Asia Tech Podcast - Michael Waitze Medi‪a‬ Michael Waitze Media

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

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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

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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

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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

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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.