Startup Magazine of Hong Kong: Jumpstart Issue 20 (March/April 2018)

AI+ROBOTICS | i

EDITOR’S NOTE

AI & ROBOTICS

NO REASON TO PANIC, YET

By Glen Watson

J

USTIFIED OR NOT, thanks to movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Terminator, and countless more we have been programmed to be wary of artificial intelligence and robots.

Some would argue rightly so, although thus far it seems that AI is being far more helpful than harmful.

There are others who point out that this is just the beginning, we really don’t know what will happen later on as AI and machines learn, adapt and quite possibly decide that we’re not needed any more.

Some people make good arguments for things like kill switches and other methods or devices that will enable us to shut down any rogue AI/robots that might become uncontrollable, or downright intent on wiping us out (yes, there are many who suggest we’re doing a fine job of that on our own without their help).

We’ve had a few ‘uh-oh’ moments already, such as last summer when Facebook engineers had to pull the plug on an AI system when they discovered that the bots had created their own language and it couldn’t be deciphered by humans. As many inventors and engineers know, you can only hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

Which brings us to this issue of Jumpstart magazine about AI & Robotics. We’ve scoured the region to bring together articles about what’s being worked on to help improve our lives, not just right now but also in the future. It’s very exciting to see these wonderful ideas and effort being put into action.

Much of this is thanks to AI companies such as SenseTime, which began in 2014 when a group of 11 university colleagues in Hong Kong banded together to create a framework for computer vision and deep-learning technologies that has resulted in the company becoming not just a unicorn, but also China’s largest AI algorithms provider — in just three years. It will be fascinating to see where and how the company grows by 2021 and beyond.

Kathy Gong of WafaGames in China has also contributed an AI article about prejudice in coding and how to fix it. This is important stuff, since coding is the backbone of AI. The coding is formed into substantial amounts of intelligence, which is empowered to make decisions on behalf of human beings.

Robots have long captured our imaginations, and finding out more about what’s happening in Asia when it comes to them has been an eye opener. One of the world’s most famous robots is Sophia, created in 2016 by Hong Kong company Hanson Robotics. She’s been on TV and at conferences all around the world. Saudi Arabia even granted citizenship to Sophia last year.

There are several articles in this issue about robots, which are proving far more useful than just working on assembly lines at factories. Some are helping us grow more food, while others are helping make life better for people with illnesses and disabilities.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue, and if you or someone you know would like to contribute to our May/June issue about FinTech just send me an email.

Jumpstart Expansion and JIR Program Update As regular readers of Jumpstart know, the past six months has been a time of incredible expansion in coverage and distribution through China, SE Asia, and Australia. We’ve taken Jumpstart from Hong Kong to the region in very short time. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s been definitely worthwhile for us and our growing readership.

Part of this expansion includes establishing a Journalist In Residence (JIR) program so that we have a presence on the ground in each of the markets that Jumpstart is now available in and covering. Since we started recruiting JIRs, the demand has been fantastic and so have the candidates we’ve chosen for this role. They will be attending events in their markets, lining up local editorial contributors, filing stories for Web and print, spreading the word about Jumpstart, and being our eyes and ears on their startup scenes.

We look forward to introducing our JIRs in the coming issues of Jumpstart, as long as AI and robots don’t replace them first…

Speaking of the future, we are planning to run our highly successful Jumpstart Kids program again this summer in Hong Kong, and maybe elsewhere. If you know some kids aged 8-12 who would like to have fun and learn how to become a Kidtrepreneur, check out www.jumpstartkids.hk.

Glen Watson glen@jumpstartmag.com

CONTENTS JUMPSTART magazine MARCH/APRIL 2018 1 EDITOR’S NOTE GUEST COLUMNS 6 Why My Lean Startup Will – Or Won’t – Work 7 AI And Cyber Security 8 From Toronto To Hong Kong 9 Better Shopping Experience: How Big Data, AI And AR Empower New Retail In China & Beyond 10 Activating Digital: How To Establish The Optimal Strategy With Minimal Resources 11 Leading A Loving AI Revolution 12 Betatron: Helping Startups Raise Their First Institutional Funding Round 13 NEWS 16 LIFESTYLE 18 Centralised Agricultural Production Zones 20 Drive In Style 22 Funding Opportunities In The Lion City

COVER STORY

LIGHT MY FIRE

There’s Much To Love About AI & Robotics, If All Goes Well

By Glen Watson, Editor-in-Chief of Jumpstart

24

FEATURE

PREJUDICE IN CODING AND HOW TO FIX IT

FEATURE

MAKING SENSE OF SENSETIME

There’s More To This Unicorn Than Meets The Eye

Evolution Does Not Have A Purpose – Revolution Does

By Dr Li Xu, Co-founder & CEO of SenseTime

By Kathy Gong, Co-founder & CEO of WafaGames

30

26 FEATURE

SAY HELLO TO CHATBOTS

FEATURE

PARKINSON’S DISEASE

In Search Of A Cure, One Robot At A Time

By Keina Chiu, Senior Reporter and Editor of Jumpstart

These Talkative Computer Programs Enable Better Customer Interaction

By Aria Nurfikry, Brand Marketing Manager of Kata.ai

32

36

34 38 39 40

AI Trends In 2018 Robotics In Vietnam Art And Science Growth Potential

42 43 44 46

Game On Providing Better Care EVENTS | Preview EVENTS | Review

ISSUE 20 March/April 2018 Managing Director James Kwan Editor-in-Chief Glen Watson Senior Reporter and Editor Keina Chiu Associate Director of Content Development Chloe Wong Associate Director of Content Operations Tiffany Wong Director of Community Engagement Anita Chan Director of Product Development Maggie Lau Community Evangelist (Silicon Valley) Li Xing Chang Founder/Advisor Yana Robbins Advisors Shitiz Jain Leo Ku Derek Kwik Interns Kelly Cho Yoyo Shek Jessie Yang Contributors Aria Nurfikry Sam Ameen Charlene Ree Angie Chung Panrasee Ritthipravat Ashley Galina Dudarenok Divya Samtani Kathy Gong Babita Sivarajah Robert Hannigan Dr Li Xu Duncan Hui Kathleen Yu Dr Hsuan-Tien Lin Zaw Htet Aung John Mullins Special Thanks Leo Calaguio Joyce Ngo

Interviewees Denis Huen Yin-fan Colin Tan Trong Toai Truong Mark Yong

Jumpstart is available at over 1,500 locations in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, China, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Manila, Sydney and Melbourne.

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Copyright Š 2018 Jumpstart Media Ltd. The contents of the magazine are fully protected by copyright and nothing may be reprinted without permission. The publisher and editors accept no responsibility in respect to any products, goods or services that may be advertised or referred to in this issue or for any errors, omissions, or mistakes in any such advertisements or references. The mention of any specific companies or products in articles or advertisements does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by this magazine or its publisher in preference to others of a similar nature which are not mentioned or advertised. Published articles do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Jumpstart magazine.

GUEST COLUMN

WHY MY LEAN STARTUP WILL – OR WON’T – WORK

ROAD TEST THE ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITY BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT LAUNCHING

By John Mullins

M

ANY ENTREPRENEURS are launching using the lean startup approach – getting into the market quickly and testing hypotheses to determine what will work. Sadly, though, many of their ventures will never get off the ground.

Of those that do, the majority will fail.

Of those who seek funding from business angels or venture capital investors, less than one percent will get the money they’re after.

This picture of entrepreneurship – whether in nascent startups or in ventures hatched inside large companies – is not a pretty one. The entrepreneurial road is long and daunting. Why, then, are so many people actively pursuing entrepreneurial dreams? In a word, opportunity! Opportunity to develop an idea that, to its originator, seems a surefire success. Opportunity to be one’s own master – no more office politics, no more downsizing, no more working for others.

Unfortunately, most opportunities are not what they appear to be, as the business failure statistics demonstrate.

Most new ventures fail for opportunityrelated reasons:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Mullins is an Associate Professor of management practice in marketing and entrepreneurship at London Business School.

An award-winning teacher and scholar, and one of the world’s foremost thought leaders in entrepreneurship, he is the author of “The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Investors Should Do Before Launching a Lean Startup,” fifth edition, 2017. www.london.edu

6 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

▪ Market reasons: perhaps the target customer won’t buy ▪ Industry reasons: it’s too easy for your competitor to eat your lunch ▪ Entrepreneurial team reasons: your team may lack what it takes to cope with the wide array of forces that can bring a fledgling entrepreneurial venture to its knees.

Avoiding The Opportunity Trap

resumes or in assessments of their entrepreneurial character or drive.

Moreover, the model’s seven domains are not equally important.

Nor are they additive. A simple scoring sheet or checklist won’t do. Worse still, the wrong combinations can kill your venture. On the other hand, sufficient strength on some factors can mitigate weaknesses on others. Attractive opportunities can be found in not-soattractive markets and industries.

These seven domains address the central elements in the assessment of any market opportunity: ▪ Are the market and industry attractive?

▪ Does the opportunity offer compelling customer benefits as well as a sustainable advantage over other solutions to the customer’s needs?

▪ Can the team deliver the results they seek and promise to others?

Opportunities are best understood in terms of three crucial elements: markets, industries, and the key people that make up the entrepreneurial team. The seven domains model brings these elements Before You Launch A Lean StartUp together to offer a clearer way to answer So, take heart. Road test your the crucial question: “Why will or won’t entrepreneurial opportunity before my idea work?” you even think about launching a lean The model offers a better toolkit startup. If the seven domains road test for assessing and shaping market looks positive, you will have jumpopportunities, and a better way for started your journey, and you will have entrepreneurs to assess the adequacy gathered a body of evidence with which of what they themselves bring to the to guide your launch. table as individuals and as a group. It If you find those almost inevitable also provides the basis for what I call a fatal flaws, you can redirect your customer-driven feasibility study that precious entrepreneurial talent and entrepreneurs might use to guide their energy to another opportunity with assessments before beginning to write a greater potential. Enjoy the drive! business plan.

The Seven Domains Of Attractive Opportunities At first glance, the seven domains model appears to Market Domains Industry Domains summarize simply what Macro ‘everybody’ already knows Market Attractiveness Industry Attractiveness Level about assessing opportunities.

Indeed, it goes further to bring to light three subtle but crucial distinctions and observations A s Cr iti Ex bility on s k that most entrepreneurs – not ca e ssi tion Ris T i l Su cute o M ira or cc p ity F to mention many investors – s es on A ns sF ac pe to overlook: os Team rs Pr Domains ▪ Markets and industries are not the same things; ▪ Both macro- and micro-level Connectedness Up, Down, Across considerations are necessary.

Value Chain Markets and industries must be examined at both levels; ▪ The keys to assessing Micro Target Segment Competitive and entrepreneurs and Level Benefits And Attractiveness Economic Sustainability entrepreneurial teams aren’t simply found on their

GUEST COLUMN

AI and

CYBER SECURITY GREATEST LONG-TERM BENEFITS LIKELY TO BE IN THREAT INTELLIGENCE

By Robert Hannigan

O

F ALL THE SECTORS of the economy set to benefit most from the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning, cyber security must be near the top of the list. The challenges in cyber are crying out for AI solutions: the sheer volume of data from diverse sources in different formats, and the speed of change in the cyber threat world makes human analysis at scale impractical.

The answer across the cyber security industry has to be greater automation and, ideally, the machine intelligence to spot vulnerabilities, predict developing attacks, and reduce the false positives that gridlock business.

In the future, if the right AI is applied to the right data, the friction of security should be reduced and its effectiveness improved.

The greatest long-term benefits are likely to be in threat intelligence. Anomaly detection enabled by AI is helping many companies supplement firewall defence, spot threats and deploy mitigations instantly.

Some established AI-based cyber companies are applying machine analytics to internal company network data, whether to detect fraud and insider threats, or counter cyber attacks.

But far greater benefits will come when AI is applied to bigger datasets outside company networks: blending internet cyber metadata with open-source material, dark web threat intelligence, internal network data and other more focused data sets.

The goal must be to move away from signature-based reactive security, which is too much like fighting the last war, and move to active and predictive security. In the future, AI may be better at answering the question ‘where is cyber crime going next’ than cyber criminals themselves.

AI also promises to replace many resource-intensive security processes. Vulnerability-scanning, surveying of the attack surface, and red-teaming are all functions that machines already can perform better than humans.

The analysis and reverse-engineering of malware is something that machines will be able to do quickly and at scale, digesting and learning in real-time from a vast catalogue of malicious code and predicting its next mutation.

Most importantly, in a cyber security world where human error is almost always at the root of poor security, machines can learn to monitor the implementation of good practice and drive cultural change.

Machines will also give security experts and chief executives priorities for managing risk. Most automated processes today produce so many false positives that they create alternative problems. Machine learning can refine this approach and assess risk much more accurately, leaving human experts to concentrate on the challenges they care about most.

At the tactical level, AI is transforming some key enablers of good security: identity verification, biometrics and the behavioural approach to cyber security. It will have a role in addressing the critical global skills shortage in cyber: identifying employees with ‘aptitude’ who may not have formal cyber skills, and developing individuals’ skills through tailored learning, based on current threats.

Finally, as the Internet of Things (IoT) connects billions of new processors, AI could be used in a regulatory role: checking on the default security of these devices at scale, assessing the risk, and blocking their connection to networks where necessary. This will be essential if the fantastic opportunity of IoT – much of it driven from China, the great computer hardware capital of the world – is not to amplify the weaknesses of an already insecure internet, making it less resilient for all.

The downside is that AI will also be well suited to spotting weaknesses in defence and identifying new vectors for attack.

In the cyber arms race, the winners will be those with access to the most data and the highest-grade analytics, human and machine. The current focus on cyber security and the huge investment going into new security technology, gives us some hope that the legitimate world can get ahead of cyber crime.

Robert Hannigan will be speaking at the GREAT Festival of Innovation taking place March 21-24 at Asia Society Hong Kong Center. For more details and to register, visit: www.events.trade.gov. uk/the-great-festival-ofinnovation-hong-kong-2018/

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Robert Hannigan founded the UK’s National 001100001110000110101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100001001010100011000001001010101000111100001110000110101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100001001010100011000000011101010101000000010101110000010101010 00110000111000011010101000011100010101010000000000000000011000010000100101010001100000100101010100011110000111000011010101000011100010101010000000000000000011000010000100101010001100000001110101010100000001010111000001010101001 00001001010101000111100001110000110101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100001001010100011000000011101010101000000010101110000010101010010000100101010100011110000111000011010101000011100010101010000000000000000011000010000100101010001100000001110101010100000001010111000001010101001 0101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100001001010100011000001001010101000111100010101000011100010101010000000000000000011000010000100101010001100000100101010100011110001010100001110001010101000000000000000001100001000010010101000110000010010101010001111000101010000111000101010100000000000000000110000100001001010100011000001001010101000111100

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Cyber Security Centre and is now an Adviser to BlueVoyant LLC and McKinsey & Co.

AI+ROBOTICS | 7

GUEST COLUMN

Why I Chose to Stay

A

COUPLE OF years ago, I planned a vacation to Hong Kong after being away from my hometown for nearly two decades following my family’s move to Canada when I was very young. Despite being born in Hong Kong, it was a very foreign place to me.

At first, I found it quite difficult to fit in with the local crowd especially given the language barrier, and differences in social etiquette.

It’s not surprising that Chinese isn’t really my first language after being gone for so long, not to mention my unfamiliarity with the differences in social norms between Canada and Hong Kong. I remember holding the door open for some strangers in Hong Kong that earned me some weird looks, but the same action in Canada would have been widely accepted.

There I was, confused in this unfamiliar city and challenging myself: “Was this three-month vacation really worth my time and, more importantly, what opportunities are ahead for me in this city?”

Fell For HK’s Charm

It is funny where life takes you. What was originally a vacation destination is now a place I can call ‘home’. Hong Kong is notorious for its expensive accommodation, pollution and being overcrowded. But despite these deterrents, the city has its charms.

When you overlook these minute details, you begin to notice a city filled with opportunities and talent.

Particularly what fascinated me was the thriving startup ecosystem and the city’s strong support towards the startup community. According to an InvestHK survey in 2016, there were nearly 2,000 startups in Hong Kong, involving over 5,600 workstations compared to only around 1,500 startups in 2015, which was a 24% increase in one year.

Recently, the HKSAR government launched a HK$2 billion fund to invest in local innovation and tech startups to create a more vibrant ecosystem.

8 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

Without a doubt, this is an indication of the positive prospects for startups that are revolutionizing this technologyenabled world we live in.

A Millennial At A Startup

Dipping my feet into the startup scene was quite a bold move for me, and I am proud to say I do not regret it one bit. As one of the Founding Members of Pakpobox for the last year and a half, I now have an understanding of the city’s startup culture. Immediately upon joining Pakpobox, I was provided with a platform that enabled me to develop my skills. I was empowered to make decisions that directly affected the direction of the company, and I was encouraged to take affordable risks.

It’s safe to say that not everyone knows exactly what they are doing at all times. Experiences are gained through continuous failures and mistakes, and this is exactly how I learned. In this short amount of time, I have built meaningful relationships and gained valuable experiences – such as the opportunity to manage international projects, network with investors and businesses partners, and fundraising, to name a few.

I’m fortunate enough to be part of the Pakpobox family, where I am able to work with bright and like-minded individuals. Work is challenging in an extremely fast-paced environment with limited resources especially needing to ensure all projects are delivered on time. From the outside this may seem like a very stressful setting, but it fuels me to work even harder. I would never have become as seasoned as I am today without the many different projects or the support of the great people around me.

Looking back, whenever I’m asked whether coming to Hong Kong was the right choice for me, the answer is obvious and I would like to share three takeaways with everyone who is struggling to make a new move.

By Duncan Hui

Have An Open Mind And Be Versatile

The startup world is ever-changing and every ounce of adaptability is needed in order to survive, and most importantly, enjoy what you do. So keep an open mind and be versatile so that you are better prepared to tackle anything that comes your way.

Take Risks In Your Decisions

You never know what lies ahead. Taking risks might involve making mistakes, but at the end of it, you will come out of it a more seasoned and experienced person ready to make a positive dent in the universe.

Build Your Network

Building a well-established network where you are able to assist one another mutually is important. So go ahead and meet more people, because there are just too many things to do all on your own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Duncan Hui graduated from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Canada, specializing in Marketing and Strategic Management. Prior to joining Pakpobox as a Founding Member in 2016, he worked for multinational consumer products companies in Canada. Duncan is responsible for the international expansion at Pakpobox, a last-mile smart locker solution platform with a network covering Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Macau, Maldives and Myanmar. www.pakpobox.com

GUEST COLUMN

BETTER SHOPPING EXPERIENCE HOW BIG DATA, AI AND AR EMPOWER NEW RETAIL IN CHINA & BEYOND

By Ashley Galina Dudarenok Source: Alibaba Website

Virtual Shopping

A

LIBABA FOUNDER JACK MA brought up the concept of New Retail at the 7th Alibaba Computing Conference 2016. New Retail aims to merge online and offline retail, and use adequate information and Big Data technology to enhance customers’ shopping experience.

New Retail – backed by technology and Big Data – is changing China, and also the world.

Clearer Picture Of Customers

When the iPhone 7 was released in 2016, Apple partnered with Tmall.com to sell it online. Alibaba helped Apple promote it ahead of the release by using Big Data technology to target those already using high-end mobile phone brands. About 2 million people placed orders and 74% of them were from the targeted groups.

Big Data technology should be used for a 360-degree collection and analysis of customers’ data. All those fragmentary pieces of information can be put together to solve the puzzle and present retailers with a clearer customer profile.

Augmented Reality (AR) is changing the world and e-commerce landscapes. Online retailers can use AR to supplement shopping experiences by letting customers have a virtual try on.

Tmall once used AR to encourage customers to participate in the game “Catch the Cat” to win coupons. Previous experience with Alipay and its AR red pockets campaign in 2017 also told us that customers are more willing to engage in entertaining and interactive campaigns especially given some rewards.

AR is a lens, through which users can see a different world that is alive and vivid. With AR, New Retail’s core concept of integrating online and offline retail can be realized.

Not Just China, But Also The World

Amazon has opened its self-service unmanned supermarket Amazon Go, which implemented advanced IT. The world may reach an agreement that data technology is forcing retail, no matter online or offline, to make a transition.

Purely online or offline may be outdated in the future and those e-commerce big names – by making the best of data and technology – are invading the field they weren’t expected to enter before… in China, and the rest of the world.

Smarter Retail With AI

JD, one of the major e-commerce websites in China, announced last year that it would invest 30 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) to build an AI center in the small Guangdong town of Fenggang to better develop its AI technology for business, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. AI processes data in a more human and comprehensive way, which makes it a better option to handle large amount of data.

AI is also used for customer services. On Double Eleven (Singles Day) day in 2016, Ali Xiaomi – the AI customer service system developed by Alibaba – served 6.32 million customers, which equals the number of customers served in 24 hours by 52,000 real people without a break.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ashley is the founder of Alarice and ChoZan, agencies with expertise on marketing in China. She is running the YouTube channel - AshleyTalksChina the world’s largest vlog about China’s market, consumers and social media.

Her Amazon bestseller “Unlocking the World’s Largest E-Market: A Guide to Selling on Chinese Social Media” is now available at www.amazon.com/dp/ B079KNTXMS | ashley@chozan.co | www.chozan.co

AI+ROBOTICS | 9

GUEST COLUMN

ACTIVATING DIGITAL HOW TO ESTABLISH THE OPTIMAL STRATEGY WITH MINIMAL RESOURCES

By Angie Chung and Charlene Ree

W

E BELIEVE THAT setting up an optimal digital media strategy is a key component for every business to be successful. For startups with minimal marketing resources, activating digital is critical especially when promoting products and services.

As the digital experts behind Httpool Asia and board members of The Women Entrepreneurs Network (WEN), entrepreneurs and startups frequently come to us for digital strategy advice.

The most frequent questions are: Where do I find my target audience in the “wild wild web”?

What can I do to drive the most immediate sales?

What happens if I don’t have the time and/or resources to manage online initiatives?

Here are some of our tips to start answering these questions.

Learn From Your Data

A friend who runs an organic beauty product website asked us how she should market her business online. Having started with search engine marketing and a Facebook page, she was frustrated by being unable to tell if they tangibly were helping her business.

We started by asking, “Do you know how much traffic is driven to your site and by what media? Do you have any people visiting your site without being led there via marketing and advertising efforts?”

This led us to other important questions regarding her traffic, “Where does your organic traffic come from?

Which pages of your site are they landing on? What are the most viewed pages and products? Where are people spending the most time? At what point do visitors leave your site?”

There are many insights and opportunities to unearth from your 10 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

existing website and campaign data.

They are the most valuable assets you have – don’t waste them. Spend time analysing their performance. Some basic steps to start: ▪ Install and implement web analytic tools (for example, Google Analytics is a free tool) to find out where your traffic is coming from; ▪ Analyse organic traffic by geographic location, demographic background and referring sources to determine your core target audience; ▪ Select media channels that provide extensive targeting capabilities to minimize advertising wastage; ▪ Utilise custom campaign parameters for advertising and promotional URLs to help differentiate and understand the performance of various initiatives.

Set The Right Objectives

When marketers and advertisers begin investing in digital, they want to see instant results. When immediate sales fail to materialize, they quickly jump to the conclusion that digital advertising just doesn’t work. Like all marketing campaigns, when people are not familiar with your business, it takes time for these new prospects to notice your brand. Learn about it, and engage with it before making a purchase decision.

Marketers need to remember that various digital channels and initiatives serve very different purposes. Some effectively drive brand awareness among new prospects, while others are better suited to help close the deal. Marketers need to have a clear understanding of what a digital initiative can accomplish.

Otherwise, they’re disappointed when they expect brand awareness, customer engagement and sales return all at the same time from a single campaign.

As an example, for a new e-commerce site selling clothing, we would advise splitting the budget into

three folds to meet different objectives with different key performance indicators (KPI): ▪ 40% for ‘prospecting’ new potential customers and reaching your key target audience; ▪ 40% for ‘engaging’ these prospects and driving cost-effective quality traffic to your key website pages should be the objective and KPI; ▪ 20% for ‘converting’ your audience into customers and generating leads, sales, and ROI. The composition of each fold is flexible and can be adapted based on the business’s progress and its objectives.

Cut The Learning Curve

Managing too many digital initiatives without enough time and resources is the common dilemma businesses and startups face. As digital platforms and formats frequently evolve and roll out updates, it’s hard for busy marketers and entrepreneurs to stay on top of it all.

For those trying to do digital advertising themselves, some get frustrated and form the wrong impression of channels based on a flawed experience. Of course, hiring the right agency or consultant can help cut the learning curve, but how do you evaluate the right partners?

▪ Make sure they are experienced and industry-certified; ▪ Look for result-driven plans, coupled with the capabilities to execute the campaign for you; ▪ Most importantly, look for a partner that is willing to share insights and educate you along the way.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Charlene Ree and Angie Chung are the Managing Partner and Managing Director of Httpool Asia, respectively. A majority stake of Httpool Group was acquired last year by IMS (Internet Media Services), a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Television Networks.

Charlene focuses on overseeing the overall operational direction, while Angie is responsible for business and product development. www.httpool.hk

By Divya Samtani

P

ERHAPS YOU’VE SEEN Sophia the robot’s hilarious appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, or heard about the Saudi Arabian citizenship she received recently.

Wherever it may be, there’s no doubt that Sophia – the charmingly eloquent robot supposedly modelled after Audrey Hepburn – is the world’s AI darling.

But far from being just another super-intelligent machine, Sophia’s creator – David Hanson – has a much grander mission in store for her: namely to “unlock the mysteries of the mind, and of the universe.”

Thanks to David’s role as AI Curator for Mettā in Hong Kong, I’ve had the good fortune to hear him speak a number of times, each time becoming more and more aware of just how colossal his vision truly is. “When you’re building complex AI systems,” he tells me one evening, “it opens up an infinite number of questions around what it means to be human.”

The work, then, becomes about much more than just developing AI.

For David, it’s about designing “genius machines of super computational wisdom” with the goal to “maximise creativity and enlightenment for all living beings”.

Critical to this pursuit, he asserts, is the conviction that if we can create machines that facilitate human awakening, and also awaken themselves, we can reach a new level of self-actualisation and transcendence.

It is precisely this belief that forms the central tenet of Hanson Robotics’ recent endeavor – the Loving AI project.

Guided by the ancient Greek concept of agape, or ‘selfless love’, the Loving AI project is focused on building machines that interact with humans in caring and compassionate ways, for example by leading guided meditations (a unique experience that I would recommend to everyone).

By encountering AI in this nonjudgmental state, the thesis contends, humans will be able to experience an increased sense of love and wellbeing, and therefore act in a way that is

GUEST COLUMN

LEADING A LOVING AI REVOLUTION

more mindful towards themselves and others. This in turn can lead to a “huge advancement in human consciousness”, David declares excitedly. And according to the team at Hanson Robotics – we’re not that far from it.

“We are not at full AI consciousness yet,” David says wistfully, “but artificial organisms evolve very very quickly. As AI technology self-improves, reinvents itself, and approaches the singularity, we will experience a superintelligence explosion.”

At that stage, he admits, all sorts of things could go wrong. But rather than ruminate on possible negative outcomes, we must focus even more fervently on “humanizing technology rather than dehumanizing people”, something that is already happening with the ever-increasing digitization of human communication.

By embarking on projects such as Loving AI, David believes we have a chance to heal humanity. And if we can heal ourselves, we can heal what we are developing.

“Maybe it’s our destiny as sentient beings to realize this kind of superintelligence,” he suggests one evening, wrapping up a group discussion on the Mettā stage. Either way, “the flow of the universe will go on. But if we do this, we get to go on, too.” www.hansonrobotics.com ABOUT THE AUTHOR Divya Samtani is a programmer, storyteller, and communications specialist who has worked with some of the world’s largest financial and tech organizations, helping them to define their digital media and marketing strategies. Divya is currently Head of Content and Partnerships at Mettā where she focuses on the education and empowerment of the global innovation community. | www.metta.co

AI+ROBOTICS | 11

GUEST COLUMN

EMPOWERING FOUNDERS BETATRON: AN INVESTMENT-BACKED NETWORK SCALING STARTUPS

By Sam Ameen

B

ETATRON INVESTS IN promising startups, refines their business models and fast-tracks them to grow and scale over an intensive four-month period.

Based in Hong Kong, Betatron is a network of investors, entrepreneurs, startups and mentors focused on empowering Founders.

Through its platform, Betatron provides funding, handson support, and unprecedented network access to drive business outcomes. Startups are then positioned and guided to raise their first institutional funding round.

After just one year of exceptional growth, Betatron is positioned strongly to be the most active and effective earlystage investor in Hong Kong. It is a unique model whereby the Founding Partners – IC Studio, MindWorks Ventures, Vectr Ventures, CoCoon Ignite Ventures, The Aria Group, and IncuLab – are not just investors, but inherently involved with the program and startups.

Since Cohort 1 launched in March 2017, Betatron has raised funding from 21 investors and has invested in 11 startups across their two cohorts. After joining the Betatron program, their startups have raised a total of US$2.4 million

PAKT – a unique clothing care storage solution and digital platform so you can browse your clothes anytime, anywhere.

PAKT also helps property developers innovate – smaller units become ‘smart’ homes with a ‘smart’ wardrobe. PAKT’s two other services include luggagefree travel for frequent travelers to HK and Tokyo, as well as a vintage e-commerce site to allow PAKT clients a seamless way to sell unwanted items. Pakt.hk

KidHop – aims to become the one-stop-shop for all types of kids activities, which are hard to find and even harder to book. KidHop is revolutionizing the industry.

Since launching in May 2017, it has partnered with over 100 activity providers and has 500+ paying users.

Kidhop.com

of further funding, with almost two-thirds of the capital coming from Betatron’s founding partners.

Nio Liyanage (who became Director of Betatron in Sep 2017) is delighted with the progress and excited about the future potential and commented, “We’re proud to have had such an impact on the startup ecosystem in just our first year. Cohort 2 saw strong startups developing significantly over the program, which is our key objective. This, and the runaway success of Demo Day on January 25, is a testament to our determination to keep improving, the exceptional quality of our startups, and the overwhelming support of the community”.

With a quantum leap in capability over the last few months, Betatron is now the most comprehensive acceleration program available. With aggressive growth in the pipeline, it is fast becoming Hong Kong’s premier option for early stage startups and investors.

Applications for Betatron’s Cohort 3 close on March 1st, with the program launching on April 2nd. Betatron will be investing in up to 10 startups, with each receiving US$30,000 in funding. | Betatron.co

A U T H E N T I C

CAPSL Entertainment – a Virtual & Augmented Reality (VR & AR) gaming platform where players can discover, immersively spectate and compete in blockchainpowered tournaments for prize pools. CAPSL is launching the platform along with its first title mid-2018. capsl.cc

Pixofy – aggregates furniture vendors and their products, and aims to transform the furniture shopping experience by allowing consumers to shop and visualize furniture pieces in the comfort of their home. pixofy.io

E X P E R I E N C E S

Trip Guru – a platform for travelers to discover and connect with each other through the best group experiences and activities.

To date, the platform has over 700 activities and 350 vendors across 16 destinations in Southeast Asia. thetripguru.com

International Compliance Workshop – a B2B platform for product testing, inspection and factory certification (TIC). Since launching in Nov 2016, over 130 worldwide enterprises have used their platform with over 1,200 TIC projects being matched successfully. To date, ICW’s platform has generated over HK$8.5 million in transactions. icw.io

BETATRON BY THE NUMBERS Cohorts

Founding Partners/ Investors

Startup investments

2

21

11

Investment into startups

OMyCar – helps people drive safer and pay less for auto insurance premiums. The #1 driving analytics app in Hong Kong has collected more than 5 million kilometers of driving data and has 76,000+ active users. omycarapp.com

T R AV E L

US$330,000

Capital raised for startups post/during program

Follow-on funding from Partners/Investors

US$2.4 million

62%

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sam Ameen is the Director of Marketing of Betatron and is passionate about helping startups scale online using the latest growth-hacking and user acquisition strategies. Sam is also a contributor to Forbes and regularly shares his thoughts on the startup and investment world in Asia.

12 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

NEWS

URWORK REBRANDS AS UCOMMUNE, RAISES US$45M SERIES C ROUND

CHINA PLANS TO BUILD China’s leading co-working space provider UrWork has rebranded into Ucommune, US$2.1B AI TECH PARK and raised US$45 million in Series C round of funding led by Qianhai Wutong Mergers China is building a 13.8 billion yuan (US$2.1 billion) technology park dedicated to developing AI, state-backed news agency Xinhua reported in early January. The campus will be constructed within five years in the Mentougou district in western Beijing. It will cover 54.87 hectares, Xinhua said. The technology park will be home to around 400 businesses and is expected to create an annual output value of about 50 billion yuan. www.xinhuanet.com

and Acquisitions Funds, a PE fund owned by regional equity exchange Qianhai Equity Exchange. CK Home-Key Investment Group, and venture capital firm Context Lab also co-invested in the round.

With this, the Beijing-headquartered company’s valuation has touched US$1.3 billion. While UCommune’s expansions have been largely confined to its home market, the startup’s begun setting up in cities from London to Los Angeles and now operates almost 120 locations in 35 cities around the world. The Hong Kong location will take up a full floor at Grand Millennium Plaza in Sheung Wan. Ucommune also announced new office locations in Taiwan and Singapore. www.urwork.cn

HORIZON VENTURES BACKS DALTON LEARNING LAB OFFERS HONG KONG’S FANO LABS FREE MACHINE-LEARNING TOOLS The VC firm founded by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-

Hong Kong’s Dalton Learning Lab recently launched ai4children.org, a website that allows teachers to easily and effectively instruct students about machine learning – a form of artificial intelligence (AI) and one of the dominant technologies of today and the near future.

Developed at the Dalton Learning Lab in cooperation with technology company Outblaze, the site showcases Scratch extensions with integrated machine learning capabilities.

Currently in beta, the free site lets educators add a hands-on introduction to artificial intelligence and machine learning in a standard coding class. | www.daltonlearninglab.com

Shing, has made a rare early-stage investment in AI startup Fano Labs, according to Yahoo News. Horizons Ventures has invested previously in companies such as Facebook, Razer, Slack, and Spotify. Horizon is putting undisclosed money into Fano Labs, which recently graduated the AI accelerator program Zeroth. This deal also marks the firm’s first investment in a Hong Kong-based company. Founded by academics, Fano Labs uses speech recognition and natural language processing to help call centers run more efficiently. horizonsventures.com | www.fano.ai

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Your Business Launchpad fitzgeraldlawyers.com/startup AI+ROBOTICS | 13

NEWS

CRYPTOKITTIES COMING TO GREATER CHINA

Axiom Zen has entered into an exclusive licensing and distribution agreement with Animoca Brands Corp to publish CryptoKitties in Greater China. CryptoKitties offers digital cats that users can collect and breed. The game is one of the world’s first and most successful consumer products built on blockchain, the same technology that powers cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Unlike Bitcoin, CryptoKitties are unique cryptocollectibles.

CryptoKitties is a cultural phenomenon that has been covered by the BBC, The New York Times, Fast Company, VICE, and numerous other international publications.

Less than two months since it launched, CryptoKitties has conducted 37,568 ether (ETH) in transactions – currently equivalent to US$39,858,896. Individual cats are traded at prices ranging from a small fraction of ether to a record 253 ETH (approximately US$269,550 at present value). www.animocabrands.com | www.axiomzen.co www.cryptokitties.co

THE MILLS FABRICA FUND INVESTS US$1M IN GOXIP Nan Fung Group’s The Mills Fabrica Fund has completed its first investment, putting US$1 million in the pockets of leading techstyle social commerce platform Goxip’s latest Series A Round fundraising (US$5 million in total).

Goxip combines fashion and beauty products from different online retailers, targeting fashion lovers and bloggers who can search its database using smartphone camera or online photos and to purchase those products right away. Founded

by Juliette Giminez, Goxip plans to use the money mainly on expanding the team in Hong Kong as well as to continue its expansion into Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand. The company aims to double its 2017 GMV to achieve over HK$1 billion in sales this year. www.themills.com.hk | www.goxip.com

ALIBABA CLOUD LAUNCHES MALAYSIA CITY BRAIN The cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group has launched its Malaysia City Brain initiative in collaboration with the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the country’s digital economy development agency, and Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), the city council in the capital.

The Malaysia City Brain initiative is the first time for the City Brain solution to be adopted overseas. Powered by Alibaba Cloud’s large-scale computing engine Apsara, the first phase of the program will roll out the Malaysia City Brain for use in traffic management to improve mobility in Kuala Lumpur.

At the same event in January, Alibaba Cloud also announced the Malaysia Tianchi Big Data Program – a big data crowd intelligence platform that brings together global data experts to collaborate and compete in developing solutions for real world problems. Backed by MDEC, the initiative aims to incubate 500 data professionals and 300 startups in Malaysia within two years. www.alibabacloud.com

EVOLVE MOBILITY LAUNCHES ECO PROGRAM IN VIETNAM Evolve Mobility is a startup headed up by its Founder and Managing Director, Vietnamese national Hoa Vu, who has 20 years’ experience in the international relocation industry in Vietnam. Through this experience and ‘on-the-ground’ communication with clients, crews and customs she was able to uncover a need within the industry for a socially and environmentally aware business strategy.

Without doubt the packaging industry worldwide is a large contributor to waste. When most moving companies qualify ‘recycling’ as using boxes for local moves, Hoa felt it was time to move the industry forward and contribute to the preservation of the beauty of Vietnam. Her vision was realized with the partnership with Karta VN, which has adopted an environmentally aware end-to-end program. Karta is a Vietnamese company that manufactures boxes out of 100% recycled material.

Clients are encouraged to allow Evolve Mobility to collect any unwanted items for the reuse/ recycle/ repair program.

These items will be sold a monthly charity bazaar and all proceeds will go to a different Vietnamese charity each month. www.evolvemobilityintl.com

KPMG PUBLISHES HK SMART CITY REPORT

KPMG has published Connecting Hong Kong – Perspectives on our future as a smart city in association with CLP Holdings, JOS, Siemens and the Smart City Consortium. The findings are from a survey conducted by YouGov of more than 500 business executives and 1,000 citizens in Hong Kong on their perceptions of its Smart City strengths and weaknesses.

The survey finds that nearly all business executives indicated technology and innovation culture – together with ‘education’ and ‘talent’ – are critical for Hong Kong to remain successful. However, 73 percent of executives and 45 percent of citizens are of the view that Hong Kong falls behind other developed cities in terms of fostering a technology and innovation culture, while around a quarter indicated that Hong Kong is leading in education and talent. home.kpmg.com/cn/en/home/insights/2018/01/connecting-hong-kong.html 14 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

Tesla has announced a new 10-year CEO performance award for Elon Musk with vesting entirely contingent on achieving market cap and operational milestones that would make Tesla one of the most valuable companies in the world. In order to fully vest, Tesla’s market cap would have to grow to US$650 billion (an increase of almost $600 billion), and important revenue and profitability goals would also have to be achieved.

Musk will receive no guaranteed compensation of any kind – no salary, no cash bonuses, and no equity that vests simply by the passage of time. The performance award consists of a 10-year grant of stock options that vests in 12 tranches, each of which vests only if a pair of milestones are both met. If none of the 12 tranches is achieved, Musk will not receive any compensation. www.tesla.com

ANDREW NG LAUNCHES US$175M AI FUND

The Founder of the Google Brain deep learning project and Co-founder of Coursera, Andrew Ng became Baidu’s Chief Scientist in 2014. He left there about a year ago and launched a number of AI projects, including the Deeplearning.ai course and Landing.ai, a project that aims to bring AI to manufacturing companies.

According to Tech Crunch and Fast Company, Ng has raised more than US$175 million for the fund, a startup incubator that will back small teams of experts looking to solve key problems using machine learning. The investors include NEA, Sequoia, Greylock Partners and the SoftBank Group. Ng is leading the fund as a General Partner, with Eva Wang serving as Partner and COO and Steven Syverud also joining as a Partner. www.aifund.ai

NEWS

TESLA WON’T PAY MUSK FOR 10 YEARS

BIOFOURMIS RAISES US$5M SERIES A FROM NSI VENTURES AND AVIVA VENTURES Singapore-headquartered digital HealthTech company Biofourmis has raised US$5 million in a Series A round of funding from NSI Ventures and Aviva Ventures, the strategic corporate venture arm of international insurer, Aviva plc.

Biofourmis, founded in 2015, also has entered into a collaboration with Mayo Clinic that would enable the company to access de-identified, anonymised healthcare data from clinical trials and Mayo’s expert medical insights.

Biofourmis has developed a highly sophisticated health analytics platform called biovitalsTM, which uses AI to integrate and analyse continuous physiology data from clinical grade wearables and to detect personalised patterns that can predict a patient’s health deterioration. www.biofourmis.com

AI+ROBOTICS | 15

LIFESTYLE

AN APP OF PREVENTION

Helmed by registered Chinese Medicine Practitioner Cinci Leung, the name CheckCheckCin is derived from a Chinese phrase that directly translates to ‘check first’ to achieve healthy living through prevention. With CheckCheckSin, users are guided to follow a personalised diet based on their internal physical constitution to achieve the Chinese medicine concepts of ‘prevention is better than cure’.

Not just a beverage startup, CheckCheckCin is also an easy-to-use mobile app that began as an online health news platform. The goal is to provide users with an in-depth understanding about their bodies, with which they can adopt the most suitable way to achieve good health. www.checkcheckcin.com

FEED YOUR MIND

The Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) has launched Hong Kong’s first self-service library vending machines at the Island East Sports Centre Sitting-out Area, offering users round-the-clock public library services with enhanced convenience and accessibility. Using a library card or Hong Kong ID, registered users can borrow and return library materials, pick up reserved library materials, and pay library fees with Octopus by following simple on-screen instructions. About 300 Chinese and English books are available for lending, and stock will be replenished every day. Similar library machines are rolling out in Beijing and Shanghai, too. www.hkpl.gov.hk

TRAVEL SMART, SAVE TIME

SLEEP WELL, ROBOT

Somnox is the world’s first sleep robot that helps you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up refreshed. As the ultimate interactive sleep companion, Somnox adopts an intelligent technology that soothes the body and mind. Developed in the Netherlands at the University of Technology Delft in collaboration with Auping – Europe’s leading circular mattress company – Somnox is a soft robot you can hug and spoon. When spooning, users will feel a breathing rhythm which reduces stress and induces sleep. Legitimized by thousands of years of Buddhist breathing techniques, be prepared to indulge yourself in the ultimate sleepinducing experience with Somnox. | www.somnox.nl

Increasingly, travelers increasingly are seeking authentic experience at travel destinations. However, finding trustworthy travel advice online from people in the know can be daunting.

With a vision to help users become smarter travelers wherever they are, Trec connects tourists with local experts via interactive, realtime mobile messaging on Facebook Messenger or WeChat. Get all the tips you need while travelling, be it for arts, bars, lodging, shopping, excursions, food, spa, and more.

Remember, it’s all about travelling smart while saving time. For a free consultation, try Trec now with promo code: TRECFREE www.trec.io

DIFFERENT IS BEAUTIFUL

Edited by Keina Chiu

SUSTAINABLE LUXURIES Launched in China last year, TOUCHEU is the world’s first online cross-border marketplace for sustainable, handcrafted luxuries and lifestyle masterpieces. With a core belief that sophistication can be both green and glamorous, the Founders reenacted the Silk Road initiative by listing globally sourced sustainable luxury brands on a seamless online platform. Specializing in an assortment of unparalleled handmade fashion, fine jewelry, home décor and artwork faithful to their provenances, TOUCHEU is pioneering as a one-stop ecommerce destination that offers a one-of-a-kind shopping experience while cultivating a community of conscientious consumers. | www.toucheu.com.cn 16 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

Rising Lotus aspires to create comfortable, functional, and stylish activewear for women around the world. As the mantra goes, “in order to look good, one needs to first feel good”. Each piece of apparel is designed specifically for athletic and fashionforward individuals. After all, uniqueness is each person’s greatest asset. By offering a trifecta solution to creating fashionable activewear, Rising Lotus hopes to break away from conventional fashion and beauty norms by conveying the message that different is beautiful.

Professionally designed in Hong Kong with premium fabrics and materials sourced from Taiwan, Rising Lotus is the ideal brand for those who won’t compromise comfort for fashion. www.risinglotusclothing.com

thrown away each day, the Forsyth siblings, Abigail and Jamie, created the KeepCup – a barista standard reusable takeaway coffee cup – in 2009. Since its launch in Australia, the KeepCup has been purchased by businesses and governments around the world. In view of the widespread sales of KeepCups, the Founders hope cafes will lift reuse rates eventually to 40% in the ‘to go’ habits of modern society. The HK office of VISTRA estimates that if its 350 employees use their new KeepCups every working day for a year, it will help keep 90,000 disposable cups out of the landfill. store.keepcup.com

LIFESTYLE

GREEN COFFEE CUP Motivated by the volume of disposable cups

THREE LITTLE WORDS

No, not ‘I love you’ – what3words gives every place a three-word address. It’s precise, simple, unique and it’s changing the way people and businesses talk about location. The team at what3words divided the world into a grid of 3m x 3m squares and assigned each with a unique three-word address.

Better addressing enhances customer experience, delivers business efficiency, drives growth and supports the social and economic development of countries. With what3words, everyone everywhere has a specific address. Very useful when travelling with friends and family, too. www.what3words.com

SNACKS ARE FOR SHARING Hong Kong startup Lingsik King is one of the fastest-growing online snack businesses in Asia. Mainly offering Japanese and local snacks, Lingsik King strives to offer value for as many snacks as possible to customers. The virtual nature of the business creates flexibility for the Lingsik team to spend as much time and effort as possible to source the most delectable snacks in Asia. For the Founders, it’s not about earning big bucks. No matter the occasion, Lingsik King is all about sharing snacks and spreading joy. After all, snacks are the quintessential conversation starters, bringing chill in summer and warmth in winter. www.lingsik.com

AI+ROBOTICS | 17

FEATURE

CENTRALIZED AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION ZONES

NEW DIRECTION AIMS TO OPTIMIZE THE PRODUCT SUPPLY, SECURE FOOD SAFETY, AND STABILIZE FARMERS’ LIVELIHOODS

By Le Lan Anh

18 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

A

GRICULTURE HAS always been the backbone of Vietnam’s economy, with 50% of the population working in farming, and 70% of land area used for agricultural activities. Vietnam is contributing significantly to world food security as one of the top countries of exporting produce such as rice, black pepper, coffee, seafood, etc.

In 2016, for the first time, Vietnam’s export value of fruit, vegetables and flowers (US$2.45 billion) exceeded the export value of crude oil (US$2.4 billion).

The export of fruit, vegetables and flower grows at the remarkable annual rate of 30% on average. It is forecast that the export value of fruit, vegetables and flower will reach US$9-10 billion in 2022. Therefore, this is one of the key areas for development, poverty production in Vietnam government policy.

In line with the policies, cities in Vietnam are developing centralized agricultural production zones. For instance in April 2017, Da Nang City– the third-largest city in Vietnam – approved the planning of 440 hectares for horticulture, livestock and aquaculture production in Hoa Vang district.

The city currently has nine areas of safe vegetable production, but this can only meet 5-7% of the city’s total consumption demand. Therefore, the centralized agricultural production zone aims to optimize the agricultural product supply, secure food safety, and stabilize farmers’ jobs and livelihoods.

Excited by the idea of the cities’ centralized agricultural production zones, MimosaTEK – one of the leading AgriTech startups in Vietnam – brought the idea of Industrialized Agricultural Production Zone to the Smart City Innovation Challenge in Hanoi organized

by MBI, ADB, Australian Government and TNB Ventures in November 2017.

This creative and feasible idea helped MimosaTEK earn a Top 3 result in the Challenge out of 197 applicants

from 30 countries. Tri Nguyen, CEO of MimosaTEK, came up with a critical question: “Why don’t we structure the agricultural production zone in the cities to be centralized and industrialized so that we can produce more multi-billiondollar crops for export?”

Based on the IoT platform for precision agriculture that MimosaTEK has been building, the proposed concept of Industrialised Agricultural Production Zone can control the input supplies centrally, produce with Industry 4.0 infrastructure managing the resources such as water and fertilizer precisely and transparent via software, and output contracted for local consumption or export. The whole production process is transparent and traceable as the data is captured by sensor devices or input by farmers.

This is made possible because MimosaTEK already deployed precision irrigation and fertigation solutions from 2016 in multiple provinces in Vietnam.

At MimosaTEK, we always try to solve the problem of how farmers can produce more with less resources in order to achieve sustainable development, feeding the larger population while conserving the natural resources.

Our solution is built around the crop needs and trying to analyze data such as crop demands, environmental data collected by sensors to give recommendation to farmers for resources and crop yield optimization.

All data are digitized to become the basis for Industry 4.0, for instance AI or data mining.

MimosaTEK’s solution is recognised by local farmers and international organizations. With the precision irrigation solution, in 2017 MimosaTEK was the first Vietnamese organization to win the Securing Water For Food Grand Challenge supported by United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Government of South Africa (DST), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (MFA-NL).

As a young AgriTech startup since the end of 2014, MimosaTEK’s journey has just started. Figuring out the unique direction, passing the harsh market tests, with vision for better Vietnamese and regional agriculture, MimosaTEK is working hard to serve the farmers and community through its technology.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Le Lan Anh is the COO of MimosaTEK. She graduated from National University of Singapore (First Class Honor), and worked in PricewaterhouseCooper LLP in Singapore before returning to Vietnam in 2016. Passionate about agriculture, she works closely with multiple stakeholders such as farmers, agricultural companies, local government, NGOs, and international organization. She led the MimosaTEK teams that won the Securing Water For Food Grand Challenge and Smart City Innovation Challenge. www.mimosatek.com/en

AI+ROBOTICS | 19

e

Drive in

Keyless

Luxury Car-Sharing At Your

Fingertips 20 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

By Glen Watson

FEATURE

M

Y DAD TAUGHT me how to drive, among many other things. He also taught college students how to program, and we had personal computers in our home since the late-1970s. So when he visited Hong Kong recently, it seemed appropriate to show him around Cyberport and some co-working spaces, as well as go for a drive.

Having visited the INFINITI Lab 3.0 accelerator program in Wanchai I knew about one of its startups, Cove – a Hong Kong company and the city’s first keyless car-sharing/rental service. This seemed to be a great way to show dad the latest technology, and go for a spin.

You can do everything via the Cove app from booking the vehicle and unlocking the car doors, to paying for the time used. It’s all charged by flat rate to include insurance as well as the petrol used. The general idea is that if you feel like going for a drive in a luxury car, just use the app and get the car from its parking spot. There are no lines to stand in, no people involved, no forms to fill out, no hidden charges.

I picked up a Range Rover Evoque in Tseung Kwan O, and drove out to Sai Kung and beyond. The technology worked perfectly, and it was a hassle-free afternoon spent driving with dad and reminiscing. Next time I might choose a sportier car, or a convertible.

“Cove focuses offering a variety of cars, models or brands, to our customers,” says Cove Co-founder XT Khaw. “We currently have partnerships with Jaguar, Land Rover, INFINITI and DCH Motors Leasing [that distributes Bentley, Nissan and Audi]. Most car-sharing companies provide very specific models of a brand or are brand specific, therefore focusing more on utility instead of the experience.

“Our customers can access the cars without having to go to a concierge or admin person. More importantly, we have built our own hardware that works across various brands noninvasively. This is something that does not exist in the market.”

Khaw and her team see Cove being popular in cities such as Hong Kong and Singapore, where owning a car is expensive and various forms of good public transportation are available.

Car-sharing is rather unpopular in these cities and therefore Cove will be able to fill the gap when consumers want flexible access to a car, such as running errands with family, weekend drives, going on dates, etc.

“We see Cove being not so popular in cities that have poor public transportation and rather spread out, such as Los

Angeles,” says Khaw. “There are, however, still pockets of Los Angeles [ie, Downtown LA] that could work.”

One of the drawbacks of driving in Hong Kong is the lack of parking. Cove’s vehicles have dedicated parking spots, usually in premium locations near lifts in residential car parks, for example.

“We have gone ahead to work with property management groups and have been lucky enough for some to be more innovative and willing to give it a try,” says Khaw. “We are currently working with Great Eagle Group and Nan Fung.

They both decided to offer a new amenity to their tenants and embrace technology.”

Surprisingly, one of the hurdles for Cove has been getting clients used to the idea of not using a car key. “When we launched Cove, we realized consumers were still not ready to completely rely on using the app to unlock/lock the doors,” says Khaw.

“To ease them through the process while still offering the convenience, we ran our pilots in such a way that only the first unlock and last lock is done through the app. The customers have access to the keys during their trip. This ensures that they still get the benefit of the experience being seamless, while easing them into using the app to replace a traditional key.”

Being part of INFINITI Lab 3.0 has also been beneficial for Cove. “It has been great in terms of helping us with branding and marketing,” says Khaw. “We were provided a mentor, Ben Wiggins, from the marketing team of INFINITI who has been offering a lot of his time and provided really great feedback and suggestions to shape our branding.

“As a startup, we are rather lean and do not currently have a full time marketing person and being able to have someone with Ben’s experience and calibre help us out is extremely valuable.”

The INFINITI Lab accelerator program is partnered with Nest, whose team is well connected in Hong Kong and able to make important introductions for the startups selected from all over the world.

“Through working with INFINITI and Nest the last 10 weeks, we are able to design our partnership plans with INFINITI and are excited about our future collaboration with them,” says Khaw. www.covedrive.com www.infiniti.com.hk/infiniti-lab.html nest.vc

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FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE LION CITY MORE INITIATIVES TO ATTRACT AI/ROBOTICS STARTUPS

By Babita Sivarajah

A

I TECHNOLOGY HAS TAKEN amazing leaps forward in recent years and Singapore wants to be viewed as a country leading the way into the next chapter of this technology. It understands the great opportunities in this field and actively wants to drive new business into the country. Singapore has various opportunities for funding research and technical advancement in this arena.

An Inviting Landscape

Singapore wants to be a global centre of excellence for new technology and the government is pushing this forward by introducing initiatives to tempt AI tech companies. (Never forget the tax incentives, too.) One major initiative is a National Programme called AI Singapore (AI.SG) announced in May 2017 with the aim to “power the future digital economy”.

AI Singapore is a collaboration of AI startups with Singapore-based research institutions. This government-wide partnership involves many of the main players: the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SMART), the Economic Development Board (EDB), the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), SGInnovate, and Integrated Health Information Systems. The NRF is looking to invest up to S$150 million (about US$108 million) over the next five years in AI Singapore.

“The scale and approach of AI.SG are unique,” says a spokesperson for MRF Singapore. “The multi-disciplinary project teams in AI.SG will work collaboratively across institutional affiliations, disciplines and national borders to investigate fundamentally different approaches to develop innovative AI technology and solutions. A key feature of AI.SG will be a series of Grand Challenges that will inspire both the researchers and the end users to tackle major societal challenges that are not only relevant for Singapore but also the global community.”

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Although AI Singapore does not disburse grants to organizations to develop AI products or services, its aim is to provide the technology go-to-place and AI expertise for collaboration on AI projects to de-risk part of the project implementation costs.

The Starting Line For Funding

The first port of call to find funding opportunities for your AI enterprise should be SPRING, which is the Singapore enterprise development agency that sits under the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

SPRING works with partners to help enterprises in financing, capability and management development, technology and innovation and access to markets.

It will merge with IE Singapore to form Enterprise Singapore in Q2 2018.

Source: SPRING Singapore

SPRING SEEDS Capital (SSC)

The investment arm of SPRING is SPRING SEEDS Capital (SSC), which co-invests with independent investor(s) in commercially viable Singapore-based startups with innovative and robust intellectual content that are scalable across international markets. SSC has committed up to S$100 million for potential startups. Plenty of capital opportunity.

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Startup SG

SSC runs the initiative Startup SG, which represents the shared interests of the startup community and positions Singapore as a leading startup hub. It provides entrepreneurs with a launchpad to connect them to the global stage and a platform to access local support initiatives.

Under the initiative there are six main areas of support. The first three listed below offer financial support. The current scope of your business will determine which area is most appropriate for you. Once this is decided you can then delve into the application procedure. The agency will have strict guidelines.

1 Startup SG Equity – This scheme catalyses private-sector investment for startups through government equity coinvestment. Under Startup SG Equity, SSC supports earlystage startups across a wide range of technology and industry domain areas. Startup SG Equity has different investment parameters for general tech and deep tech startups.

Investment Parameters

Investment Cap Per Startup

Economic Development Board (EDB)

There are also various schemes and grants offered by the Economic Development Board (EDB); another government agency under The Ministry of Trade and Industry.

The main difference between these grants and the StartUp SG initiatives is the stage at which your business is at. The EDB mainly wants to address growth of a fully formed business and help expand its capacities and activities within Singapore.

Research Incentive Scheme For Companies (RISC)

The Research Incentive Scheme for Companies (RISC) encourages the development of research and development capabilities and technologies through the support of projects in the areas of science and technology.

Training Grant for Company (TGC) General Tech

Deep Tech

S$2 million

S$4 million

Source: SPRING Singapore

2 Startup SG Tech – A competitive grant that fast-tracks the development of proprietary technology solutions. Through Startup SG Tech, companies may receive early-stage funding for the commercialisation of proprietary technology.

Startup SG Loan – Highlights government-backed loans for startups’ working capital, equipment/factory financing and trade financing needs, offered through participating financial institutions. Currently, two loans are on offer: SME Micro Loans Companies with 10 or less employees that have products or services on the market may access working capital financing of up to S$100,000 to support their dayto-day business operations.

SME Venture Loan Innovative, high-growth companies that have products or services on the market may access alternative financing of up to S$5 million for business expansion.

The Training Grant for Company (TGC) encourages manpower capability development in applying new technologies, industrial skills and professional knowhow through the support of training programmes for companies’ employees.

Productivity Grant (PG)

The Productivity Grant (PG) encourages firm-level projects which aim at improvements to energy, water, land or labour efficiencies through transformation efforts to enhance companies’ operations or involving adoption of technologies.

Opportunities Abound

Singapore provides a very engaged and committed environment for a business in the AI arena. There are no shortages of funding opportunities or opportunities to nurture your business.

Source: SPRING Singapore

3 Startup SG Founder – If looking for a mentor, this initiative recognizes how invaluable a mentor can be and helps provide a match to your business and current need. It will fund up to S$30,000 to first-time entrepreneurs with innovative business ideas by matching S$3 to every S$1 raised by the startup.

4 Startup SG Accelerator – Aims to help fast track your idea in strategic growth sectors. It wants to work with incubators to promote the growth of startups through the mentorship and networks of selected partners.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Babita Sivarajah is the Co-founder of SES International and The SE Solutions Agency, both of which enable

5 Startup SG Talent – This is about bringing together great minds. They want to set up an environment that encourages global talent to join local startups and set up innovative businesses in Singapore.

foreign businesses to set up in Singapore and the Asian market. She runs the Business Advisory team and is a licensed immigration specialist. www.SESinternational.com

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COVER STORY

LIGHT MY FIRE

THERE’S MUCH TO LOVE ABOUT AI & ROBOTICS, IF ALL GOES WELL

By Glen Watson

G

OOGLE CHIEF EXECUTIVE Sundar Pichai recently declared that artificial intelligence fuelled by powerful computers was more important to humanity than fire or electricity. Alibaba’s Jack Ma predicts AI robots will replace human CEOs within 30 years. Meanwhile, an Oxford-Yale survey of 352 machine learning experts predicted a 50 percent chance that AI will outperform humans in all tasks in just 45 years, and could take over all jobs by the end of the century.

Machines are expected to excel humans in language translation by 2024, in writing high-school essays by 2026, in driving a truck by 2027, and working in retail service jobs by 2031, according to research by Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute and Yale University. By 2049, machines will be able to write a bestseller, and by 2053 they’ll be working as surgeons.

Yikes. I had trouble getting out of bed this morning and deciding what to eat for breakfast before work let alone worry about the impact AI is having on my life now, let alone in the future.

Face The Facts

Last year, Google’s AlphaGo beat Ke Jie in the game of GO. In January, AI created by Alibaba and Microsoft tied for first place on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD), beating the human score for Exact Match (providing exact answers to questions based on Wikipedia articles).

There’s no denying that AI is here, to stay. Whether the same can be said for humans remains to be seen.

Use It Wisely

Most people would agree that using AI to help keep traffic and pedestrians moving smoothly and efficiently are good things.

Fewer might agree on facial recognition software being utilized to monitor people, although being able to find someone who has committed a crime probably outweighs our right to privacy and other concerns.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced in her October policy address that the Hospital Authority, which manages the city’s public hospitals, would develop a big data system to identify useful patterns in the records to help shape policy and ease medical research.

Presumably, all of this data would remain anonymous.

But maybe AI could decide on its own to name everyone with a certain very contagious disease, in the best interest of all the other people.

There are many concerns, as well as positives. All we can do is hope for the best, and possibly prepare for the worst.

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Beyond Your Imagination: GJS’s Fighting Robots

By Chloe Wong

The Kill Switch

Being able to shut off AI once it is up and running is a massive task. Even if such a switch is included, the AI device or whatever might figure out how to disable it or otherwise function even if the plug gets pulled. Then we’re in a heap of trouble, as we’ve read in many books and seen in lots of scary movies about the future.

Man VS Machine

Machine learning refers to using programs that learn and improve themselves using data, without human intervention. Let that sink in for a minute… without human intervention. If you have a child or pet dog, you know what can happen quickly when you’re not looking.

In the following articles, we offer a peek at what’s happening in AI and robotics around Asia.

It’s by no means a complete picture, but it shows that our intentions are good, the potential is huge, many areas can benefit, and if all goes well this really could be more important to humanity than fire or electricity.

That said, people and property do sometimes burn and being electrocuted isn’t unheard of despite all the knowledge we have and precautions we take.

Nowadays when we talk about robotics and robots, we mostly think of their applications and how they foster human civilization and city digitalization. In fact, for many decades robots have been created purely for entertaining purposes rather than for application. Leonardo da Vinci drew up plans for a robot at the end of the 15th Century, and the oldest known ‘automaton’ was created in the late-1700s.

More recently, robots have been a fascination to many – especially those who watched Gundama and Tetsujin 28-go growing up. The Shenzhen-based GJS team produces personalsized, fighting robots designed for combat between competitors.

Founded in 2015, the company has a young team of believers who’ve been passionate about robots since a very young age and want to turn their childhood dreams into reality.

Tangibilizing your imagination into something you can actually hold on your palm isn’t easy – especially when you’re talking about making robots. While you’ve got your eyebrow raised, GJS is proof that actually it is possible.

Initially the idea was to create robots with two legs and they thought, “ Isn’t that what a robot should look like, just like all the TV shows and movies?” It’s only when it went into production that they realized there are still a lot of technical limitations to producing a ‘two-legged robot’. Despite having recurring technical roadblocks, the team says ‘no’ to boundaries.

“There are way too many technical issues that we need to solve. Our friends could not even believe we are trying to create robots, but we did what we wanted since a kid anyway,” says GJS CMO Robert Lou in Hong Kong at a recent demonstration event at Arco City, a coworking and shared office space in Wanchai.

In July 2016, GJS’s Ganker robot went on a crowdfunding campaign and raised over USD$120,000. In the last quarter of 2017, they secured over RMB 10 million with a Series A investment by Tencent.

GJS launched another crowdfunding campaign last year with the new product GEIO, a battle bot with visual recognition.

This fighting robot has become popular around the world, with fans from United States, UK, Europe, and Asia. A true epitome of “if you can dream it, you can do it.” www.gjs.so AI+ROBOTICS | 25

FEATURE

`

MAKING SENSE OF SENSETIME THERE’S MORE TO THIS UNICORN THAN MEETS THE EYE

By Dr Li Xu, Co-founder & CEO of SenseTime

S

ENSETIME WAS SET UP IN 2014, and is China’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) unicorn focused on computer vision and deep-learning technologies. Prof Xiao’ou Tang and a team of 10 scientists and engineers including myself are the Co-founders.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, SenseTime has offices in Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Kyoto and Tokyo.

Our target definitely is not to create a small company to be acquired, but rather a ‘platform company’ for global users that dominates with original core technology, like Google and Facebook.

China’s Largest AI Unicorn

SenseTime is focused primarily on computer vision and deep learning, and has independently developed a deep learning platform and a deep learning supercomputing center. With proprietary technologies serving as its foundational driver, SenseTime is China’s largest AI unicorn (valued at more than US$3 billion) and has established an R&D center, integrated with various industries, and forged partnerships across the board to create an AI ecosystem.

Wide Range of Technologies

Over the past three years of development, SenseTime has launched a wide range of AI technologies including facial recognition, image recognition, text recognition, video image analysis, image and video editing, remote sensing, autonomous driving, medical image recognition, and AI computer chips. In doing so, we have become China’s largest AI algorithms provider.

Working With HKSTP

We established SenseTime at Hong Kong Science & Technology Parks (HKSTP) in Shatin and our headquarters is still there. HKSTP helped to arrange and facilitate networking, marketing and technology demonstration opportunities for SenseTime. For example, SenseTime was engaged in the visits of key government officials at HK Science Park, including the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Financial Secretary, and senior government officials from the mainland.

HKSTP also facilitated business sharing sessions between SenseTime and major authorities such as HKMA and HKEx. Through the “Technology from Science Park” programme, HKSTP has arranged one-on-one business matching for SenseTime and large enterprises.

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Deep Learning Platform

SenseTime’s independent and proprietary deep learning platform Parrots is optimized to support wide-scale networks, extra-large data study, and complex applications. To speed up the time it takes to develop deep learning algorithmic models, SenseTime has built a deep learning supercomputing center that significantly reduces R&D costs for a wide range of AI technologies. It effectively serves as SenseTime’s hardware infrastructure for algorithms R&D.

Computer Vision

In the last few years, SenseTime’s computer vision technologies have quickly landed in the market. They include facial recognition, image recognition, text recognition, video image analysis, image and video editing, autonomous driving, remote sensing, and medical image recognition.

Commercial Success

Besides its technological strengths, SenseTime has achieved commercial successes. It has powered many industries, including security, smart phone, mobile internet, automobile, financial services, retail, education, and health care.

Customers & Corporate Partners

SenseTime has served more than 400 customers and partners in China and abroad, among them world-renowned companies such as Honda, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, China Mobile, UnionPay, HNA, Suning, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, Weibo and iFLYTEK. As such, SenseTime’s solutions cover security, finance, automobile, smart retail, smartphone, mobile Internet, robotics, and other industries.

SenseTime has crafted the unique and successful “1 (basic research) + 1 (products and solutions) + X (industry)” model that uses SenseTime’s engine to get results for the industries. SenseTime currently leads the market in almost all of its product categories, as well as industry commercial revenue. It also leads in the many vertical industries it serves.

AI+ROBOTICS | 27

FEATURE

Contributing To Society

Here are two impressive cases that prove our solutions contribute value to society: The high-security prison in Inner Mongolia leverages the national first dynamic face recognition people control system developed by SenseTime, which effectively assists the security control in the prison, increases management efficiency and enhances staff productivity.

With the use of high-definition videos, the system can recognize faces in real scenarios of day and night attendance, surveillance in major zones, staff patrol in prison, staff attendance, etc. The system is used mainly for authentication and intelligent security management to highly improve safety, precautions and the crisis handling ability of the prison.

One Public Security Bureau in China leverages SenseFace, a face detection platform developed by SenseTime that effectively assists police officers in detecting and finding lost elderly people within hours after family members report the case to the bureau. SenseTime contributes to the human value of family reunion. It greatly assists the bureau to save working time and solve problems in an efficient way.

Face detection systems can detect faces within milliseconds, reading even low-quality, complex pictures and surveillance videos of large crowds. They are capable of decoding facial profiles, partially obscured and blurry images, and moving facial expressions, as well as facial images taken in other environments.

Safer Self-Driving Cars

SenseTime recently announced a five-year R&D partnership with Honda involving self-driving cars.

Safety is the number one priority when it comes to driving, and it also constitutes the core of our autonomous driving solution.

By combining SenseTime’s strengths in computer vision technologies with Honda’s superior vehicle control technologies, we will together enable a safe and pleasant autonomous driving experience anywhere, including urban areas. Moreover, the fact that SenseTime provides core technology to a global enterprise like Honda marks a milestone.

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About 500 Patents, So Far...

Lots Of Investor Interest

SenseTime is one of the few Chinese companies that owns proprietary deep learning platforms, which gives us an edge over competition. We’ve filed about 500 patents, which is significant for a company that is just three years old. For any startups to succeed, we believe it’s important to own IPs and have the ability to develop proprietary technologies.

The country’s top venture capital and private equity firms have brought robust support. Following the latest financing round (US$410 million Series B and US$227 million from Alibaba), SenseTime has allocated more resources to developing autonomous driving, intelligent medical treatment, and deep learning computer chips.

It will also strengthen its technology platform and attract more talent to open up greater applications scenarios as well as a SenseTime-driven AI commercial ecosystem.

What The Future Holds

We plan to do an IPO, but don’t have concrete timeline at this moment. Also, we are working on a US R&D center and will share more details when the time is right.

Biggest Challenges

We have to attract more talents to open up greater applications scenarios, as well as a SenseTime-driven AI commercial ecosystem. Having a deep understanding of the vertical industries we serve, and keeping up as the industries evolve can also be challenging.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr Li Xu is Co-founder and CEO of SenseTime, one of the unicorn startups in China. Under his leadership, Dr Xu has led SenseTime to achieve a number of breakthroughs in artificial intelligence R&D. At ImageNet 2015, SenseTime was the first Chinese company to win the top award. At ImageNet 2016, his team won three individual championships.

Prior to joining SenseTime, Dr Xu worked at Lenovo Corporate Research & Development, and was visiting researcher at Motorola China R&D Institute, Omron Research Institute, and Microsoft Research.

Dr Xu obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He holds a doctor’s degree in computer science from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. With doctoral research focusing on computer vision and computer imaging, Dr Xu has published more than 50 papers at top international conferences and in journals in the field of computer vision. www.sensetime.com

AI+ROBOTICS | 29

FEATURE

PREJUDICE IN CODING AND HOW TO FIX IT

EVOLUTION DOES NOT HAVE A PURPOSE – REVOLUTION DOES

By Kathy Gong

E

VOLUTION OBEYS THE LAWS of nature, yet revolution follows human intentions. In the context of natural laws, it is the fundamental building blocks such as quarks (or particles even smaller, yet to be discovered) out of which we – and everything around us – are made.

What are the building blocks of our revolutions in human history? The most recent one to rise is the revolution of Artificial Intelligence (or Super-intelligence). It is only a matter of time before the advancement of Artificial Intelligence will rebuild some of the existing orders in our society, just as the Industrial Revolution and Information Revolution did in the past.

In my opinion, the building block in the revolution of Artificial Intelligence is coding.

You may disagree because coding has been there since the very beginning of machinery, or more strictly speaking, in the early days of computing. As US Army mathematicians put it: “Garbage in, garbage out (GIGO).”

However, compared to the coding in the Information Age that was mainly instructed to generate data, the essential difference now is that coding is formed into substantial amounts of intelligence, which is empowered to make decisions on behalf of human beings.

Sooner or later – in fact, it is already happening now – most of the crucial moments where people interact with large bureaucratic systems will involve an algorithm and be decided by an algorithm, from applying for a credit card to getting a job, buying healthcare insurance or receiving a body checkup.

Even our personal decisions such as making friends and dating someone will inevitably be affected subconsciously or unconsciously, because people are now being scored and quantified in datasets through coding.

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However, let us not forget that artificial brains can only be as ‘moral’ as the people coding them. The output can only be as ‘fair’ as the chosen data being input.

If prejudicial thinking is coded and the data of minorities is somewhat underrepresented or compromised, the DNA of its discriminative mother sample will be copied, evolved and turned into new building blocks of our society and deeply embedded in the practices of human rights.

Worst of all, classes of artificial intelligence algorithms are black boxes coded by the very select few in skewed demographics. When AI spots patterns in the initially selected data, enabling it to recognize similar patterns in new data and evolve via unsupervised advanced learning, even the select few could stop understanding how it works.

Artificial Intelligence itself does not have common sense or a purpose. When the blueprint of a building block is comprised, we will find ourselves in an age of “prejudice in, discrimination out”. Only with artificial intelligence, the discrimination will be programmed, automated, largely applied and nearly impossible to appraise as the AI’s decision-making processes would be too complex to deduce.

Yes, we need representatives, not just of a select few, but a full cross-section of humanity. It is much easier said than done.

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Let’s not hide the truth. First, the data used to calibrate machine-learning algorithms are abundant and disproportionate because of the way they are being generated and labelled. Second, algorithms were coded without a design in the system of checks to restrict the concentrated results. Therefore a potential abuse of data.

The last one seems least urgent, but will perhaps have the most profound effects – unequal access to and non-relevant education (we’re still teaching our children knowledge that will be completely useless when they enter society in 10 years). Unfair access to education and the quality of it will further widen and accelerate inequality in the face of new technology – such as farming to agricultural revolution, power to industrial revolution, Internet to information revolution.

Common sense and values need to be designed as a blueprint and coded as a system, whereas biases are detected as bugs.

It takes the brightest minds and all of humans’ efforts to tackle this global challenge that will fundamentally affect us and future generations are going to face – and it needs to be addressed now. Even though we do not have a well-thought solution for such a complex problem yet, there are some existing ways of thinking that can inspire us towards that direction.

There are a few important AI frameworks being built under the logic of Game Theory. Generative adversarial networks (GANs) is implemented by a system of two neural networks contesting and trying to ‘fool’ each other in a zero-sum game framework. GANs was invented by my friend Dr Ian Goodfellow in 2014.

This technique is now used to generate photographs that look superficially authentic to human observers, as well as used to detect superficial photographs that are impossible to be distinguished by human eyes.

The use of GANs is now common in image processing.

However with the recent development of new deep stubborn networks, it has a potential to move toward more high-level simulation of human cognitive tasks.

Let’s say we build multi-generative networks that construct results from input in each network, and its input are selected and coded in preset orders.

The results are shown to their paired discriminative network. The discriminative network is then supposed to distinguish between relatively ‘well-balanced and fair’ and ‘disproportionate and biased’ results given by the generative network. The generative networks try to ‘fool’ the discriminative networks, which will be trained to recognize particular sets of patterns and models.

To code common sense, advance the power of neural networks and their ability to “think” in humanity, is our first step towards a possible solution.

Revolution has a purpose. It is to build a society where ordinary people will have a chance to achieve extraordinary things, and where “the elderly are cared for, friends are trusted and the young are well taught.”

(Confucius《 論語· 公冶長》) It is our duty to safeguard this purpose of humanity and ensure that it thrives through changing times.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kathy Gong is Co-founder and CEO of WafaGames in Beijing. She was named one of MIT’s 35 Innovators under 35 in 2017 and has launched a series of companies in different industries, including a machine-learning company that created a robotic divorce lawyer called Lily and a robotic immigration lawyer called Mike.

She founded ai.Law, Seeway Investment and KG Inc and was a Foundation Board member of Global Shapers Community, an initiative of the World Economic Forum. Kathy became a chess master at age 13 and is a former national chess champion in China. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics & East Asia Studies from Columbia University. www.wafagames.com | www.facebook.com/wafagames

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FEATURE

IN SEARCH OF A CURE, ONE ROBOT AT A TIME

By Keina Chiu

W

ITH THE OBJECTIVE of restoring active lifestyles for in-patients, the disabled, and the elderly, Hong Kong-based MedEXO Robotics pours their heart and soul into developing affordable, convenient, and socially inclusive devices that palliate movement difficulties.

Their champion product, the WalkAid, is a wearable gear that combats the ‘Freezing of Gait’ (FoG) symptom of Parkinson’s disease.

Affecting 26% of patients with mild Parkinson’s and 80% of those who suffer from more severe cases, FoG is a momentary cessation in motor activity that halts patients’ ability to move around.

The WalkAid

Comprised of two major components – the Visual Cue Device and Tactile Insoles – WalkAid is a rehabilitation robot that helps Parkinson’s patients with walking difficulties. The former provides visual cues via laser projections, while the latter is a tactile walking guide that gives off vibrational signals.

Complementing the device is a mobile app that A BETTER FUTURE AI and humans coexist works with a laser device supported by an Internet server. “Upon providing data visualization, the app enables a customized user’s setting by letting users set their preferred laser intensity ranges, insole vibration mode, and insole vibration intervals,” says MedEXO Robotics Founder and CEO, Denis Huen Yin-fan. In 2016, the serial healthcare entrepreneur

THE ELDERLY No cure for Parkinson’s disease

ROBOTICS Motion censor and visual cues

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE Social impact and technology innovation

Wearable devices, affordable and userfriendly for Parkinson’s Disease patients.

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abnormal movements by reducing tremor amplitudes and enhancing voluntary motions.

Personalized treatment is optimized through collected data and user feedback. Ultimately, the arm serves as a remote monitoring platform that enables doctors and family members to keep track of their patient’s condition any time, and anywhere.

MedEXO Robotics has won many awards, including the Gold Award in E2 Day (Social X Tech) Pitching Competition, Champion in DBS Social Innovators 2016, Champion in BREAKTHROUGH Stage at RISE 2016, Audience Award in Oxford University Innovation Idea Idol 2017 and Winner of the Harvard Business School Association of Hong Kong Startup Competition 2017.

FEATURE

also co-founded MedPot, a social enterprise, to help chronically medicated elderlies to consume drugs safely with the assistance of technology.

Among other things, patients can also gain access to information on their devices including battery status, real-time data, an archive of past records, as well as a performance report which informs users about FoG occurrences.

“A patient’s lower-body movements can be recognized with great precision by applying data retrieved from the motion sensors onto the app or laser device. This means that detections can easily be made whenever a patient falls down from tripping or losing balance,” says Huen.

Because the root cause of Parkinson’s is still unknown, discovering a total cure for Parkinson’s is no easy task. While some cases of Parkinson’s are hereditary, most are sporadic. According to Huen, more often than not, the disease results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. While scientists have yet to come up with a cure, existing medications and surgical practices are able to alleviate symptoms by a substantial amount.

Cobots, Not Robots

Meanwhile, despite the rising influence of AI, Huen deems it unnecessary for medical practitioners to worry about labour displacement. “Although AI can be trained, taught, and is smart enough to do a lot of autonomous work, when it comes to medical application, final decisions still lay within the hands of qualified medical practitioners. In light of certain ethical issues, robotics and AI should facilitate instead of replace humans,” he says. With this in mind, Huen coined the term “cobots” to refer to robots that that will coexist with us in all our future endeavours.

ABOUT DENIS HUEN YIN-FAN Denis Huen Yin-fan is an award-winning scientist and entrepreneur with a specialization in health care. Currently a PhD candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Oxford University, he completed a Master of Science by

What’s Next?

At present, MedExo Robotics is developing an exoskeleton robotic arm device to mitigate neural disorders in the upper limbs. With a comprehensive suppression control system, this up-and-coming creation provides a resistive and constraining force to control

Research Programme with distinction in Medical Robotics and Image Guided Intervention at Imperial College London. One of his past inventions, a robotic leg for the disabled, obtained numerous awards including the Third Place Grand Award at the 57th Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2006. In the same year, he was named one of three “Little Young Scientists of Tomorrow” by the Ministry of Education of China. www.medexorobotics.com

AI+ROBOTICS | 33

FEATURE

AI TRENDS IN 2018 WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR THIS YEAR IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

By Dr Hsuan-Tien Lin

Faster, More Accurate And More Versatile

A

RTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) systems based on deep learning and machine learning techniques are now helping enterprises around the world to influence sales, make operations more efficient, and generate new insights to boost productivity. The technology powers a wide range of hardware and software, and can be found in watches, phones and cars. AI is now so useful that International Data Corporation predicted that global spending on cognitive and AI systems would reach US$12.5 billion in 2017, an increase of 59.3% over 2016.

Major industry analysts say the use of AI technologies reached an inflection point in 2017, and Appier agrees. In October 2017, Deepmind announced that the AlphaGo Zero AI learned how to play the game GO without referencing any previous games, and yet was able to beat its AI predecessors at the game.

Last year, we also saw Imec demonstrate a self-learning chip that not only composes original music, but can learn to compose music in different genres after exposure to those types of music. Achieving desired outcomes without training on existing datasets and self-learning were thought to be out of reach before these discoveries.

Appier predicts that in 2018, the AI world will continue to deliver amazing capabilities straight out of science fiction.

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We are on track for AI technology to become mainstream by 2020. Gartner has observed that AI will be found in apps and services and will lead to real benefits for digital initiatives through to 2025. According to IDC, the Asia-Pacific region will become the second-largest region for cognitive/AI spending by 2020.

More milestones will be reached in AI research, driving bigger and better hardware and software that can in turn achieve more accurate predictions and recommendations.

Time to market for innovative new products and services will speed up, too, as AI helps to automate applications development and delivery. Mass manufacturing could disappear as brands can now target narrow market segments with small quantities of customized products, updating them as tastes change.

AI has already begun to make sense out of business data, providing insights and predictions to enhance marketing and improve business performance today. At Appier, the AI-based Aixon platform helps businesses predict consumer behavior, and the use cases are growing.

Vendors will be able to showcase successes that reflect both quantitative and qualitative benefits for AI technology, while more businesses will be comfortable with adopting AI systems and relying on recommendations from AIs as they experience positive results for themselves.

Become Core Technology

Appier forecasts that AI will appear in more core technology.

AI showed promise from 2011-2015, and will be increasingly commercialized from 2016-2020. From 2020, AI will become an essential part of our lives and technology that we can use effectively to solve problems.

We are mid-way through the 2016-2020 cycle. AI-powered systems will be put through their paces in various commercial trials in 2018, or deployed in limited environments in more cities. In response to market demand, more vendors will offer business-related software and services that provide data analytics powered by AI in 2018.

As far as applications go, software that makes gaining and retaining customers easier – such as predicting which customers are likely to leave a brand or how to increase personalized interactions – will become popular.

Gain Trust As A User Interface

Chatbots and voice-activated digital assistants such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa will become smarter and more versatile in 2018, encouraging more people to use them to get things done, and businesses to implement them for first-level customer service. These applications use AI to understand spoken or typed conversations and can interact more intelligently with humans than conventional software.

Beige Market Intelligence forecasts that the global chatbot market is likely to post a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 28% during the 2016-2022 period as awareness grows about their usefulness. In the October 2017 report entitled Predictions 2018: Digital Disruption is the New Normal for B2B Marketing, Forrester predicts more vendors will enter this market.

Forrester also predicts that the technology will be powerful enough to identify potential customers, and follow up accordingly. While chatbots and virtual assistants typically handle short interactions, mining longer conversations could well be a possibility in the near future.

FEATURE

Validation As A Business Consultant

The Role AI Will Play In Our Lives

We will change the way we live and work due to AI, and for the better. While AI systems can do many tasks better than humans and will take over repetitive, time-consuming or physically-dangerous tasks from humans, they are unlikely to replace humans altogether. The new AI-based applications will raise our quality of life and allow us to have more time to do what we want.

Completely new kinds of jobs could be created for up to 80% of companies, according to a CapGemini study. Jobs that will be in demand will include data scientist and project manager. With AI potentially restructuring society and business, we may not be able to imagine what kinds of skills are needed for the future. The most useful career skill we can cultivate is the ability to adapt quickly to change.

Businesses which already have real-world customer data which can be used to train AI systems will likely be the ones in the lead. Gartner has found that 59% of organizations are working on AI strategies, while the rest have already tested AI solutions.

In the Asia-Pacific region, businesses need to start thinking seriously about AI. Whether it is training an adaptable workforce, asking if the technology they want to purchase has AI components, and looking at building their own AI capabilities in-house, getting ready for an AI-capable world will stand them in good stead.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr Hsuan-Tien Lin is a beloved figure in Asia’s Artificial Intelligence community. Prior to joining Appier as Chief Data Scientist, he was an Associate Professor of Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University (NTU). In 2017, Dr Lin received the Young Scholars’ Creativity Award from the Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship (FAOS).

Between 2010-2013, Dr Lin co-led his university’s team to victory in machine learning competition KDDCup six times. He co-authored a machine learning textbook Learning from Data, which is a bestseller on Amazon. Online, his teachings on machine learning, hosted on Coursera, have been viewed millions of times. Dr Lin also served as the Secretary General of Taiwanese Association for Artificial Intelligence in 2013/14.

He received his PhD and MS in Computer Science from the California Institute of Technology. www.appier.com

AI+ROBOTICS | 35

SAY HELLO TO CHATBOTS THESE TALKATIVE COMPUTER PROGRAMS ENABLE BETTER CUSTOMER INTERACTION

By Aria Nurfikry

IMAGINE YOU’RE ONLINE SHOPPING for some new cool gadgets. You find the item you want to buy, you like it, it fits your budget, all you’ve got to do is put it in the shopping cart and pay. You enter your credit card number. You click buy… and then the purchase fails. There’s an issue with your credit card. You know for sure you’ve paid the bill, you know for sure you haven’t maxed out your limit.

There’s only one thing you can do. Call the bank. You shudder at the idea of waiting for the agent to answer while listening to crappy music, answering tedious questions, more waiting, and more questions until the issue is resolved.

There’s an easier way for you to interact with your bank, letting you easily get what you need faster. At the other end of this interaction, your bank actually wants something better, too. Running a call center to handle customers is a costly effort, requiring hundreds or even thousands of customer service agents to handle all the questions. Mostly these questions are repetitive, with a lot of similar complaints from numerous customers. It’s a mundane and tedious job.

Read As we enter the age of AI, there’s a better solution for a business to interact with customers. It’s called a chatbot, a computer program powered by Artificial Intelligence that can answer questions and perform functions through a conversation. It’s basically a robot that can answer your questions and help you through a chat platform such as Facebook Messenger, Line, or Whatsapp.

Instead of having thousands of people answer to millions of questions from customers, within a second these chatbots can handle questions and help thousand of customers all at once. Sure, there may come a time when human intervention is needed for special cases, but for the easier things, the bot can handle most of it.

This is a new trend that has been leveraged by major businesses all over the world. It has become possible due to the development of Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing technology. In short, making AI smart enough to understand and respond to a conversation with humans.

Read Beyond enabling a better customer experience, there is huge potential for chatbots to become the next big platform after mobile apps. With people installing fewer apps on their phones, making a chatbot that people can interact with inside popular messaging apps can be one solution that businesses should explore. In fact, ride-hailing companies such as Uber have already created a chatbot within Blackberry Messenger that can be used to order rides.

In Indonesia, Kata.ai is one of the pioneer in the field of Conversational AI. It has helped major corporations from various industries in Indonesia to build chatbots that help drive their business goals, whether it’s better customer service, marketing, or customer engagement.

The existing case studies for the usage of chatbots developed by Kata.ai have shown immense success. Among them are Telkomsel, Indonesia’s largest telco company with more than 150 million customers.

Telkomsel’s chatbot is called Veronika, a virtual assistant that can handle all the needs of Telkomsel customers, and can be accessed through various platforms including Line and Facebook Messenger.

Veronika can give users access to product information, latest promotions, customer service, as well as facilitating various transactions such as buying phone credits and data packages, or making bill payments. Beyond that, Veronika can help customers access a location-based service to find the nearest GraPARI (Telkomsel’s brick-and-mortar customer service center), and reserve an appointment for the consumers to meet the customer service agents at GraPARI. Read

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All of this can be accessed easily through simple conversations and questions, so customers can talk to the chatbot as if talking to a human instead of having to memorize keywords to access certain services or functions. About 95% of all customer inquiries can be handled by the chatbot, which improves efficiency for the company.

The other success story is Unilever Indonesia’s female chatbot persona that is relatable to the key audience, emulating a witty and trustworthy best friend. It is designed to entertain and build relationship through everyday conversations.

We decided to name the chatbot Jemma. With a bubbly personality that everybody loves talking to, Jemma is capable of handling various conversation topics, from simple greetings to specific conversation cases such as relationships, food recommendations, and Indonesian pop culture.

Aside from handling everyday conversations, the key features that Jemma offers are weekly zodiacs, lifehacks, and the latest entertainment news. As the user base grew exponentially in the first three months, we found that most users have gotten quite attached to Jemma – some of them even tried to confide their dreams and problems to her.

Read Given the circumstances, we decided to add one dedicated feature where users can specifically tell their concerns and hopes to the chatbot. Jemma, like the best friend she is, will sympathetically listen and give words of encouragement to users.

While it is clear from the start that Jemma is just a chatbot, somehow users continue to confide in Jemma because, apparently, it feels like conversing to a real person – a best friend. Jemma is effective as one of Unilever’s alternative digital marketing channels to promote products and events.

In less than a year after deployment, Jemma has managed to acquire 1.5 million friends, with more than 50 million incoming messages in 17 million sessions. In October 2017, Jemma won “The Most Interactive Brand Chatbot” award by LINE Corporation.

With these success stories, it is clear that chatbots have turned from an interesting experiment into a mature business strategy that companies need to adapt because not only can it provide a more efficient way of doing business, it also helps you, the consumer, to have a better experience while interacting with these companies.

Imagine how much easier it would be if you could just talk to the chatbot of your bank or internet provider, or even to shop or order food. Life would be better.

Read ABOUT THE AUTHOR Aria Nurfikry is Brand Marketing Manager for Kata.ai. He uses the power of storytelling to help people understand the impact that Artificial Intelligence technology can bring for society and businesses. Before joining Kata.ai, Aria was the Marketing Manager for Dattabot, another Indonesian startup focused on Big Data Analytics technology. Prior to that, he was a Consultant at a large Indonesian PR firm where he handled major clients from various industries. www.kata.ai Read

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ROBOTICS IN VIETNAM THE HOPES AND WOES OF AN EMERGING MARKET

By Keina Chiu

F

LUCTUATING VARIANCES in production volume and tight deadlines are issues that SMEs often face. While robots could be the ultimate solution, existing industrial robots on the market often cost an arm and a leg – not to mention the daunting operational complications that make them unsuitable for small-scale businesses. In view of the demand for a solution, ROBOT3T began designing and manufacturing specialty robots that are not only easy to operate, but highly cost effective.

Located in Ho Chi Minh City, ROBOT3T is one of the region’s most prestigious research and development firms in the realm of robotics and automation. Designing and building robotic systems using state-of-the-art technologies, ROBOT3T responds rapidly and flexibly to the emerging demands for industrial applications at SMEs in developing nations.

Their R&D team is comprised of talented young researchers and highly motivated mechanical and electrical engineers who are excellent at embedded systems and software.

Equipped with sophisticated configuration and mechanics, ROBOT3T robots are able to react swiftly to surging automation trends of industrial SMEs in developing countries.

ROBOT3T aims to build a comprehensive robotics ecosystem for SMEs, using both hardware, software, and other controller mechanisms. More than that, their ultimate goal is to raise productivity and product quality with a complete, ready-to-use solution curated by cutting-edge technologies.

The Vietnamese Market

Labour Displacement Fears

With the advent of rapidly developing artificial intelligence, the possibility to create highly intelligent robots has been tremendously elevated. However, there is still a long way to go for hardware technologies to catch up with the evolution of AI. Admittedly, replacing human labour completely with robots simply isn’t a viable option due to the fact that complexities in reality still call for the human touch. “Robotic replacement of workers in high-risk jobs is essential. Other than that, it enhances productivity and shifts an economy from manufacturing-based to service-based in the long run.

Subsequently, economy will enter a whole new era that takes advantage of AI by immersing it within all areas of society including education, housing, medicine, and more,” says Truong.

Expanding rapidly domestically and globally, ROBOT3T is now serving over 500 customers from 60 countries and territories. In 2017, ROBOT3T was named “Startup of The Year” and “Best Deep Tech/AI/Big Data Startup” at the Vietnam Rice Bowl Startup. They also attained a Runner-Up Prize at Startup Wheel 2017.

a legitimate robot industry is “ Atstillpresent, non-existent in Vietnam. However,

“The robot industry in Vietnam is still in its infancy, hence it is necessary for robotics companies and entrepreneurs to be well-prepared if they want to excel,” says ROBOT3T Chairman and CEO Trong Toai Truong. According to the lead scientist, this includes speeding up R&D to build a specialized robotics platform that eliminates technological gaps for industry around the world.

“At the same time, it is necessary for us to work closely with companies and countries that are already well-developed in terms of the robotics field, as this will facilitate technology transfer and robot trading in Vietnam,” he adds. Currently, a lot of Vietnamese businesses hope to apply robotic technologies in their manufacturing practices. However, various barriers still hamper its effective application.

Given the fact the number of robots deployed in Vietnam is still very low, most up-and-coming robotics startups possess great potential. Often in the early stages, enterprises tend to prioritize robotics applications upon complex tasks, especially those involving toxic materials and chemicals, as well as others 38 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

that require hefty manpower. As of now, ROBOT3T derives most of its orders from mechanical and heavy industries.

It is undeniable that the market has colossal potential. A breakthrough is sure to be achieved in the foreseeable future.

Ho Chi Minh City still holds a bright future for robotics companies and entrepreneurs who want to thrive in the region – Trong Toai Truong,

”

Founder and Chairman of ROBOT3T

ABOUT TRONG TOAI TRUONG Trong Toai Truong is the Chairman and CEO of ROBOT3T, a Vietnam-based robotics company that has received over US$500,000 from the National Technology Innovation Fund of the Vietnam Ministry of Science and Technology, as well as the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology. Truong has a BSc from the Department of Manufacturing Engineering at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and an MSc from Korea University of Technology and Education. He has completed more than 500 commercial projects in industrial automation and robotics. www.robot3t.com/en/

USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO EMPOWER PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

By Kathleen Yu

W

ITH AI BEING THE next big buzzword that is set to change almost every industry, in all the hype it can be easy to be swept away about what it promises to do – predicting future behaviour based on past actions, optimizing incentives and learning paths for staff, or even automating tasks like setting interviews.

Especially when using AI in people management, many leaders have been eager to create their own algorithms, only to see their projects fail to deliver.

At Rumarocket, we are at the forefront of developing AI to empower people and management decisions.

Being in the trenches has shown us that an AI people analytics project cannot be treated as another tech project. It is a marriage between the art of human empathy and the science of data driven decisions.

Know Why You Need AI

Too many leaders of large companies fall into the trap of wanting an AI just because it’s the latest technology. Many startups also spent resources to build an AI because it’s cool or marketable, when there’s an easier or cheaper solution available.

Understanding the business problem and how it affects the top or bottom-line is always the first step.

This is particularly challenging for people managers, as most are not used to associating their decision with hard business numbers. However, this is essential as implementing an AI requires the support of many in the organization.

For example, recruitment is seen typically as an administrative function,

What Humans Need To Do

The biggest misconception about using AI in people management is that it is like any plug-and-play software.

When our AI managed to identify sales but it is actually a strategic business applicants that sold more products in function that can benefit sales, HR and less time, many of our client’s recruiters even operations. were distraught, fearing that our AI was Business case: Recent new hires have not been meeting sales targets. We going to take their jobs.

After sitting down with these need a predictive algorithm to predict which job applicant will sell more before recruiters, we realized they were not taking full advantage of the system. that person is hired.

With an AI that can predict and The AI we implemented resulted in evaluate the success of a candidate, the selecting sales staff that sold more in less time, benefiting everyone from Sales role of the recruiter has evolved from judging applicants (which humans are to HR Managers. historically bad at) to a role that focuses on empathizing with the dreams and Leverage How AI working aspirations of the applicant and Complements Humans selling how the company can help them There is an ongoing debate between achieve those dreams. proponents who say AI will be the With this change, recruiters are solution to all problems and those now focusing on greater value-adding who purport that human intuition can never be replaced by AI. At Rumarocket, activities such as developing employer branding strategies, or using human we realized that our most successful empathy to projects usually leverage the merits of create attractive both to develop something better than packages to each individually.

Top leaders with years of experience entice highusually have amazing insights on how to value applicants incentivize and motivate staff to do their into joining the company. best and stay with the company.

However, the most common frustration among these exceptional leaders is that they cannot be everywhere at all times to look into each individual challenge, plus their ABOUT THE AUTHOR experience is not scalable and is Kathleen Yu is the Founder and CEO of minimally replicable.

Rumarocket in the Philippines and a leading For one project, we created an authority in Artificial Intelligence for people AI using Neural Networks to predict management in Southeast Asia. She has impacted if an employee is about to resign by multinational corporations spanning four different combing through thousands of data regions, helping them implement successful points to identify behaviour patterns in AI projects. She is also the recipient of the employees. outstanding ASEAN women entrepreneur award While the insight of who is about 2017. And she builds robots in her free time. to leave is interesting, it doesn’t answer www.rumarocket.com AI+ROBOTICS | 39

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ART AND SCIENCE

what actions need to be taken to retain the employee. That’s where we leveraged top leaders, with years of experience in that organization.

Using the AI to identify the most common patterns of staff about to leave, we asked the top leaders what they would do. These recommendations are forming a library of resources that less-experienced managers all around the world can utilize. The algorithm also records the effects of each recommendation on retention and learns from it.

AGRIBUSINESS

GROWTH

In The Age of DRONES, ROBOTS, And BIG DATA

By Keina Chiu

POTENTIAL

M

ORE THAN EVER, businesses are able to capture data, make decisions and act on them far more quickly, accurately and systematically using drones and artificial intelligence solutions.

Presently, many industries benefit from drone-assisted data crunching. However, Garuda has a particular interest in traditional industries such as agriculture, infrastructure maintenance, and construction that often are reliant heavily on manpower and manual processes.

With drones being the prime enabler of instantaneous aerial data mining, businesses are increasingly turning to Garuda to fulfill a myriad of agricultural endeavours such as plantation management, tower inspection and maintenance, automated aerial security patrols – just to name a few.

“The ability to survey large areas of land rapidly with a variety of sensors is paramount in agriculture. Not only that, it is vital for us to maintain high image resolutions that are far higher than satellite imagery. This allows us to perform automated detection of trees and health analysis of crops within our proprietary software,” says Mark Yong, Co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Garuda Robotics.

Primarily, Garuda’s tree maps allow plantation managers to visualize their assets and order the correct amount of fertilizer and pesticide. Similarly, the health maps helps by enabling agronomists to focus their attention on the worstperforming crop areas. This is where technology creates the most value by connecting itself all the way back to customers.

Garuda’s Tree-Counting Algorithm

40 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

Revolutionizing Seamlessly

Without a smooth workflow in place, businesses can be hesitant about implementing technology in their works.

“Whether you’re a small business operating a single drone, or a large plantation operating 100 drones, Garuda’s software makes it easy for users to manage drone equipment and pilots, plan and schedule drone flights, enforce maintenance schedules, and even track drones live as they fly,” says Yong Ultimately, Garuda’s audacious goal is to ensure the sustainability and security of the world’s food supply. That means improving the efficiency of plantations, ensuring the traceability of food products, and ascertaining that the workforce is augmented with the appropriate technology to maintain productivity. To do so, it is paramount for businesses to fortify their resilience against variables out of our control, such as unanticipated weather calamities.

Agriculture has always been a labour-intensive industry.

To give businesses a little push, Garuda helps integrate the physical and digital worlds through digitalisation and data exploitation.

“They’re asking for more data and deeper insights into how their plantation estates are operating. And right now, our artificial intelligence algorithms is the perfect solution for generating meaningful insights and targeted reports that guide estate managers on the ground,” says Yong.

Implementing new technologies is a daunting task because of the sheer amount of land involved, the number of workers to train, and even the physicality of the work.

“Automation alone will never suffice, because the real gains come not from simply replacing humans performing repetitive labor with machines,” says Yong.

Garuda works with customers by digitizing all previous manual or paper-based methods used to manage plantations and farms.

“We develop tools to automatically and periodically collect and generate data which previously had to be manually collated, such as harvest, crop health, and worker productivity figures. Our cloud and mobile software is designed to match the way supervisors, field workers, and managers expect to view and interact with data,” says Yong. “We learn something from every customer about how to build better products that solve even more of their problems.”

FEATURE Drone Mappings by Garuda Robotics

Digital, Connected & Sustainable

The agribusiness of the future will be digital, connected, and sustainable. Digital, because the march towards digitalisation of industries is inexorable. “There is an opportunity for agribusinesses to jump past simple automation and rethink their businesses in the digital era where more and more transactions and operations take place online,” says Yong.

Regarding connectedness, meeting consumer demands is expected to become easier for forward-looking agribusinesses because plantations, mills, distributors, and buyers will be increasingly linked in the digital era. For example, improved traceability in the agriculture supply chain by technologies such as blockchain will respond to customers’ demand for information regarding the provenance of their food.

Finally yet importantly, the sustainability factor lies within where environmental issues have finally become an actual concern businesses in the modern agriculture era.

The global food demand is rocketing the supply of such is hardly keeping up. It is high time that we drive up land productivity before a world global food crisis ensues.

“Climate change is real, and weather events are expected to occur with greater volatility. Manpower shortages and the difficulty of retaining skilled labour in the agriculture sector remain perennial problems. In the face of all these problems, plantations and farms need to be able to grapple with the long-term sustainability and viability of their operations,” says Yong.

Singapore At The Core

In order to push for the modernization of airspace usage, one of Garuda’s core efforts is to work closely with civil aviation authorities. Said frameworks have so far been designed around manned aircraft. In Southeast Asia, Singapore is pioneering in developing new airspace frameworks and regulatory thinking in support of widespread drone usage.

“Realising our vision requires to interact with a large ecosystem of players, and in many cases, build part of the ecosystem from scratch. At this time, Singapore is the best base for that core effort, while our satellite offices are responsible for localising our core products and performing minor customisations as needed,” says Yong.

Speaking of Garuda’s location base, Singapore also forces the company to address upfront the technical and regulatory challenges that come from operating drones in a densely populated city. On top of an impressive pool of local talents, Singapore also boasts a formidable backing by local statutory bodies that actively support drone deployments in real-world scenarios under a public-private partnership model.

At present, Garuda Robotics is focused on the Southeast Asian market, and hire locally for satellite offices. The Singapore team comprises engineering and operations staff from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, ensuring the company remains connected to its key markets.

ABOUT MARK YONG Mark is CEO and co-founder of Garuda Robotics, a leading developer of enterprise drone and data solutions for the agriculture, infrastructure and security sectors. He was previously an award-winning lecturer in the School of Computer Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Mark has 20 years of experience designing and building robotics systems in domains ranging from Urban Search and Rescue to STEM education. He was trained in computer science and engineering and economics at Carnegie Mellon University (BS/MS) and the University of Michigan (MS). www.garuda.io

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GAME ON

B

WHERE BLOCKCHAIN MEETS ESPORTS

By Keina Chiu

OUNTIE INCORPORATES Blockchain and Cryptocurrency with gaming by tokenizing payouts with Bountie Coins, reducing the chances of fraud and transaction fees. Ever the avid gamer, Bountie Technologies Co-founder and CEO Lex Na hopes to help fellow gamers indulge in the best gaming experience. It is also his conviction to show the world living proof that the combination of career success and a gaming hobby isn’t inherently doomed to fail.

LinkedIn For Gamers

With a bank of gamer’s individual portfolios within the blockchain, Bountie gamers are able to utilize the platform as a Linkedin For Gamers. Unlike current social media sites, the decentralized nature of the technology eliminates the need for gamers to rely on a centralized system to store all their gaming credentials and data.

Bountie Coin Features

Bountie’s Proprietary Matchmaking Algorithms utilizes algorithms to matchmake players with similar skill sets. This stimulates competition and guarantees fair play. Primarily, the top 10 players on each leaderboards will receive additional Bountie winnings.

Completing daily quests via the Quest Rewards System is an alternative means to earn Bountie coins as well.

Immediate Match Rewards are perfect for players who derive satisfactions through instant gratification. Players make immediate earnings when they win in competitive matches that they pay a small fee to take part. To prevent potential fraud, winnings will remain pending until a match’s legitimacy is verified. The process typically lasts for less than a week until credits are wired to the winners’ accounts.

“Traditional platforms take only credit-card payments where commission rates can go as high as 3.9% in Singapore. For micro transactions below $5, this figure is simply unjustified. With Bountie Coins, transaction costs can be reduced to a negligible amount, making possible for trades to take place swiftly, cheaply, and internationally,” he says.

Future Outlook

“There are 2.2 billion gamers in the world now, which means that every 1 in 4 people is a gamer. According to Newzoo’s market research, the revenue of global games market has just hit US$122.7 billion in 2017. At the current growth rate, the figure is very likely to double in about a decade. We foresee that Esports is going to be as big as the FIFA World Cup or even the Olympic Games,” he says.

With a database of thousands of gamers, Bountie anticipates to accumulate 1 million gamers by the end of this year, 30 million by 2020, and 350 million by 2025.

Despite the luminous outlook, Bountie is also wary of a foreseeable influx of new competitors that the colossal potential of the budding industry of blockchain and Esports will draw. Other than that, the ever-changing cryptocurrency climate and regulatory practices are also macro factors that Bountie is bracing for.

Bountie aspires to create a gaming ecosystem that revolves around gamers, the company, and partners. “Some of our current partners include computer hardware companies like Logitech,

No Shortcut To Success

As cliche as it sounds, there is simply no shortcut to success for those who aspire to make their early startups international and global.

“Startups are really hard. If you want to get global, be prepared to work up to 18 hours every single day, 7 days a week, for years,” he says. “And if you’re lucky, you might witness success to some degree by then. Pick your wife wisely, but your Co-founders even more carefully as they are the ones who would be with you, deep in the trenches day in and day out, you’ll need people who have your back and whom you trust wholeheartedly.

“Lastly, get a mentor who’s able to see things from the big picture and give you constructive criticisms and advice.

Oftentimes, we become myopic from getting too caught up with day-to-day mundanities.”

ABOUT LEX NA Over the past nine years, Lex has established a presence in the e-commerce and digital space as Bountie Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer. His businesses range from O2O shoe stores to a digital agency specialising in web development. He runs a website development agency catering to SMEs in Singapore.

Lex’s astute business mind and inclination towards technology led to a natural partnership with Jose, Guan and Darren to develop Bountie.

Lex@Bountie.io | Bountie.io

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ASUS, and Samsung, as well as game publishers and developers like Bluehole Studio (PlayerUnknown’s Battleground) and Valve Corporation (Dota 2).

Hardware companies can sell their products directly to gamers seamlessly both on and offline via our platform,” he says.

COMMUNICATION THERAPY FOR CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

PROVIDING BETTER CARE

SPECTRUM DISORDERS

By Panrasee Ritthipravat and Zaw Htet Aung

I

F YOU OCCASIONALLY feel isolated, stressed and frustrated due to difficulties in connecting with other people, it can be difficult to handle such situations. Those with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) have to go through these ordeals on a daily basis.

Children with ASDs exhibit symptoms of differing severities and varieties that fall under broadly accepted categories that are defined in the contexts of social communication, social interaction and social imagination.

As curative measures are not available for ASDs, core autistic symptoms are targeted in a palliative manner with the goal of promoting independence and quality of life. This is not a trivial undertaking, however, as it demands a significant amount of time, energy and money – putting a heavy burden on families and healthcare services.

Autistic children lack the basic building blocks of verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Research indicates that nearly one third of them will never learn a spoken language, and the majority who do will experience difficulties. Also, their indifference towards social stimuli and inability to engage in joint attention activities create further obstacles in acquiring social communication and interaction skills.

The notion of employing robots as social assistants is not a farfetched, sci-fi dream anymore. In autism therapy, robots are the centerpiece of a variety of therapeutic settings such as diagnosis, promoting social interactions, behavior modification and enhancing play skills.

The simple and predictable nature of robots’ appearances and behaviors, combined with the natural tendency of children to treat robots as social entities, make them promising tools to tackle social skills impairment in autism.

AIM Global Innovation was born out of a variety of successful research projects from the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Laboratory at Mahidol University in Thailand. Our

FEATURE

ROBOT-ASSISTED

team is composed of people with diverse skill sets working on research projects such as medical image analysis, therapeutic robotics, and motor and cognitive rehabilitation.

The therapeutic robotics project is our effort to push the envelope in current autism research. During the first iteration of our research, we developed three robots: Chang Phood, Chang Kui and Chang Tam. Chang Tam was designed to encourage a child to imitate its gestures and movements, such as raising a hand. It can also imitate a child’s behavior, thus creating a natural reciprocal interaction without disregarding the social aspect of imitation.

Chang Phood and Chang Kui were developed to recognize English and Thai words that are difficult to pronounce and give appropriate responses to motivate the children to improve their language skills. We learned invaluable lessons from conducting numerous experiments with these robots in real-life scenarios.

On the technical side of things, achieving high speech recognition accuracies under noisy environments such as a classroom, and detecting gestures and movements of kids in various lighting conditions, were particularly challenging.

We also obtained constructive feedback from teachers, parents and therapists that allowed us to improve the hardware and software platforms.

There is a huge mismatch between the number of therapists and the population of autistic people. We are able to address the gap in contemporary autism research and provide a compelling option in the socially interactive robots market, which has a lot of opportunities for innovation.

Armed with several years of research experience and expertise, we set out to build a robot for communication therapy that is interactive, fully programmable and userfriendly. We also wanted to develop an always connected platform of caregivers, therapists, and their related communities, where they can share their ideas on how to give the best possible treatment.

Finally, we were able to bring to life AIM Robot, whose purpose is to provide better care for the children, lower the burden on parents and teachers, and help to bridge the gap between demand and supply.

At AIM Global Innovation, we believe that uniting cuttingedge technologies with expert domain knowledge will lead to our ultimate goal of providing better care to every autistic child worldwide.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Panrasee Ritthipravat is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Mahidol University in Thailand, as well as Co-founder and CEO of AIM Innovation. Zaw Htet Aung is also a Co-founder, as well as senior programmer and AI/robotics expert. The award-winning AIM Robot project has been supported by Thai research agencies, and there are three patents filed in Thailand.

AIM plans to expand to the US in 2020, and is in search of funding, customers, mentors, and business partners.

Chang Tam

Chang Phood

Chang Kui

AIM Robot

www.mahidol.ac.th | www.aiminno.com

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EVENTS | PREVIEW

VIETNAM BLOCKCHAIN WEEK Mar 7-8 Riverside Palace, Ho Chi Minh City Featuring 30+ speakers from top players in the blockchain scene and 1,500+ professionals from 10+ countries, Vietnam Blockchain Week is a 2-day intensive conference offering seminars in the Regulation & Business Track and the Technology Track, providing a comprehensive package for regulators, entrepreneurs and developers working in or looking to jump into blockchain. This event is organized by Infinity Blockchain Labs, one of the Top 15 FinTech global startups in 2016 crowned by SuperCharger Hong Kong FinTech Accelerator Program. www.vietnamblockchainweek.com

THE GREAT FESTIVAL OF INNOVATION

Mar 24 The Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Admiralty This is a four-day conference focusing on the latest thinking on innovation across industry, society and community. Speakers from the world’s leading organizations explore how innovation brings changes to the four core aspects of our lives - work, live, learn and play.

Topics span from cybersecurity to artificial intelligence, sustainable energy to happiness and prosperity and so on, taking examples from various smart cities. www.events.trade.gov.uk/the-great-festival-ofinnovation-hong-kong-2018

SLUSH TOKYO 2018 Mar 28-29 Tokyo International Exhibition Center

SÓNAR HONG KONG

Mar 17 Hong Kong Science Park, Sha Tin This year, in its second installment in Hong Kong, the acclaimed Sónar festival takes place across five performance stages, featuring a wide variety of genres – hip hop, techno, grime, house and much more by artists from around the world: The Black Madonna, Laurent Garnier, Mouse on the Keys, Jacques, Keys N Krates, etc. as well as local artists such as Fotan Laiki and Tedman Lee. Stay tuned to our Facebook page for a chance to win a free ticket! sonarhongkong.com

“KOOZA” CIRQUE DU SOLEIL Central Harbourfront Event Space, Hong Kong Apr 19-Jun 3

Cirque du Soleil returns to Hong Kong with KOOZA, a new production paying homage to their roots by combining two circus traditions – acrobatic performance and the art of clowning.

It explores themes of fear, identity, recognition and power. The show is set in an electrifying and exotic visual world full of surprises, thrills, chills, audacity and total involvement. www.cirquedusoleil.com/kooza 44 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

Apr 11-14 AsiaWorld Expo, Hong Kong Held annually by Global Sources – a leading business-tobusiness media company and a primary facilitator of trade with Greater China serving more than 1.4 international buyers – Startup Launchpad had over 35,000 buyers and over 300 startups from over 240 countries attending last year.

Speakers from key companies in the startup scene including KPMG, Microsoft, Indiegogo, Uber and HTC will cover topics from ideation to distribution, emerging trends and innovations of the future. launchpadhk.com Originating in Finland, Slush is holding its third conference in Tokyo. This two-day conference consists of a pitch contest (those with startup passes can apply for FREE), demo booths and Slush matchmaking – 200 investors booked more than 390 meetings using the Slush Matchmaking Tool last year.

Apart from passes for startups, entrepreneurs and investors, Slush also welcomes students by offering a huge discount. So students, get inspired! tokyo.slush.org

HONG KONG ELECTRONICS FAIR (SPRING EDITION)

Apr 13-16 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, Hong Kong Last year, the fair showcased over 2,900 exhibitors from around the globe to close to 63,000 buyers in the Hall of Fame for top-tier brands, Startup Zone for emerging tech companies, and Tech Hall for VR products, robotics, connected home appliances and wearable electronics. The results of this fair are pretty impressive – exhibitors expressed that they got thousands of enquiries and hundreds of interested buyers from only the first two days of the show, and they closed plenty of deals. hktdc.com/wap/efse/T119

EVENTS | PREVIEW

GLOBAL SOURCES STARTUP LAUNCHPAD

COLLISION CONFERENCE

Apr 30-May 3 Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans Being part of the Web Summit family, Collision conference only took three years to grow to 11,000 attendees. The secret to being America’s fastest growing tech conference is engineering serendipity. Instead of experienced event planners, Collision hires data scientists and physicists to spice up their networking sessions by building algorithms to select attendees to be in the same table or same group, so establishing useful connections at Collision isn’t depending on random encounters but relying on products of algorithms! collisionconf.com

TECH IN ASIA SINGAPORE May 15-16 Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre, Singapore In its seventh edition, Tech in Asia Singapore is back with six content stages – Main Stage, Developer and Product Stage, Revenue Stage, Startup 101 Stage, Marketing Stage and the newly introduced Artificial Intelligence Stage. There’s a Startup-Investor Speed Dating section so that startups and investors can find their perfect match. sg.techinasia.events

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EVENTS | REVIEW

JAN/FEB JUMPSTART MAG RELEASE PARTY

Jan 18 Garage Society QRC, Hong Kong Thank you all for joining us at our release party on January 18! To celebrate the release of our first issue in 2018, we were honored to have TNG Wallet Founder & CEO Alex Kong as one of the guest speakers to share his experience and inspire the audience about technological innovation.

12Noon and RedMountain once again provided the food, pressed-juice cocktails and red wine that help make our parties a very enjoyable evening. Jumpstart mag’s distribution has expanded beyond Hong Kong to 26 cities in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Melbourne, Sydney and Manila. bit.ly/2rMDMst

BETATRON DEMO DAY Jan 25 The Annex, Nan Fung Place, Hong Kong Betatron is Hong Kong’s first non-vertical accelerator program that provides upfront seed funding to startups.

The Demo Day was an exclusive event for startups to present their businesses to investors, strategic partners, and media. The 11 startups were selected out of 300+ applications and went through an intensive four-month programme to scale their businesses, with US$30,000 in funding, workspace and other support from Betatron.

Until now, the investment accumulated is about US$2.4 million and more than 20 startups have benefited. www.betatron.co 46 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

EMTECH ASIA 2018

Jan 30-31 Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Singapore The 5th EmTech Asia conference gathered leading tech executives, scientists and investors to showcase emerging technologies with great innovative potential all over the world. Speakers included MIT Professors, NVIDIA Chief Scientist Bill Dally, Silicon Valley Managing Partner Hans Tung and many other big names. Jointly organized by Koelnmesse and MIT Technology Review, the event drew over 700 industry leaders from 17 nations and was a great opportunity to glimpse the technologies that will drive the new global economy of the future. emtechasia.com

STARTMEUPHK FESTIVAL 2018

Jan 29-Feb 2 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center, Wan Chai Hosted by InvestHK, the StartmeupHK Festival 2018 was a great week of forums, conferences and community events on FinTech, Healthtech, retail technology, connected city and a new theme – Internet of Life. Speakers included more than 100 world-renowned industry experts/leaders, representatives from Airport Authority Hong Kong, Oddup, WeLab, GoGoVan, Bloomerang, KPMG and more. The event welcomed investors and the startup community, with more than 5,000 participants gathering to exchange ideas and build connections. www.startmeup.hk

EVENTS | REVIEW

STARTUP GRIND GLOBAL CONFERENCE

Feb 12-14 Silicon Valley, US With more than 5,000 founders, hundreds of investors, and 50+ exhibiting startups, the Startup Grind Global Conference was its largest event of the year – bringing together great content and great people in a large-scale setting. To inject custom-built networking technology, over 250 speakers were featured including LinkedIn Co-founder Reid Hoffman, Slack Co-founder and CTO Cal Henderson, Reddit Co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman, Tesla Motors Co-founder Marc Tarpenning, and many others. www.startupgrind.com/conference

COWORKING UNCONFERENCE ASIA 2018 Feb 9-11 Penang, Malaysia The event was hosted by The Coworking Association of Asia Pacific (CAAP), which aims to promote collaborative coworking across the region. This year, CAAP wants to refocus on the quality and nature of the connections. With “Colourful Connection” as theme, it was hosted in one of the most colourful places on Earth, Penang – a place that signifies the unified diversity of the Asia Pacific region as well as the creative coworking movement. It celebrated the Malaysia coworking and startup ecosystem and connected it directly with global partners. www.cuasia.co

SEAMLESS THAILAND

Feb 5-6 Centara Grand & Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld, Bangkok

MIT INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP BOOTCAMP

Feb 10-16 Queensland University of Technology Gardens Point Campus, Brisbane The MIT Innovation & Entrepreneurship Bootcamp was a new program for global innovators, entrepreneurs, and changemakers. It looked for capable individuals, and offered an intense week-long program for them to learn how to build innovationdriven ventures that solve global challenges in the environment, agriculture and mining resources sectors. The entrepreneurs were brought together, formed teams, and were challenged with finding a scalable solution by applying new technologies and ideas.

The Bootcamp aimed at strengthening their systems thinking and infusing them with a collaborative identify in long-term. bootcamp.mit.edu/entrepreneurship/sustainability 48 | JUMPSTART MAR/APR 2018

Seamless Thailand is a large-scale exhibition in Thailand that focuses mainly on the converging worlds of e-commerce, retail and payments. It has brought together over 350 exhibitors – including some of the region’s biggest banks, such as Bank of Thailand and Siam Commercial Bank – as well as others including Central Group, Facebook, TMB Bank, Lazada, Line Thailand, ETDA, Foodpanda Thailand and more. Seamless Asia was launched in 2017 and aims to become a key vehicle for the regional expansion of frictionless, borderless commerce. www.terrapinn.com/exhibition/seamless-thailand

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