Also, a Chinese facial recognition startup is the highest valued artificial intelligence startup in the world
Singapore GovTech agency set to have new Chief Executive moving forward — [e27]
GovTech Chief Executive Jacqueline Poh is set to be replaced by Kok Ping Soon at the end of April. Kok was previously the Deputy Secretary (Development) in the Ministry of Manpower.
Poh has led the agency as it improved the government’s cybersecurity across Singapore’s ICT infrastructure. She also led the team as it launched the OneService app, Parking.sg, and the National Trade Platform.
Kok’s history has largely surrounded manpower, employment and worker morale in Singapore.
Lucy Peng steps down as Ant Financial boss after move to Lazada — [South China Morning Post]
After taking over as the new CEO of Lazada, Lucy Peng will be retiring from her role as the Executive Chairman of Ant Financial, according to the South China Morning Post.
Eric Jing, who is the CEO, will replace Peng.
The move means Peng will be dedicating all of her attention towards growing Lazada — which is owned by Alibaba — into an e-commerce force in Southeast Asia.
Alibaba and its top rival JD.com have been investing heavily to win Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market while still trying to compete with local players like Shopee and Zilingo.
Singapore government issues privacy guidelines on recording devices for drivers-for-hire — [Personal Data Protection Commission]
Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Commission — an agency that oversees how people’s information is used online — today released guidelines for the use of video/audio recorders in ride-for-hire situations.
The reason the agency issued the guidelines is because modern video cameras can reveal a lot about the individual and if uploaded/sold online could constitute personal data, which falls under the PDPC purview.
The key applications of the rules are as follows:
- Companies must inform consumers if their data is being collected and disclosed.
- The handling of a person’s data must be reasonable — including both how it is collected and distributed.
- If individuals demand their data, it must be handed over (and if they refuse to have their data collected the company must acquiesce).
- Security must meet a certain standard.
The most likely application for these new rules would be Grab or Taxi rides but technically it extends to all situations where people pay a driver to take them around.
Antler launches in Singapore with US$3 million seed fund — [e27]
Antler, a company that wants to provide people with enough capital to take an idea and turn it into a company, launched today with a US$3 million seed fund in the bank.
The company looks a lot like Entrepreneur’s First in the sense that it targets “aspiring entrepreneurs”, connects them to one another and invests an initial US$100,000 to help them turn the idea into a startup.
Antler plans to invest in 30 companies a year and it is planning on expanding across Asia.
China’s SenseTime raises US$600 million at the highest-ever valuation for any global AI startup — [Bloomberg]
SenseTime, a startup that has built a system to analyse faces on a mass scale, has raised US$600 million from Alibaba, according to Bloomberg.
The investment was made at a US$3 billion valuation, which makes SenseTime the highest-valued startup in the world.
As Bloomberg wrote, if your face has been photographed by a security camera or China-made phone, your facial recognition data has likely gone through the SenseTime system. According to the article, SenseTime is built into 100 million devices.
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The post Today’s Top Tech News, April 9: Lucy Peng leaves Ant Financial and Singapore GovTech gets new boss appeared first on e27.