The Echelon Asia Summit 2017 officially opens today, will focus on three common themes: Deep tech, sustainability, and corporate innovation
e27 Co-Founder and CEO Mohan Belani gives his opening address
Very good morning to everyone.
This is our eighth year of doing this. Over the years, we have seen quite a few different trends and changes in the ecosystem. For those of you that have been involved in the startup ecosystem might have noticed it yourself.
There are three key things that I want to speak about today.
The first thing being deep tech. So we got SG Innovate booth at this event, and we are really looking forward to having the conversation with Steve.
One of things that I look forward is the involvement in the growth of the deep tech ecosystem in this region, in Singapore specifically.
Now why is this actually key to growth of the ecosystem?
I personally feel that this attracts better quality funding, better quality investors from around the world, this also attracts talents to the region. The quality of entrepreneurs and companies overall are on a much higher benchmark.
The growth for deep tech companies in Singapore and Southeast Asia is one of the big things, that we are noticing, is growing increasingly more relevant in this region.
Also Read: Exhibitors showcase the thriving digital economy of Asia, meet them at Echelon Asia Summit 2017
So even if you look at our content today, a lot of it are structured around this idea. If we look at discussions at AI, discussion about healthcare, logistics tech. Unlike years before where we are more focussed on things like mobile, e-commerce … we have also shifted how we serve the ecosystem by being more deep tech oriented.
The second thing is on sustainability. Back when we started e27, our vision was to live off the fact that we strongly believe that startups can make the world a better place. It might sounds idealistic but if you think about the region today, it is quite hard to imagine the region without Grab, Go-Jek, or Uber. We found it hard to imagine the region without healthcare startups, or even AI companies.
We strongly believe that sustainability is important, but more than that we think that founders have a deeper meaning and a deeper reason to build this company. It is not only about financial gain, but it is also got to be making the world a better place, solving really big, difficult problems that will help making basic services more accessible.
So for sustainability, I think it is going to be the deeper focus within the next three years, in our perception on how the ecosystem is going to grow.
That is why we have Atsushi from Mistletoe, whom I am going to have some discussions with later.
Last but not least, there is something that we would like to announce today, and that is corporate innovation.
Corporates have been very actively involved with startups in this region, and even globally. At this rate, it comes in many forms, from corporate innovation programmes, accelerator programmes, corporate venture funding, and in some cases even acquisitions.
The acquisitions front is still something that has not grown significantly in the last few years but we see that changing in the next three years.
So we are launching today a programme called FORGE, to forge and bring forward the startup ecosystem. This is a programme in partnership with e27 as ecosystem partner, PwC as the implementation partner, and Rainmaking as the accelerator partner.
So we would like to invite startups to come and speak to us to better understand how the Forge programme is going to foster a deeper partnership, deeper relationship, and deeper access between the startups and the corporate sectors.
With that, I am going to keep my opening address short.
Please do check out the marketplace, the Top 100 programme that we have today. For those of you who have bought the Investor ticket, please go and access the Venturecon section of the conference. And for those of you who bought the Startups tickets, please do check out the Academy where we have workshops specifically tailored for the startups.
So I hope all of you get the benefits that we have presented to you.
Thank you very much.
The post ICYMI, here is the opening address of Echelon Asia Summit 2017 appeared first on e27.