currently, 3D printing transforms the world of medicine, whereby the medicines are manufactured and tested directly on the human tissues.

FDA approved an antiepileptic drug, Spartum, manufactured through 3D printing that was used directly in the human body. Thus 3D printing changes the economic scale of drug development very cost effective.

The technology incorporates precision in quantities of medicines, higher dosage loads and fast melting techniques.

Novel Non-Invasive Clinical Studies Drugs fail at later stages of development due to the discrepancy that the animal models used in the clinical studies of new drug candidates is not very representative of the human outcome for the same medicine. This process costs huge money for investors, wastes time for companies and above all, risks lives for patients.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries In this pursuit, computational scientists use in silico pharmacophores and molecular modelling through computer-aided drug discovery (CADD) approach to conduct ―virtual‖ screening of many thousands of chemical libraries against specific target proteins. This approach reduces the cost of clinical trials and drug development to a greater extent.

Conclusion These breakthrough in pharmaceutical innovations altogether revolutionized pharmaceutical industries. The entire system of drug discovery is transformed to be a cheaper, faster, effective and more productive process. Such multidimensional approach is a very promising methodology in understanding the cause, mechanism of action, medical conditions, influence of lifestyle, environmental factors, etc. behind a particular disease and relevant drug discovery.

These research advancements in drug discovery will create a great deal of motivation in younger scientists and entrepreneurs towards disruptive innovations to pick a problem of higher human importance, develop the expertise at it and benefit the society at large.

Author‟s Profile Dr. Thenmozhiyal is the Chief Scientific Officer in ACE International Pte. Ltd., Singapore. She is an R & D spirited passionate scientist with diverse expertise in medicinal chemistry over 15 years of research experience and 9 years of teaching and training experiences. Her special interest lies in Drug Discovery through Molecular Design, Synthesis, Structure-Activity Relationships and in Biomedical Sciences. She has authored several peer reviewed scientific publications in medicinal chemistry research and drug discovery.

Dr. Thenmozhiyal has obtained her Doctorate Degree in Chemistry from Bharathidasan University, India, followed by post-doctoral studies in drug discovery and synthesis of antiepileptics at the National University of Singapore on a prestigious NSTB fellowship and in Diversity Oriented Synthesis of anticancer drugs at Infinity Pharma Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA. Her work experience has been wide from Bharathidasan University, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (India) National University of Singapore (Singapore), Infinity Pharma Harvard University (USA), Albany Molecular Research Inc., (Singapore), Curtin University, Dept. of Chemistry. (Australia), Lions Eye Institute, Center for

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Excellence in E-Medicine, University of Western Australia, (Australia), etc. She has guided and mentored several graduate students/young Scientists/Trainees in drug discovery, synthesis and biomedical research.

She also extends her services as Care Group Advisor at National Kidney Foundation (NKF), Singapore, as Volunteer Educator in Singapore Indian Association (SINDA), Singapore, as Yoga and Meditation teacher in Simplified Kundalini Yoga (SKY) Centre, Singapore and as National Associate Secretary in International Federation of Professional Trainers (IFPT), ExCo Member and Treasurer in Tamil Life Literary Association (LLA), Singapore and Treasurer in Toast Master Club (TMC Division T3), Singapore.

Dr. Jeyanthi Chinnappa Thenmozhiyal, M.Sc., M.Phil., Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer Research & Development ACE International Pte. Ltd., Singapore Mobile: +65-82561137 Email: thenmozhiyaljc@gmail.com office@aceinternational.com.sg Website: www.aceinternational.com.sg

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10. Digitalization: The 4th Industrial Revolution for Risk Management

Cyber-attacks and data breach are amongst the top threats facing any business - the news is constantly highlighting global organisations (including well known trusted household names) that have suffered attacks at the hands of cyber criminals. Not only does this affect the personal data and credit card details of millions of customers, it also affects reputation and brand value and people‘s confidence in doing business online. Moreover, the impact of these attacks can ultimately have catastrophic effects on the security of the nation depending on the target of the attack –no organisation is safe from airlines to banking to healthcare. If Amazon, Cathay Pacific, the NHS, Marriott Starwood Hotels and Uber are vulnerable then so are you and your organisation.

A recent joint report from the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) and the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School entitled: Risk Management Perspectives of Global Corporations highlighted the security of enterprises Including cyber security, business continuity and crisis management as amongst the top risks of those surveyed (which included IRM‘s membership and Cambridge's Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and ERM communities). It also recognised the disruption to business models and new approaches to old problems that

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries are being enabled by new technology, from blockchain to artificial intelligence, all of which bring opportunity and risk, including ethical challenges.

The Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies‘ Academic Director, Professor Daniel Ralph, said: ―Corporations must contend with both internal and external risks that threaten their business models. Their stakeholders are keenly aware of the many potential factors impacting corporate profitability and longevity, thus greater transparency in risk reporting will be expected in the future.‖ Companies go to vast expense to try to protect their organisations from such attacks but digital safety and security ultimately comes down to good enterprise risk management principles and practices.

Recently Alex Younger, Chief of the UK‘s MI6 security service, addressed students at St Andrews University around the threats of cyber and national security and how humans need to interact with artificial intelligence in the era of the 4th Industrial revolution.

Ian Livsey, Chief Executive at the IRM says: ―IRM supports the comments from MI6 on cyber threats. Never have we been at such risk from new ways of data interception and misuse of companies‘ sensitive information. This can affect not only customers but also extended supply chains. Ultimately, the security of the nation and, in cases where health and defence are involved, human life can be at stake.

The era of the fourth industrial revolution calls for a fourth generation of risk management, fusing our traditional professional skills with managing accelerated digital disruption in whatever type of organisation we work.

The impact of exponential technological change is blurring the boundaries relied upon in traditional risk management and this is why the institute has worked with Warwick University to develop our new Digital Risk Management Certificate.

Risk managers of the future must operate amongst the blurred lines between the digital, cyber and physical worlds‖.

While the world around us may constantly change, the fundamental approach of building resilient organisations with robust processes, a healthy risk culture and strong risk communications will still be the right

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries one. The differences now are a need to move at a faster speed and emerging risks to be assessed.

IRM‘s new Digital Risk Management Certificate course material has been designed to help risk practitioners and other professionals to face the ‗fourth industrial revolution‘ of digitalisation, supporting them to manage digital risk at a strategic and operational level.

It will explain how new technologies and digitalisation are disrupting businesses, bringing both risk and opportunity in this brave new world, and how the tools and techniques can be used and adapted to manage these challenges.

Professor Tom Sorell, Professor of Politics and Philosophy at the University of Warwick, who contributed to the development of the study guide and syllabus, said: ―I was delighted to help develop the learning materials for this new IRM course. The course will introduce learners to digital as a disruptive force both in products and services, as well as offering clear explanations around cybersecurity risks in business or the public sector.

It is designed to develop a clear understanding of digital products and risks, and the tools and techniques which can help businesses stay protected.

We hope the course will also appeal to anyone who would like to know more about the opportunities and vulnerabilities unleashed by the internet.‖ This practical side of the training will cover audit and assurance for digital and emerging risks, including how to carry out digital risk assessments, with a detailed grounding in cyber security principles, practices and incident management. Ethical issues including both privacy and machine learning (artificial intelligence) will also be considered.

Managing the risks associated with digital disruption is a global challenge, and we have students signing up for the new course from Europe, Africa, Asia and USA. One of the first students to sign up is John Delaney, Managing Security Consultant Security Advisory Team at IBM Security, who comments:

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries "Having come across the IRM during some research on risk management best practice I was very impressed with the quality and detail of their thought leadership. They offered clarity to the often muddy waters of risk management. When I saw the IRM were soon to offer a new Digital Risk Management certificate I jumped at the chance to study from experts in the field. I look forward to the challenge and increased knowledge the course will bring."

Victoria Robinson Head of Marketing & Communications Institute of Risk Management 2nd Floor, Sackville House, 143 - 149 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 6BN www.theirm.org

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11. Business & Management Relevance of Entrepreneurship & Skill Development Training – A Conceptual View on Global Organizations & Academia towards Socio-Economic Growth & Sustenance The advent of globalization has necessitated the competitive business environment across developed and developing countries. The prospects of businesses are such that employment generation happens at all verticals, wherein entrepreneurship and employability skill needs have to be developed and tapped amongst workforces. This in turn instigated the companies and organizations to focus more on the skill development training, wherein soft skills and technical skills are interwoven for meeting the needs of business. The scenario today is jobs are abundant but employability of human resource remains a question mark due to their skill sets, which are not at par with expectations of the industry.

Hence, the setback becomes a global threat to many conglomerates, corporations, organizations, enterprises, etc. Moreover, the attrition rate versus training costs is an ever-existing challenge in any enterprise regardless of their location. The possible solution to this threat could be holistic skill development training, which addresses on personal, managerial, technical and interpersonal aspects. Also, it is indispensable for global economic development to impart enterprising skills on employees to become enterprising workforces.

The enterprising notion itself creates an avid sensation on unidentified talents of an individual through enabling the skills on awareness towards future challenges. The recent trends in the gamut of hiring sequence is to filter the candidature on extra-curricular activities to understand the various skills of an individual along with expediting the job-fit to the concerned company‘s business objectives and its future dimensions.

Thus, entrepreneurship skills gains importance and has become an indispensable quotient on potential employability. It is to be noted that ignoring entrepreneurship skills of human resources will lead to having only stereotypic workforces, which is a constant threat to any corporate in terms of new technology innovation and its adaptability. The global and national companies, whichever claims itself as a learning organization have to inculcate entrepreneurship culture within its ambit.

This might enable the workforces to become enterprising human

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries resources for bringing in the overall development. In doing so, the sustenance of any industry is possible and guaranteed to meet the future business challenges across the globe. The entrepreneurship training methodology and practices should be regardless of gender and address on the avenues like self-introspection, potential identification, skill discovery, talent acquisition, learning disability, leadership inculcation, time-to-tasks, precision deliverance, work commitment, quality consciousness, knowledge management, etc. These aforesaid measures will surely refurbish the workforces and facilitate the company‘s business prospects.

The frequency of training is another part and parcel of companies to concentrate in a long run to sustain its business operations. In the recent years, many companies have failed to understand the realms of training component and feel it as cost-burdening mechanism. The rolling of employees on stereotypic hiring and employee expectations could be curbed to some extent by administering adequate and appropriate training mechanism within the frontiers of organizations. However, the sustenance of organizations‘ enterprising climate depends upon updating the talents and by invoking innovative tenacity amongst its enterprising workforces, wherein entrepreneurship training is mandatory.

Furthermore, organizations have to be serious towards competitive positioning through training modalities time and again for its global sustenance and growth. Similarly, the social enterprises like academic institutions and varsities have to rethink their manifesto ahead of time towards creating enterprising outputs through cultivating the entrepreneurship development along with curriculum and skill acquisition of its faculties and student communities. The reason being, the enterprising faculties are the real mentors to mould and groom the students to become as quality-centric outputs and future enterprising workforce inputs to the companies. These quality-centric outputs of academia will act as brand ambassadors in becoming industrial alumni to foster the placement strength and to bring in the required inputs (deserved admissions) to academia. In case of ignoring the aforesaid sequence based on cost-cutting factors and subsequently forbidding entrepreneurship development orientation amongst students will surely enforce the causal effect and create forceful impact on institutional avoidance by them, which may lead to closure. The industry-academiaindividual (IAI) trilogy gets a strong fit through entrepreneurship as the prime interface interwoven within them. In furtherance to this context, today it is quite proven that entrepreneurship concept has become an

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries inseparable entity at almost all sectors within the globe. Hence, entrepreneurship development is inevitable for business innovation, promulgation, growth and its sustenance to foresee the ever changing challenges.

The global companies can associate with pivotal organizations into entrepreneurship promotion, research and skill development training.

Also, consider them as knowledge partners to facilitate their sheer growth and development. It is suggested that the companies must periodically engage in research on technology management and innovative practices for sustainable economic development. The global companies intending to be a learning organization have to embrace entrepreneurship development training, adapt to cross-cultural environment and recruit multi-national workforces. This may foster the socio-economic sustenance, wherein other associate costs are contained and facilitate the workforce retention to achieve organizations‘ long-term goals.

KVJ. Prof. Dr. R. Ganesan Founder & Chairman / Presidium Chair National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development (NFED) Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India & Distinguished Advisory Board Member ACE International Pte Ltd, Singapore Email: chairmannfed@gmail.com & chairmannfed2016@gmail.com NFED Website: www.nfed.in / www.nfedindia.org NFED Awards: www.nfedawards.com NFED Face Book Page: http://www.facebook.com/nfedindia NFED Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/nfed.india.7 NFED LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/pub/national-foundation-for-entrepreneurshipdevelopment-india/66/310/86 Google Scholar Citations: https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=EGqlFzEAAAAJ&hl=en Personal LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/kvj-prof-dr-ganesan-ramaswamy2028b421?trk=pub-pbmap Personal Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/drganesan.ramaswamy Home Page: http://chairmannfed.wix.com/profdrganesannfed

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

12. Food & Product Safety Counterfeiting of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) and other products in Emerging market By 2020, the total amount of counterfeiting is expected to reach US$1.82 Trillion. (Source: The Global Brand Counterfeiting Report 2018). In additional, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, only 52% of global respondents trust businesses. Consumers are experiencing a crisis of faith. With Fakes getting rampant both ON and OFF internet, it is difficult to differentiate them from the genuine ones.

Things are worse for the Emerging Market. According to NetNames research, nearly 2 in 3 prescription drugs in the world are counterfeit.

Pharmaceutical industry is one of the top 10 most counterfeited goods accordingly to OECD organisation. In reality, nobody will or want to buy FAKE food or medication to eat. The only issue is that we are not able to authenticate easily the real ones.

Many FMCG and Pharmaceutical brands do not have ways for consumers to verify if their products are genuine. Conventional methods of looking at the brand logo and packaging design do not work as they can be easily copied. Consumers want visibility and assurance concerning food safety. We need to be able to easily authenticate products that we are using.

Counterfeiting is a widespread global problem. Modern supply chains now offer counterfeiters more opportunities to introduce their fake goods.

It results in lost revenue. Moreover, as the fake product fails or cause harms, it reflects badly upon the brand. The damages done never reflect poorly on the counterfeiter. Instead, it tarnishes the image of the manufacturer and distributors.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Below are the problems commonly faced:

The issue of FAKE milk powder incident in 2008 that causes massive scares and death of babies are still a major concern in China. Things have not changed even after 10 years. More recently over 100 people died because of drinking FAKE alcohol in India as reported in th 11 Feb 2019 (https://www.npr.org/2019/02/11/693516595/bootlegliquor-kills-100-in-indias-worst-outbreak-in-years) Many brand owners outsource whole/part of their production. Should there be any illegal overruns or pilferages, it can be hard to detect especially if there are many outsourced factories to manage. Furthermore, complex product distribution channels across different regions add to the problem.

Brand owners normally do not have visibility of how their products are being distributed beyond their 1st and 2nd layers of main distribution channels. Track & Trace of products to the end consumers are often limited. Compared to detecting outright product counterfeit from fake factories, leakages along the supply chain is more difficult to spot.

With growth of E-Commerce, the problem gets exploded given the vast avenues for the counterfeiters. Brands may be able to protect the

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries authenticity of goods sold through authorized distribution channels.

However, they cannot easily control the sale of fake goods, sold as genuine, on the internet.

At Nabcore, everything we do, we believe in unleashing its potential. The way we unleash potential is to design our solutions that empower, simple to implement and practical to use for companies.

The emergences of smartphones and internet have allowed us to help companies to implement useful brand protection solutions for market penetration. Our focus is to provide Bank Graded security technologies that allow both physical product authentication and mobile verification for clients to embrace.

By allowing consumers to easily authenticate products using mobile phones, consumers are now able to get product information and determine the quality of their purchase. Brand owners are also able to have visibility across supply chain and gather big data for future trend analysis.

This combination of technologies offers what consumers and brand owners are seeking to experience. With increase interactions, the unique application has proven to be game changer for Anti-counterfeiting, Track & Trace and Consumers Engagement for many companies.

With a good Brand Protection Program, companies prevent loss revenues due to fakes. They can also have avenue to engage their distributors, retailers and customers to upsell their products.

Brand is one of the biggest assets that any company can have. We should not rely solely on country regulation to protect it. In the past, protecting brand seems like a boring cost center, but now it can be an exciting revenue generator with the rise of smart phone. Marketing campaign, consumer engagement, trend analysis can interweave with brand security.

Being inert to make changes now, often resulting in greater losses for the future. It will surely take a long time to recover, if that even happens.

With the use of physical authentication with digital verification such as QR/AR codes, RFID and Blockchain Technology, Brand owners can

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries create great opportunities to position themselves today. It only depends on how creative they want to be.

At Nabcore, we want to contribute in building an authentic world. Based in Singapore with network across Asia and Europe, our core business covers Brand Security solutions for companies to prevent Counterfeiting, Grey marketing and Online illicit sales. We provide advanced solution that allows Product Authentication using Mobile Phones, Consumer Marketing Engagement, Supply Chain Track & trace and Data Analysis.

Guankai NG Director – Business Development Nabcore Singapore contact@nabcore.com www.nabcore.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/guankai/

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

13.

Smart transformation towards future proof business Lot of stories and films on Time machine fascinated the fans and trending this topic in social forum always discussed. It was nothing short of cultural phenomenon, and reminded us that our fascination with the future is stronger than ever.

This fascination dreams are not limited to the big screen alone.

The future comes up all the time and researches were carried out by multi-national companies and they are always thinking about the future. And most of the time, they‘re all asking a variation of the same question: What can we do to better prepare ourselves for the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead?

Fond of referring to smart transformation concept as future-proofing, a reference to the steps that businesses can take to better position themselves for opportunities lies ahead. Future proofing is not a new concept by any stretch, but it‘s nonetheless fraught with misconceptions.

Make no mistake, ensuring that your business is prepared for the future is and always will be a critical part of any smart IT strategy, especially in today‘s fast-moving, data-driven world. Like anything else though, there‘s a right and wrong way to go about it.

No Silver Bullet Let us talk not to go about the future proofing your business. First and foremost, if you‘re searching for a silver bullet of any kind, you can give up the search right now. There‘s no one-step strategy — like all digital transformation in single goal. And no matter what anyone tells you, there‘s no singular service (or service product category) that by itself ensures you‘ll be ready for the future. More on this later, but preparing

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries for the future is about investing in the right mix of modern capabilities across a number of areas, such as data management, data integration, data discovery and analytics, and backup and recovery, to name just a few. It‘s never about any single tool or technology.

Start with right software Product This may not be the splashiest advice you‘ll ever hear, but starting with software is a strategy that many have lost sight of in the era of ―SaaS‖ delivery models. Investing in modern software technology across key areas such as Big data management, Data analytics, and Backup and Disaster recovery allows you to better leverage the investments you‘ve already made (and will eventually make) in modern infrastructure.

More importantly, the right product solution enables flexibility and agility.

As much as anything, future proofing is about protecting your business from unexpected changes beyond the control of your company. When you have the flexibility to expand, contract, scale and reallocate in the face of rapid change — flexibility that the right product investments can provide — you‘re prepared for whatever the future holds.

But there‘s another reason why organizations to prioritize the right product investments — and that‘s the connection between your product and your team. Investing in the right product keeps indispensable folks such as your System administrators, data analysts and backup admins happy, and happy employees are loyal employees. As competitive as the environment for IT talent is today, that‘s no small benefit, and no small part of insulating your company against future disruption.

Invest in People While we‘re talking about your human capital, remember that your business future proof with people first and technology second. If you‘re looking to safeguard against future change, the best way to do so is with a strong team that‘s engaged, motivated and continually growing.

It‘s far easier to combat new and unforeseen data protection security challenges if you have a great system administrator who has grown with the company. It‘s far easier to deal with an increasingly complex data landscape if you have trained multilingual support team. And it‘ll be far easier to address the projected shortfall in data scientists and remain on

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries the cutting edge of analytics if you invest in things like training and internships in order to cultivate those experts from within.

Having the right people, combined with the right systems, allows companies to capture and retain the institutional knowledge that‘s a critical part of learning from past mistakes to prevent future ones.

Embrace Data Complexity The data landscape is complex. It‘s complex today. It‘ll be complex tomorrow. Stop fighting it and start embracing it.

If we‘re to succeed, we need to shift away from the mind-set that data complexity is something to be feared. Complexity isn‘t the problem. The problem is that we too often lack the openness and flexibility needed to manage it. We invest in people and technologies that can hold their own — perhaps even thrive — within the confines of a single platform, but that struggle to manage data beyond that platform. What‘s needed is the flexibility and agility to connect to, share and analyse data across multiple platforms.

A Connected Process If you haven‘t noticed, there‘s connective tissue linking all three of the best practices outlined above — and that‘s no accident. There may be no silver bullet, but future-proofing your Technology is nonetheless a connected, holistic endeavour. Bring together the right mix of people, technology and processes, and you‘ll be ready to meet the challenges of tomorrow head on. No ―DeLorean‖ is needed.

About the Author R. Nagarajan is Founder of The New Gen Infotech Pte Ltd, provide Digital Transformation Solution Provider and a Digital subject matter expert. His areas of technical expertise include Blockchain, AI, Machine Learning and Business expertise within Banks and Insurance industry.

R. Nagarajan The New Gen Infotech Private Limited Singapore www.thenewgeninfotech.com Ph. +65 90622942 ACE International (Aspiring Community for Excellence)

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

14. An Introduction – ORCA About ORCA is a Singapore based Information & Technology (IT), Cloud Services, Digital Marketing, Digital Media, Web & Mobility, Business Intelligence, Customer Experience Modelling and Digital Transformation solutions service provider. We bring to the table, years of experience in digital technology, information technology, networking and cloud computing. We focus on consulting clients on developing custom, enterprise version software solutions both on the cloud as well as off the cloud that ensure digital transformation through rejuvenated revenue models, achieve efficiencies of scale, increase profitability and reap

shareholder gains. We work across industries, engaging with every management level within the clients‘ organization to ensure clarity of objectives, purpose and to collaborate with them to deliver the best solutions that bring out the desired results for our clients.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

Our Service Delivery Approach The four cornerstones of our service delivery approach exemplify our strong expertise, our capabilities and reassure our clients on our unfettered dedication and drive to work in collaboration with them, shouldering their business goals, organizational objectives and profitability numbers.

1. Solving business challenges using technology We approach a client‘s business challenge by understanding the root cause. Invariably technology comes to the rescue. However in most cases, the client doesn‘t see the linkage between the businesses and how smart technological applications and systems can potential reduce or even eliminate the business challenges. We bridge the gap for our clients and help them to adopt technology as an enabler for their existing business models.

2, Speed and Agility Our solutions architects, developers and project managers are well experienced to handle full scale offshore operations for most technical platforms. They have over 100 man-years of cumulative experience to adapt and innovate. They are periodically sent for appropriate training sessions to hone existing and to build expertise in new technologies. Our lean project management structure enables quick decision making, builds better efficiencies and offers superior service delivery levels.

Solutions to a client‘s challenges require in-depth knowledge, training and expertise to deliver last mile technologies that are agile, effective and efficient.

3. Delivering technology on the edge Every organization follows an IT service delivery framework that dictates the processes, people involved and the products used to provide any new application. Our IT team enforces preferred and prescribed approaches to deliver the application in accordance with regulations and accepted best practices. Constant upgradation through appropriate training sessions enables us to employ IT service management (ITSM) methodologies that compete with the best globally. Renewed skill sets help us to leverage latest technological innovations.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries 4. Competency and Reliability We employ skilled and experienced technical resources who have in the past worked on new technology based innovations for small, medium and large enterprises globally. Our rich pool of resources who are talented, competent and reliable that are our pride. We have one of the best technical work forces who are not just motivated but are also well equipped to understand business drivers, goals and profitability numbers of our clients.

Cloud Services Strategy ďƒ Design ďƒ Deploy ďƒ Manage

We offer a 360 degree service on the cloud. Starting from cloud strategy, to design & architect, to migrate, to deploy and finally to manage the infrastructure, we do it all. Security is a key component of our managed services and we work with the best security solutions providers like Trend Micro, Palo Alto, McAfee and more.

Cloud Platform Partner Networks

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Our intention to partner with the top cloud platform providers is really to ensure that we are able to choose the best that suits our clients. It also allows us to offer a multi cloud infrastructure as well as a hybrid infrastructure.

Customized Software Solution We are platform, technology, language, industry domain agnostic. Our team and our experts are capable of handling small to enterprise grade projects using the globally adopted best practices of technical architecting, coding and QA. Our cloud team is capable of architecting, handling migration, deployment and management on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and Alibaba Cloud as well as manage a variety of hybrid cloud environments across multiple co-locations.

Our expertise in new technology space We work across the industry spectrum from banking to insurance and fintech, technology to retail tech and ecommerce, energy to logistics, biotech to real estate and even on government projects as back end developers.

We have developed base level AI or Artificial Intelligence based applications built using Python for large datasets. Our consulting data scientists were instrumental in developing this robust Big data project for a bio-medical client in the region.

We have also worked on an IoT (Internet of Things) project for a civic waste management client in this region. We are currently developing tracking code system on a blockchain application for a technology client in the US. We are also in talks with a client to develop an ERP system for their company with global offices in 18 countries.

Our Role as a Solutions Consultant Here we primarily look to assist the SMEs (Small and Medium Businesses) on marketing, branding, digital mobility, technology, social media marketing, customer experience modelling as well as imparting relevant training both by internal as well as by external trainers.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries We also provide device and networking hardware solutions including servers, switches, routers, communication and telepresence equipment, data centre and virtualization solutions including hypervisors from the following OEM partners.

Our Clients Some of our past and present clients are Fortune 500 companies like Dell, Samsung, Philips and Oracle. Our regional APAC and local country clients, past and present include Dell, Samsung, Philips, Hong Leong Bank, MSC Software, Tech Mahindra, Biodyne Labs, Singapore Respicare, The Palayana Resorts, DWG Realty and more.

We actively work with the cloud partner ecosystem for their clients.

We work with a few clients in the US and North American markets too.

We are currently looking to engage with a client in South America and we hope to have a presence in the US and Middle East in 2019.

Saurav Mukherjee Director ORCA MEDIA PTE LTD 7500A Beach Road, The Plaza #05-319, Singapore 199591 Mobile: 65 81387021 Email: saurav@podorca.com Skype: m_saurav Website: www.podorca.com Twitter: @Leocynosure

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

15. Harmful effects of single usage plastics Agriculture: Let‘s consider a key topic that has not received adequate attention thus far. Agriculture is as a means of producing more sustainable and ecofriendly utensils and dining wares. This goes beyond traditional associations that most of us have of agriculture, villages and developing nations and farming communities. That all the above simply serve to enable food production.

In today‘s economy where agriculture is playing a smaller role in food production, it would be wise to optimize the growth of crops to resolve some of the most pertinent environmental and societal challenges that we are facing at this point. The prevalent usage of plastics, especially single-use plastic in the production of everyday household items and packaging, dinnerware etc. is one such challenge.

Harmful effects of single usage plastics: More than 1 million plastic bottles are being bought every minute around the world. This figure is only expected to increase by 20% by the year 2021. In fact, the amount of plastic produced in a year globally is roughly the same as the weight of humanity on the planet. But what‘s wrong with plastic and why can‘t we continue to use more of it and dispose of it in a conventional manner?

Plastic is a petrochemicalbased compound and can take hundreds of years to decompose when disposed of in landfills, enabling them to stay in our environment and ecosystems on a more permanent basis. When exposed to sunlight, oxygen or water, plastic doesn‘t biodegrade but simply break down into smaller fragments. Unfortunately, these micro- or

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries nano-plastic waste products often pollute the oceans, soil and air, and interfere with living organisms as they cannot be assimilated into the food chain usefully. When livestock and marine creatures ingest it, they carry with them toxins which in turn affect humans who consume these.

Not only has this plastic waste epidemic brought about significant climate change, pollution and ecological imbalances already, this problem is only likely to persist and worsen in the coming years. This is largely due to the fact that a circular economy, in which plastics can effectively be reused and recycled, has not been established successfully. Since mass production of plastic commenced in the 1950s, plastic has been produced in larger quantities and at a faster pace than what current recycling ventures can keep up with. The horrifying fact of the matter is that plastic production is only estimated to grow over the next few decades, to four times the current levels by 2050, according to The Guardian.

Context of developing nations: As much as the harmful effects of plastic are universal, recycling / reusing is still largely a Western world phenomenon and the rate of uptake is relatively slow across developing nations. One of the major reasons behind this is the low costs of producing plastics and the prevalent usage of plastic ever since the 1940s.

There are two key issues to take into consideration when we examine the context of developing nations and sustainably disrupting the agricultural and plastic consumption trends.

Firstly, the opportunity cost (beyond just material cost) of obtaining and using dining ware made from alternative materials, should be considered. If the material and miscellaneous costs (such as effort required to obtain / purchase the alternative(s), ease of adoption of alternatives etc.) exceed the benefits of adopting such alternatives, the local communities are not likely to switch from their current usage

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries patterns to an alternative one. This is likely to apply even in cases where the local governments strongly support environmentally viable ventures.

Secondly, having a sustainable supply of the alternative materials required to produce more environmentally friendly dining ware and utensils, is also crucial. If the main components of the alternatives are only grown and available on a seasonal basis, or overly dependent on environmental factors such as rainfall and wind, the alternatives are not likely to transform age old consumption patterns in the society.

Therefore, only crops that are readily and abundantly available to the local communities throughout the year should be considered.

About Dine Natura: Companies like Dine Natura and Cornware have been established recently in Singapore to disrupt the trends that we see with regards to single-plastic consumption, not only across the food and beverage industry, but across various industries and domains of application.

Dine Natura brand was established under Tech Global Trading & Services Pte Ltd based in Singapore in the year 2017 in order to meet the needs of businesses and individual consumers, at a low cost without compromising on quality. The core activity of Dine Natura is to produce high quality green or eco-friendly dining ware which are long-lasting and biodegradable. The company‘s vision is also aligned with the growing national and global focus on environmental conservation and sustainable manufacturing methods. Besides this, Dine Natura strongly believes that dinnerware should be completely safe and healthy for human consumption, and free from any microplastic or melamine content that might be ingested by humans when used over a long period of time. This is also why Dine Natura is championing the use of naturally occurring biodegradable products.

Besides serving to US, Europe, UK and Australia, Dine Natura has chosen to focus more on the (Southeast) Asian markets as it‘s acutely aware of the extent of plastic waste production in this region. A comprehensive study has brought to light that ―half the world‘s mismanaged plastic waste was generated by just 5 Asian countries: China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka‖ (Jambeck, 2010).

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Products offered in place of plastic dinnerware: Dine Natura draws its inspiration from some of the traditional resources found commonly in developing nations such as palm trees, and sugarcane plants. Its two signature products that it in the process of launching now are the Areca Palm tree Leaf as well as Sugarcane Bagasse dinnerware.

The Areca palm tree is 1 out of 50 different palm tree species and has been a prominent feature of the natural ecosystem in South Asia for hundreds of years now. All the different parts of this palm tree species are considered valuable

by Man, even the fallen palm tree leaves. When dried, these leaves are very sturdy yet malleable and can be made into lightweight and 100% biodegradable plates and bowls. Dine Natura offers round plates and square plates of different sizes (Refer to our website for more details).

Sugarcane bagasse refers to the fibrous residue after crushing and extracting the juice from the sugarcane plant and is also one of the largest agricultural residues in the world (Loh, Sujan, Rahman & Das, 2013 – see academic article cited in References).

Its chemical composition and ability to be convert into a variety of highquality green products, and low production costs involved to do the above, all make it a very attractive and viable ingredient in the manufacturing process.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries In both type of products offered by Dine Natura, the prevailing concept is the full optimization of even discarded or waste products of naturally occurring materials.

Both the areca leaf and sugarcane bagasse dinnerware are eco-friendly, microwave friendly and packaged with a smooth and clean appearance such that they can be used across a variety of settings: at home, in the temple, at conferences/ formal meetings, and even more casual gatherings and parties among many others.

Dine Natura also offer more Eco-friendly products such as cutlery made from FSC-certified Birch wood, paper straws, jute bags and Beeswax wrap so that Dine Natura positions itself as a one-stop solution for Ecofriendly dinning ware and utensils.

All our products are certified for food safety.

Contact: For more details about our Eco-friendly products, feel free to contact us and we will respond as soon as possible.

Mr. R. Selvaraj (Raj) Founder & Director Tech Global Trading & Services Pte Ltd +65 9640 6280 contact@techglobaltrading.com

https://www.techglobaltrading.com/dine-natura/

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

16. Optimum Health and Wellness through Holistic Health Management

Holistic medicine is not the mainstream health management in Singapore. Allopathic medicine is well established, funded and subsidized by the government. Therefore, the people in Singapore embrace allopathic medicine, drug therapies and surgery as the way to manage their health. This form of medicine also comes with side effects and disruption to quality of life. Allopathic medicine has not successfully cured any disease but it is very good at managing the symptoms of diseases and helping during emergencies. Singaporeans do pay for their health management at hospitals but they do it through Medifund, Medishield from their Central Provident Fund (CPF) and their insurance.

As they are not paying cash they do not feel the financial pinch.

As mentioned above it is very challenging to sustain a holistic health management business. The general young population does not understand what holistic wellness is and how much the value add in their life. For many such health support are just massage providers.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Naturopathic medicine is an established health science using evidence based health support to manage people‘s health and wellness.

In some developed countries government encourage people to be health and they promote holistic health management. Business who want to their staff to be healthy and productive support these therapies. Some good insurance companies do financial support natural therapies.

Natural wellness management helps people achieve optimal health and stay healthy. It prevents chronic diseases and death due to chronic illness. This would definitely help insurance companies giving huge payouts to its clients due to chronic illness. Maybe the local insurance companies should consider these options so that they could prevent huge payouts to their clients.

As a business operator Singaporeans are very protective and want to keep their clients to themselves even when they are not helping them much. When I was in Sydney wellness business operators are open and mature. They wanted what is best for their client as they are client centered and refer clients to fellow practitioners. Some businesses are also closed. This is a challenge as it restricts the expansion of businesses.

Singapore is a limited hub for business within Singapore. The government has encouraged business to venture out of Singapore and sell the Singapore brand. My clinic has just done that. We have collaborated and partnered with holistic wellness organizations in Austria, India and Malaysia. We are in the process of joint partnering and manufacturing pain management tools in Austria. In India we are jointly manufacturing ‗Vedic‘ medicines with modern science. Currently we have developed effective detox protocols and diabetes management. We are working on education and promotion of health and wellness in Malaysia As a practitioner in my clinic we have focused on stress management, pain management, metabolic disorders, skin care and cancer management. I started in 2005 in Singapore and we have successfully

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries helped thousand achieve their health objectives through Naturopathic medicine.

For businesses, I wish Holistic wellness approaches gradually would become more common in their workplace, with more organizations realizing that truly enhancing well-being requires a broader view of wellness. Employers gradually incorporating holistic health management approaches into their wellness and health care options can experience a very positive result.

Our health and wellness are now recognized as much more complex than just physical well-being. Members of staff are "whole people" comprised of many aspects (physical, emotional, mental, etc.), and when one aspect is off-balance, the body and its health can be negatively impacted. Holistic wellness otherwise known as integrative medicine, alternative medicine, or natural healing, can be an effective medical option for your employees which strive to correct this imbalance.

Holistic wellness is proven to be effective in treating many common chronic medical conditions which could be present amongst your workforce, but it also can help find root causes of health issues, assist employees in reaching health goals, and support lasting lifestyle changes that help your employees achieve greater health, productivity, and happiness over the long-term.

Companies could use many holistic approaches as another way to reduce healthcare costs. They could offer on-site options such as mindfulness, meditation, yoga and stress management programs. If they do these, they could reduce stress and decrease absenteeism, and help employees face their health issues and challenges with a different perspective.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Many health insurance providers do not cover the complementary and alternative therapies that are often used in Naturopathic medicine. Some cover selective treatments such as acupuncture and counseling in Singapore with a Primary Care Physician referral. I would like to see insurance companies to actively promote health by supporting holist health management.

Employees often face many individual challenges, which may be stress and or health related. Offering a comprehensive and holistic approach to health care and wellness in the workplace can help them attain better well-being. Regardless what health or lifestyle issue your employee is dealing with, Naturopathic and holistic health management has a place in the workplace, specifically, about health care coverage and wellness programs. Naturopathic Therapies can benefit everyone.

At the Naturopathic Therapies Clinic we professionally apply scientific approaches to medicine and holistic medicine and therapies to help manage all your physical health needs. We also provide Holistic Stress Management Therapies to manage all your stress in a busy fast paced Singapore.

I am Saravanan the Chief Naturopathic Physician. I am a professionally trained and qualified Naturopathic Physician from Nature Care College in Sydney, Australia. I have also professionally qualified as a Nutritionist from the same institute.

I have also received further training in the US, Canada, India, Japan and Indonesia in Siddha medicine, body therapies, Suk Jok Therapy, and sports therapies.

I am also a psychotherapist. I have been professional trained in Systemic Family Constellation Therapy. I was trained by world‘s leading Systemic Constellation therapist like Dr. Bert Hellinger, Dr. Albrecht Mahr, Dr. Chrish Walsh, Dr. Stephan Husaner, and others. I was also trained as a LifeLine Therapy practitioner. I had my training from Dr. Darren Wiseman. Dr Darren is the originator of the LifeLine technique. I am a National Hypnotist Guild Board (US) certified Master Hypnotherapist. I practice the 5-Path Hypnosis.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries I am a Reiki Master and teacher. I hold my mastership in Usui and Tera Mai Reiki. I was initiated into Reiki by Master Jeyabalan (Malaysia) and Master Lee Anne Hayes (Australia). I started my practice as Centre of Integrated Medicine in Sydney Australia. I have successfully finished my first year in my studies in Naturopathic medicine. I received my Diploma in Remedial Massage therapies and I started my massage practice. This empowered me to apply what I have learnt in my class. Probably this is the rightest thing I did. I gain so much practice and hands on experience.

Although I was trained as a mechanical engineer, health, healing people mentally and emotionally had always been my passion. I wanted to retire at the age of 32. Which happened; I was in Sydney studying Naturopathic medicine full time. Centre of Integrated Medicine was restructured and renamed as Naturopathic Therapies Clinic in 2013.

Dr. Saravanan, ND, Naturopath Naturopathic Therapies Clinic #10-89, CT HUB 2, 114D LAVENDER STREET, Landmark: Bendemeer MRT - Down Town Line, Singapore Web: www.naturopathic-therapies.com

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

17. Impact Therapy – For A Healthier Lifestyle

Over 2,500 years ago in China, the revolutionary understanding of biomechanics of the human body led to breakthroughs in diagnosis and treatment of a range of ailments. Amazingly, this knowledge remains remarkably effective even today. It‘s called Impact Therapy.

Impact Therapy is based on the understanding of Tui Na, which is probably the oldest system of bodywork still practised and one of the three recognised pillars of TCM. It is continually refined over the centuries to its current form and can be easily practiced by any beginner.

Impact Therapy is a healthier lifestyle approach that shows respect for the way clients learn, change, and develop. The emphasis is on making counselling clear, concrete and thought-provoking, rather than vague, abstract, and emotional. Impact Therapy is a multi-sensory approach which recognizes that change or impact comes from not only verbal, but also visual and kinaesthetic exchanges. This approach is action and insight oriented and often resolution oriented. We call the approach Impact Therapy because it emphasizes helping the client as much as possible in each session. The therapist is always trying to get to the core of the problem by cutting off unnecessary details, irrelevant stories, and unfocused discussions. The impact therapist sees the goal of any

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries therapy session as creating change or setting in motion the process for change.

What does Impact Therapy do?

Whether you need an energy boost, pain relief, anti-aging or detoxification, there is something for everyone. Let‘s be clear. Lifting one dumbbell don‘t get develop arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But with consistent practice, the results will be clear for everyone to see.

How does it work?

With Impact Therapy, you tap the meridians on your body in a sequential flow in the direction of Chi flow. This activates the Chi, metabolizes the energy flow, ―awakes‖ every cell in the body and at the same time detoxifies the body. Whether you wish to heal yourself or a loved one, the secret of this exercise is now available to you!

Much more for a healthier lifestyle Reverse Your Physiological Age Feel More Energized in Less than 15 minutes!  Do You Feel Tired, Tight and Ache Often?  Are You Losing Quality of Life As You Aged?

Studies show that 60% of adults do not get the recommended amount of physical activity, and over 25% of the adults are not active at all. Yet we know that we are responsible for our health and wellbeing.  

But why are some of us are not exercising to keep us in good shape?

What are your excuses if you do not do exercise?

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries No time, No Energy, Competing interests, Did not Develop Habits, No Motivation, Poor Diet, Current Physical Condition, No Access to Facilities, Lack of Results etc.   

Here is the simple and easy method of doing exercise that you can do anywhere.

You can still enjoy great health benefits in less than 15 minutes a day!

What if you can restore your vitality, in the time you order and finish drinking your coffee?

Here are necessary skills to learn too: 1. Warm up exercises: Prepares your body for Impact activity and allowing it for intensive workout to Therapy burn more calories without injury and sore muscle.

2. Impact Therapy: Used by the Chinese for centuries for therapeutic healing, activates your Chi, enhance circulation and immune system.

3. Anti-aging exercises: Helps to strengthen your core muscle to maintain a youthful look and strong body.

4. Body Structure Alignment Exercise: Mis-aligned structure could cause major health issues and pain.

5. HIIT Exercise/Nitric Oxide Exercise: Keeping your blood circulation optimal and reduce blood pressure.

6. Sleep Therapy: Importance of proper sleep habits. Lack of sleep is a major cause for most illness.

7. Detox and hydration: Important for Body Maintenance, Rid of Toxins that causes Diseases.

8. Simple healthy food: Helps you make better choices.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries About The Author: All great journeys begin within the first step. For Reimond Quek, it started with a heart attack that nearly killed him. ―I have a good life. I worked in some of the Top 500 MNCs such as BP, Chiyoda and Wormald. I started my own business when I was just 28 and continued to create and own businesses.‖ ―My wonderful wife and daughter were beside me and I was always very busy. Life was good, I liked being busy and glad for all the activities around me. Exercise was the last thing on my mind. I had so many things to accomplish. Then I nearly died.‖ ―When I recovered from my heart attack, I realised I have my wife, my daughter and my elderly mom to care for. I cannot carry on in the same way. I had to change my lifestyle or the next time will be the last time.‖ Faced with a crisis, Reimond had to make real changes in his life. Not satisfied with the standard medical responses, he looked for people who had real answers. Learning with his health-conscious friends, he sought out the best teachers who practised the ancient arts of maintaining health and anti-ageing.

After years of research and personal practice, Reimond is the best testimony of these ancient systems. He has made a full recovery and his constant practice has made him fitter than when he was a young man.

Even today, he astonishes the younger folks by outperforming them in certain exercises!

Mr. Reimond Quek Founder M POWER Singapore +65-9068 8800 reimondquek@gmail.com P a g e | 68 ACE International (Aspiring Community for Excellence)

Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

18. Hydrogen as a Potential Therapeutic Anti-oxidant Oxidative stress occurs due to the imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species and the capability of innate biological systems to eliminate reactive oxygen intermediates called ―free radicals‖.

Free radicals are uncharged molecule with an unpaired electron in its outermost valence shell. By nature free radical shunt for opportunities to fill their partially empty valence shells and run all over the body stealing electrons from other atoms in body cells and tissues. This behaviour of high electronic affinity in free radicals results oxidative damages in cells, proteins and DNA, which is identified as an underlying factor in many chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, certain cancers and other autoimmune diseases.

Smoking, ultraviolet exposure, pollution, strenuous exercise, aging, stress, etc. also cause the formation of ―free radicals‖ resulting oxidative damage in the body. There comes the essential need for antioxidants, which are substances that protect body cells from oxidative damages.

Hydrogen as Antioxidant: Hydrogen, the most abundant, the lightest and smallest element among all known elements, has been found to be an important antioxidant with anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic properties towards cells and organs. Hydrogen reduces oxidative stress as a selective antioxidant and by maintaining homeostatic levels of other innate antioxidants glutathione, superoxide dismutase, catalase, etc.

Recent clinical research has revealed that drinking hydrogen-rich water improved the quality of life and reduced the level of oxidative markers and wide range of radiation-related adverse symptoms in patients receiving radiotherapy for tumours. Biology and Chemistry departments

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries from the prestigious Baylor University published a great article on the potential use of molecular hydrogen in medicine in the premier peerreviewed journal Science in 1975. However, it wasn‘t until 2007, when another article was published in Nature Medicine, which showed the selective antioxidant properties and anti-apoptotic (anti-cell death) activity of molecular hydrogen, that the biomedical field took strong interest in the therapeutic potential of hydrogen. Since then nearly over 1,000 peer-reviewed articles suggested that molecular hydrogen (H2) offers therapeutic potential and positive benefit in over 170 disease models and health conditions positively impacting every organ of the body.

Reasons: Due to its very small ―Nano‖ size and other unique physical and chemical properties, hydrogen rapidly diffuses through cellular membranes and enters the mitochondria and nucleus of cells, cross the blood-brain barrier and enters tissues and organs throughout the body.

Thus hydrogen could potentially reach sub cellular compartments such as mitochondria and nuclei that are the primary sites of ROS generation and DNA damage and reduces oxidative stress selectively by regulating gene expression and functions also as an anti-inflammatory and antiapoptotic agent.

Hydrogen, thus behave as an extraordinary free radical quencher by readily giving up electrons and selectively scavenging the most dangerous and destructive hydroxyl radicals and stopping them from their track of reactions. It also reduces the toxicity of peroxynitrite, another destructive oxidant, and further boosts the body‘s immune system by increasing production of natural antioxidants such as glutathione, superoxide dismutase, and catalase.

Safety: Currently the three primary avenues of hydrogen administration used in clinical research are, inhaling hydrogen gas, injecting hydrogenrich saline, and the easiest, safest, and most cost-effective method by drinking molecular hydrogen-infused water. Interestingly, one of greatest advantage of using hydrogen water is that it has no cytotoxicity even at higher concentrations compared to other antioxidants. Hydrogen in the human body is eliminated through three pathways: flatus, respiratory excretion after absorption into the systemic circulation and metabolism by colonic microbiota. Colonic bacteria can eliminate hydrogen through three metabolic methods.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Benefits of Hydrogen-Rich Water...  Lubricates joints and muscles; our body is 70% water  Keeps our minds alert; the brain is over 70% water needing hydration to function  Helps the body absorb nutrients  Aids in circulation and digestion  Helps regulate blood pressure and body temperature  Detoxifies cells and the whole body  Decreases headaches, arthritic symptoms, back pain, and chronic illness Spinnohm Energy as a research company focuses on exploring the practical feasibilities of producing and procuring hydrogen enriched water for the safe and best use of hydrogen as a unique non-invasive potential antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptopic (anti-cell death) substance and eminent therapeutic source for many disease models.

Author‟s Profile: Dr. Ingersoll is a R&D-spirited, technologist and entrepreneur with 15+ years of research and managerial experience, building consensus for implementing and enabling new ideas and technologies. He developed an enterprise and a system that facilitate his innovative technologies, business processes and strategic objectives.

His major focuses lie in the Research and Product development on Clean energy (especially, Fuel cells, Hydrogen generation), Material science, Nanotechnology, Magnetic materials, Analytical instruments and Medical instrumentation.

Dr. J. C. Ingersoll, Ph.D. (IIT Madras) Founder, President & CTO ―Spinnohm Energy‖ 2B, Plot 14, Sai Ayush Puja Avenue Thiruvalluvar street, Kandanchavadi, Chennai, India 6000096 Mobile: +91-8056012233 Web: www.spinnohm.com Email:ingersolljc@gmail.com

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

19. Adapting to Disruption: A Sailor’s Story I was trained to be a ship navigator just after leaving school. The freedom of being on board a ship sailing around the world is unparalleled.

The ships I sailed on grew in size until I was a Captain on the largest ship of a particular type afloat.

So, what has that got to do with disruption?

On a regular day for most employees or employers in the world, it is about waking up, getting ready, going to work, returning home and getting on with daily tasks of life.

However, for a sailor, no two days are the same. When in the sea, the ship is always in a different location from the day before. When in port, it is loading or unloading cargo. Over 90% of world‘s cargo is carried on ships at some point before it reaches the petrol station on the street or as a banana on the breakfast table.

The sea is an ever changing phenomenon. On a good day, the calm waters would be a smooth as a sheet of glass, a glorious sunrise, blue clear sky, the sunset a sight to behold and the night full of shining stars.

And when the Neptune, the God of the Seas is upset, it can toss around the biggest ships man can build like a piece of paper! In that scenario, one can barely hold on to a plate of food or sleep well. Yet, the sailor has to show up on duty as scheduled.

There were days when our ship would be sailing across the Pacific Ocean with endlessly grey skies and heavy seas, not knowing its location; that was when, armed with a sextant and chronometer (clock), the Sun and stars were the only way we could steer the ship by. A minute error in the chronometer would result in a ship‘s position being off by 4 Nautical Miles (~7.4 Km!!). GPS and Satellite Navigation Systems

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries have made those gadgets obsolete. Now, anyone can track any ship in the world within a mile, by logging into the appropriate website.

Adapting to the ‗day to day‘ disruption at work therefore becomes a way of life for a sailor.

While I do wish nothing like that happen your life – mental preparation helps a great deal.

A few simple exercises/games can help you start on this exciting journey of preparing for disruption; 1. Choose any one of the 4 areas of a life‘s journey; a) Health b) Career c) Family/Friends d) Finance 2. Keep your eyes and ears open for direct and indirect disruption E.g. Non-Asset based technology players (Amazon) who started off by disrupting book sellers and are now in every industry 3. Think about how your chosen area is being impacted due to disruption.

E.g. If your food habits change due to disruptions in the food chain, what would be the effect on your health or finance.

4. Discuss disruption as a mentally stimulating game (e.g. what if scenario) at the meal table at home or over a cup of coffee with your colleagues 5. Explore hitherto unknown choices or new opportunities that may open up due to the disruption.

6. As you feel comfortable with one area of life move to the next. Go back and forth to study the impact of one on another.

7. Develop a hobby or volunteer your services; these may come in handy, if needed.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries With a strong mental preparation you and your dear ones will be able to successfully ride the waves of disruption with fortitude and confidence.

It is okay to be concerned; Convert FEAR of disruption in a positive way…

Face it with confidence Empower yourself Adapt to change Reset your goal Like the sea, life is a journey, calm at times, tumultuous at others; Call it change, disruption or by any other name it is still a life we can lead with all the joys it brings with it. Wish you every success!

Author‘s Profile Capt. N Shankar, an MBA (with distinction) from Heriot Watt University, UK and a Master Mariner, is a certified FocalPoint business coach. He is passionate about guiding individuals, teams and organizations from vastly dissimilar cultures, nationalities and backgrounds to meet their personal, business unit and strategic goals. As a business & career coach, Shankar aims to provide holistic support by application of proven business & life concepts. His marine career has helped him to work with and understand the behaviors, cultures and motivations of people across the world. Currently he is chairing as President, Guild of International Speakers and Trainers, Singapore.

Shankar‘s tag line is ―STOP! My story is uninteresting. It is your story I would like to help write.‖

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

20. Start-ups Ecosystem in Emerging Countries

A start-ups ecosystem is formed by people, start-ups in their various stages and various types of organizations in a location or environment (physical or virtual), interacting and balancing to survive better as a system to create and scale up new start-up companies. It is a business catalyst for value creation, value addition and value proposition to formulate a start-up company to grow as a mature company. Having an ecosystem helps to facilitate this process better and more efficiently and effectively. So the goal here is to bring the parts together (resources, investors, infrastructure, networking, marketing, experts, talent, etc.) that helps grow a start-up and helps it to accelerate that process. Without one, it will be a challenging situation for start-ups to access to these benefits. But to keep it short. The focuses are Value Creation, Value Addition, Value Proposition and Acceleration etc.

The merging of BioMedTech and Tech solutions has revealed in numerous innovations by research innovators who are not habitually from the MedTechspace. The incubation ecosystem for start-up and tech entrepreneurship in South-East Asia has grown-up substantially in the past several years. In 2017 alone, funding and procuring investment for South-East Asian late-stage start-ups captured nearly US$ 7.86 billion (S$10.8 billion) from investors. The region has radically overtaken the rest of the world in per capita GDP growth since the late 1970s, and revenue growth has continued strong since 2000. Consumers are progressively moving online, with a mobile diffusion rate of 133% and internet penetration of 53% across the region.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Though, to scale successfully in this region, founders need to be acquainted with diverse local user behaviours and difficulties and identify some key barriers to entry and regulatory obstacles. We support to conceptualize the South-East Asia region as one larger tech-market; four key facts appear from our talks. These opinions will also help to circumnavigate this exclusive region, create more successful crossborder developments, build joint venturing partnerships, and get investments and sources of funding supports in the region from public and private sectors.

Here are some of the tech-start-ups growing fast in the emerging countries:

          

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Internet of Things (IoT) Biosensors Big Data Data Analytics Robotics Nanomedicine 3D Bioprinting Tissue Engineering Mixed Reality (AR/VR) Industry 4.0

Artificial Intelligence (AI) The informatics field raised large amount of data in general governance, medical, engineering, remote sensing and ecommerce markets which are used for research analysis to produce efficient and effective results. AI helps and supports with data analysis to develop and formulate new projection.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries 



Utilizes deep learning processes and strategies to discover the solutions, detect irregularities from the data sources for strategizing new plans and also to workout them for effective outcomes.

Utilizes big data to recommend better and implement efficient as well as effective treatment procedures

Internet of Things (IOT) The internet of things, or IoT, refers to the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and systems. IoT is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. IoT is attractive an increasingly developing topic of discussion both in the workplace and outside of it. It's a perception that not only has the prospective to impact how we live but also how we work.

Basically put, this is the thought of basically linking any device with an on and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other). This comprises everything from cell phones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps, wearable devices and almost anything else you can reflect of. This also applies to components of machines, for example a jet engine of an airplane or the drill of an oil rig. As I mentioned, if it has an on and off switch then chances are it can be a part of the IoT. On a wider scale, the IoT can be useful to things like transportation systems: "smart cities" which can benefit us reduce waste and advance efficiency for things such as energy use; this serving us realize and improve how we work and live.

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Biosensors Using of biological systems and components as sensors, biosensors can measure through various analyses the materials such as organic compounds and bacteria with great precision.  Biosensors measure a much broader spectrum of analyze than normal wearable  With advanced microelectronics, biosensors can deliver its data to physicians in real-time  Greatly improve quantity and quality of medical data

Big Data There are lot of advancements in IoT, Automation, Machine Learning, Biosensors, Informatics, Technologies generate unprecedented amount of data. Big data technology is creating valuable sources and also crucial for making sense from the data. The evolution of value added proposition of data analytical methods to effectively manage and analyse the data sets obtained from different sources as received and stored in many areas and sectors.  Generates a better understanding of basic mechanisms and systems  Recognizes large scale patterns and makes predictions  Accelerates data collection and analysis with lower costs in a variety of areas from industries, social media sources, public and private data collection sectors etc.

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Data Analytics As the data sources are very complex in nature and it is very important to apply various types of techniques and technological tools to analyse them critically and successfully. For example the emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analysis, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Internet of Things and Data Analytics etc. are used for current requirements to source and analyse the data. To transform or convert the data into digital version may require some background knowledge for understanding the tools and techniques of various analyses. Aimed at data analytics, any types or sources of data, including clinical data sets, the analyses must go through three stages before an analyst can use it to achieve sustainable and meaningful analytics and outputs. The three stages are:

  

Data capture Data provisioning Data analysis

Data capture Data capturing is the main and essential phenomena for digital transformation in healthcare industries.

Moreover it is formulated in a specific template to address the importance to raise the data sources for data analytic purposes. A data analyst‘s job is impacted by the way of producing and capturing data through people, processes and devices in the healthcare environment.

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries Data Provisioning Analysts need data from multiple source systems throughout the organization to produce meaningful insights and verities. For example, an analyst is assisting a team of clinicians with their clinical research professionals on a quality and quantity based issues and it needs a variety of data from multiple source systems as mentioned below:  Electronic Medical Record (EMR) or Electronic Health Record (HER) data (for clinical observations inside hospitals or outside environments like laboratory results etc.).  Billing data (for identifying cohorts using diagnosis and procedure codes, charges and revenue kind of sources).  Cost data (for determining the improvement‘s impact on margins)  Patient feedback or satisfaction based data.

Data Analysis The data analysis starts after the appropriate data has been captured, pulled into a single place, and tied together. The analysis process consists of several parts as described below:  Data quality evaluation: Analysts need to understand the data by taking time to evaluate and verify it. They also need to note their method of evaluation and verification when they share their findings and reports with the audience or respective authorities.  Data discovery: Before attempting to answer a specific question, analysts should take time to explore the data and look for meaningful oddities and trends (this is a critical component of good data analysis.)  Data Interpretation: Most people think of the interpretation step when they think about analysing data, but it is actually the smallest sub-step in a long process (in terms of the time analysts spend on it).  Data Presentation: Presentation is critical. After all the work spent getting data to this point, the analyst needs to tell a story with the data in a consumable, simple way that caters to the audience.

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Robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary complex and combinatorial branch of engineering and science that includes mechanical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering, computer science, and others. Robotics deals with the design, construction, operation, and use of robots, as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing.

These technologies are used to develop machines that can substitute for humans and replicate human actions. Robots can be used in many situations and for lots of purposes, but today many are used in dangerous environments (including bomb detection, deactivation and rescue operation), manufacturing processes, or where humans cannot survive (e.g. in space). Robots can take on any form but some are made to resemble humans in appearance. This is said to help in the acceptance of a robot in certain replicative behaviors usually performed by people. Such robots attempt to replicate walking, lifting, speech, cognition, and basically anything a human can do. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature, contributing to the field of bio-inspired robotics or humanoid robots.

The concept of creating machines that can operate automatically or autonomously dates back to classical times but research into the functionality and potential uses of robots did not grow substantially until the 20th century. Throughout history, it has been frequently assumed by various scholars, inventors, engineers, and technicians that robots will

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries one day be able to mimic human behavior and manage tasks in a human-like fashion. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field, as technological advances continue; researching, designing, and building new robots serve various practical purposes, whether domestically, commercially or militarily. Many robots are built to do jobs that are hazardous to people, such as defusing bombs, finding survivors in unstable ruins, and exploring mines and shipwrecks. Robotics is also used in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) as a teaching aid The advent of nanorobots, microscopic robots that can be injected into the human body, could revolutionize medicine and human health, Robotics is a branch of engineering that involves the conception, design, manufacture, and operation of robots. This field overlaps with electronics, computer science, artificial intelligence, mechatronics, nanotechnology and bioengineering.

Nanomedicine Uses of nanotechnology, such as nanorobots, biological devices and machines to conduct precise medical treatment, microsurgeries, therapeutic and also deliver drugs etc. effectively treat patients to achieve efficient therapy results.  Nanorobots deliver small doses of drugs or treatment precisely to where they are needed  Perform microsurgeries and repair damaged tissues in the brain and other hard-to-reach organs  Provide ways of delivery for gene therapy and tissue engineering

3D Bioprinting Uses of bioink material to create tissue-like structures layer by layer.

Bioprinted tissues are useful both in research and regenerative medicine.  Creates functional tissue to repair or replace in the

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

 

human body Incorporates valuable living cells Utilizes 3D printed tissues and organs for surgical planning, biomedical research, and education purposes

Tissue Engineering Uses of bioengineering and biochemical methods to improve and replace biological tissues  Regenerates or improves skin, bones and muscles  Stem cells could be used to repair and replace damaged tissues and even organs  Creates biosensor and tissue chips for biological/chemical/toxic threat agents

detecting

Mixed Reality (AR/VR) in healthcare Projects detailed interactive 3D imagery/model in a virtual environment (VR) or in real world i.e. (AR). It stimulates not only interactive holograms of human body and organs, but also their reaction to treatment or solving the problems in real-time.  Close to reality stimulation of organ function, circulation or treatment to inform patients and educate medical students  Simulates surgery in AR/VR to improve training  Improves accuracy and speed of surgeon during operation by providing precise information, such as angles and positions of equipment

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is a breakdown on start-up driven innovation. Industry 4.0, as the German government coined the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technology, creates what has been termed ―smart factories‖. As innovation is our business, cuttingedge start-ups are the focus of our attention. It includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing and cognitive computing. Industry 4.0 is commonly referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. This impactful reversal of the traditional approach is exposed in our Industry 4.0 Innovation Map which reveals emerging start-ups and technologies.

Disruptive Industry 4.0 Start-ups Include: o

o

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Israeli start-up ―Augury‖ allows ―machines to talk‖. By ―listening‖ to machines the start-up anticipates malfunction or failure and currently further develops the machine diagnostics backend of the Internet of Things (IoT). ―Waylay‖ masterminds an intelligent SaaS decision-making platform. The Belgian start-up generates a compact logic for easy maintenance – dynamic processes in the cloud, for the cloud.

German ―Additive Works‖ makes additive manufacturing less costly. The start up‘s solution entails a four-step system called

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries

o

o

the ASAP Principle (Assessment, Simulation, Adaption, Process), on which their software solution ―Amphyon‖ is built.

UK-based ―SQR Systems‖ link the secure and safe communications gap between mobile & IoT by empowering companies to protect their data and build secure products by taking away the pain of regulatory compliance and security assurance.

Netherland-based ―Semiotic Labs‖ works with Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically machine learning algorithms and sensors, to improve the process of predictive maintenance in smart factories.

While these are the key innovation areas in Industry 4.0, they are far from being the only ones. Robotics, Simulation, Industrial IoT Platforms (IIoT), and Artificial Intelligence alike have an immense influence and shape the future of factories.

STARTUPS ECOSYSTEM The startup way, process or success path can be (most of time) a hard road for those who have the courage to try, to fail, to take the risk and pursue the goal of be called heroes, entrepreneurs and status changers. Even with some exceptions around the globe, it is true that startup ecosystems may help a lot and improve the success rate of the projects, but how? There are a lot of key points beginning with the prepared ecosystem to grow the seed that entrepreneurs are creating every day.

Since the generation and consolidation of the Silicon Valley (SV) as the Hollywood of entrepreneurship, a lot of people are trying to replicate the SV conditions to their own cities to develop the ecosystem, generate high value companies or even attract talent. Some cities in the world are

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries known by the emerging of new startup environments, this cities, measured by their entrepreneurial density [(number of entrepreneurs + number of people working for startups or high growth companies) / adult population] proposed by Brad Feld on his book Startup Communities, are competing to have the best startup community, the major amount of success cases and of course, to be the focus of the startup reflectors.

One of the most important benefits, like Feld says, is that companies are co-located in an area benefit from ―external economies of scale‖.

Emerging companies need certain common inputs, for example: Infrastructure, specialized legal and accounting services, suppliers, labor pools with specialized knowledge base that reside outside of the company. Companies in common geographic area share the fixed costs of these resources external to the company. In others words companies are not alone trying to survive in the desert.

To develop a successful community all the actors must be convinced about the vision, generate a commitment and be clear about the role and tasks for each group. This must be a job not only for the entrepreneurs, the government, or the universities, but all of them adding the investors, the mentors, service providers and large companies must work together.

If one of those groups is not developed, the other groups need to work on it, to find the people, the answers and the way to get a balanced ecosystem.

Author‟s Profile  I am a Biomedical Scientist having 20 years of working experience in Research and Development, Learning and Development as well as in Business and Development sectors.  I have published several lead article publications in reviewed journals and lead talk presentations in conferences and seminars.  Currently, I engage the business management consultancy services and career support services, technology transfer and establishing the business network, interdisciplinary translational research and development programs.  I am also passionate to provide motivational talks, capability building workshops, trainings and research mentorship supports

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Disruptive Challenges in Emerging Countries .

I am currently holding positions and memberships as:           

National Vice President, Guild of International Speakers and Trainers, Singapore Founding Member, Business Network International (BNI), Vision Chapter, Singapore Associate Member, Singapore Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Singapore Business Advisor, Organization for Professional and Entrepreneurs Network, Singapore Member in Adult Education Network, Institute of Adult Learning, Singapore Vice-President, Vanigam Singapore Chapter, Singapore Life Member in National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development, India Member in International Association of Innovation Professionals Life Member in Science and Technical Research Association, Eurasia Research Assistant Treasurer in Singapore Tamil Pattimandra Kalai Kazhagam, Singapore Life Membership in Abdul Kalam Vision Society, Singapore Life Membership in Bharathidasan University Alumni Association, India Dr. Balakrishnan Ramanathan, M.Sc., M. Phil., P.D.C.R., A.C.T.A., QEHS-IAC., Ph.D.,

Founder and Managing Director ACE International Pte Ltd (Aspiring Community for Excellence) Email: office@aceinternational.com.sg Web: www.aceinternational.com.sg LinkedIn: Dr Balakrishnan Ramanathan Facebook Page: ACE International

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ISBN: 978-981-14-0572-3