The Asia Tech Podcast spoke to Brennan Campbell, the CEO at FazWaz Property.  FazWaz operates in the hotly contested real estate technology market in Thailand.  FazWaz’s goal is to use cutting-edge technology and sophisticated data analytics to provide both its agents and their customers a better, smarter real estate experience. Some of the topics that Brennan and I discussed: How his early work experience as a door-to-door HVAC salesman taught him about persistence and selling Brennan’s journey to Thailand included teaching English, which for him was unsustainable His introduction to the traditional, local real estate market in Phuket How learning the business from the ground up informed his desire and confidence to start FazWaz Empowering real digital transformation in the real estate business Rebuilding the entire real estate technology and service stack Employing dynamic valuation models and mimicking some e-commerce strategies like flash sales Planned expansion in Southeast Asia and beyond (United Arab Emirates) Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here: Facebook – Michael Waitze Facebook – Asia Tech Podcast LinkedIn – Michael Waitze Twitter – Michael Waitze Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast was excited to have Hanno Stegmann as our guest this week.  Hanno is Managing Director & Partner at BCG Digital Ventures, the venture incubation unit of the Boston Consulting Group. He is based in Singapore and part of the leadership team of BCGDV’s new South East Asia Incubation Center. At BCGDV he is dedicated to inventing, building, investing in, and launching category-changing businesses at start-up speed for the world’s most influential corporates. Hanno is incredibly experienced and comes with some very interesting insights. Some of the topics we discussed were: His time at Rocket Internet How innovation can happen inside of established corporates Digital transformation is great, but growth is more important How Innovation at scale is important to Singapore and why they have been so good at it How the Singaporean government works closely with the private sector to foster innovation Wher BCG Digital Ventures fits into the ecosystem and its role How BCG Digital Ventures is uniquely positioned and the benefits of synergies with BCG Consulting BCG’s report on “Boosting Women In Technology In Southeast Asia” The role investors can play in promoting diversity Digital Banking and Challenger Banks in Southeast Asia Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here: Facebook – Michael Waitze Facebook – Asia Tech Podcast LinkedIn – Michael Waitze Twitter – Michael Waitze Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast had a great conversation with Oswald Yeo, a co-founder and the CEO of Glints. Glints is a Southeast Asia-based recruitment platform that helps companies build successful teams with young talent.  Its mission to help companies hire the right, young talent effectively and for young people to discover and develop careers they love. Some of the topics that Oswald and I covered: The biggest trend in HR Tech is remote hiring and remote working COVID did not initiate this trend, but definitely accelerated it Online learning and the rise of Glints Academy How the team of co-founders initially tried to balance university and their startup and both suffered The reactions of their families and friends to leaving Wharton, Stanford and Berkeley After coming home to a lot of fanfare, three years of near-death experiences The difficulty of finding the right business model and product-market fit The significant impact of COVID on the Glints business Learning about managing through a crisis Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here: Facebook – Michael Waitze Facebook – Asia Tech Podcast LinkedIn – Michael Waitze Twitter – Michael Waitze Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast had a superior conversation (a bit of a catch-up) with Miguel (Mikko) Perez, the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Ayannah. “Ayannah is a leading provider of digital financial services to the world’s emerging middle class, most of whom are migrants or unbanked coming from the base of the pyramid.”  Not only is Mikko deeply insightful about the state of FinTech in the Philippines and the rest of the region, but he also cares deeply about Ayannah’s clients that use its payments, commerce, and analytics tools. Mikko and I covered a wide range of topics as we caught up from our previous recording back in May 2019. In this episode we discussed: The impact of COVID on the growth and business of Ayannah The role remittances play in the life of people in the Philippines countryside How payments facilitate not just e-commerce but offline commerce as well Ayannah’s business grew by 8X from 2019 to 2020 The impact of Android devices getting into the hands of millions of people in Southeast Asia Contingency planning and remote working…some employees slept in the office How the Ayannah network actually functions Payments to InsurTech to Lending Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here: Facebook – Michael Waitze Facebook – Asia Tech Podcast LinkedIn – Michael Waitze Twitter – Michael Waitze Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast had the pleasure of catching up with Mat Ward, the Founder, and CEO at Workmate.  I have now known Mat for almost a decade and first had him on the show back in February 2019.  I had him on the show again almost a year ago, literally just before lockdowns due to COVID-19 began in his home city of Singapore and my home city of Bangkok.  That episode was filled with optimism (Mat is an optimistic guy, but a realist as well.) and you could not hear a tinge of doom or worry in either of our voices.  Neither one of us could have predicted how difficult 2020 would become. I wanted to catch up with Mat because he has always been a voice of reason in a world filled with unnecessary noise and bluster.  After the tumult of 2020, I wanted a real opinion from someone I trusted about the impact of COVID-19 on a well-funded and growing business. Topics we covered in this episode: We jumped right into a discussion on COVID Who benefitted, who did not Workmate grew a lot (doubled!) but not in the verticals that the team initially expected How COVID impacted staff and management from an emotional standpoint Face to face management versus remote work and management How culture gets maintained Managing through his first crisis The impact on funding Rolling out a significant new product Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here: Facebook – Michael Waitze Facebook – Asia Tech Podcast LinkedIn – Michael Waitze Twitter – Michael Waitze Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast was honored to have Vivek Vipul, a co-Founder and the CEO of Abzooba.  Vivek received his undergraduate degree in Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology and his MBA from the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Vivek and I had an incredible discussion about: Building a sophisticated technology company in Silicon Valley Data Science and Data Engineering Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning MLOps and how it can be essential to accelerate the use of Data Science How Abzooba can help SMEs employ Machine Learning efficiently Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Jessica Camus, the Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Diginex Solutions, which provides blockchain-enabled tools for tracking environmental, social, and governance data. Jessica is quite experienced in helping organizations strategically address social and sustainability risks and opportunities for value creation through the lens of blockchain technology, impact investments, and sustainable supply chains. Jessica and I discussed: Companies are being challenged to address how their business operations impact their external environment. Companies are also being challenged to understand how changes in their ESG policies are impacting their business operations. How SMEs were impacted by COVID-19 and how that drove their approach to ESG. Non-financial concerns have become important to shareholders, business partners, and customers. Companies are now expected to report both qualitative and quantitative ESG data to show progress against specific targets. How transparency and accountability around ESG reporting will continue to become increasingly important. How sustainable finance may impact future funding and credit availability. Follow Michael Waitze and the Asia Tech Podcast here: Facebook – Michael Waitze Facebook – Asia Tech Podcast LinkedIn – Michael Waitze Twitter – Michael Waitze Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by the co-Founders of Credify,  Makoto Tominaga (CEO) and Shuichi Nagao (Director of Engineering).  Credify is creating the future of embedded finance through a suite of award-winning self-sovereign identity and secure data passporting technologies and a powerful privacy-first financial services cross-offering platform.  Both founders have extensive experience in the startup and technology space and combined, they have been through multiple acquisitions and exits. From their home base in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, these two Japanese founders aspire to build a global company. Topics covered in this episode: Their Experiences with Successful Startup Companies Across Multiple Verticals Building a Stock Trading Community Fingerprint Sensor Innovation and a Sale To Apple Service Marketplaces in Japan and Reputation Modules Traditional Review Systems are Gamed and Skewed Distributed Ledger Technologies Smart Contracts and Loyalty Programs Network Effects Self-Sovereign Identity Other companies mentioned in this episode: Authentec Validity Sensors Synaptics EOS --- Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Daniel Callaghan, the Chief Executive officer at Veremark and a Managing Director of the Workplace Accelerator.  Daniel is extremely experienced in the HR-Tech and Digital Innovation space, having founded a Global VC-backed freelance market place in Europe and the former Head of Digital Innovation and Investment for Adecco Group in Singapore. Veremark is an automated and scalable background checking platform that transforms the way businesses onboard candidates, with a blockchain twist. The Workplace Accelerator is South East Asia’s premier accelerator exclusively focused on the Future of Work. Daniel and I had a great discussion about: Human Resources Technology How Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast Checking for Integrity is More Important than Checking for Grades Blockchain-Based Career Passports How Can Veremark Make the Experience Better for the Candidate Why a Workplace Accelerator Is Important for Southeast Asia --- Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

The Asia Tech Podcast caught up with Alan Jones, a self-proclaimed Startup Founder Coach (and a very good one at that!) and one of the earliest supporters of the startup ecosystem in Australia.  I always enjoy talking to Alan because he is so thoughtful and filled with insights gained over years of experience. We had a wide-ranging discussion about life, experience, growth, tech, startups and how the pandemic changed the way we both looked at the world and the future.  We mixed in a bit of politics, because we simply can not discount the impact that it was having across the board. We also discussed how 2020 was a year like no other and how Alan had to make the difficult but sensible decision to put M8 Ventures on pause. Links from the show: Alan Jones on the “A Lot to Say” podcast hosted by Garry Williams. catalysr – An award-winning pre-accelerator for early stage startups. --- Asia Tech Podcast is powered by Podcast Network Asia. For more information on the shows and the network, visit Podcast Network Asia at their website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. The views and opinions expressed by the podcast creators, hosts, and guests do not necessarily reflect the official policy and position of Podcast Network Asia. Any content provided by the people on the podcast are of their own opinion, and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.