A Great Week For The Tech and Start-up Community in Southeast Asia

Honestly, last week has to be the best week for the tech and start-up community in Southeast Asia this year. Full credits go to e27 and Ad:Tech which really helped promote and unite the tech community in Southeast Asia.

That said, the events, crowd, and enthusiasm confirmed that Asia does have a great and growing tech and start-up culture. It is awesome to have a number of Asia-based start-ups founders, investors, and tech enthusiasts gathered together at a single location. Unless you shied away from meeting new people at these events, I believe everyone in attendance learned something new, and that includes myself.

Thoughts

Thanks to Rumpelstiltskin, I had one memorable meet up with Tan Chade-Meng, a fellow Singaporean and early employee at Google. I first “met Meng on the iPad” where he was featured on TED, sharing about ‘Everyday Compassion at Work.’ It is Meng’s full time project running as Google’s Jolly Good Fellow (yes, that is his official title). Meng is also probably the first Singaporean to be featured on TED too.

His TED talk is interesting, especially at the end where he talks about how by embracing compassion can make you a better leader. I could recognize him instantly when Rumpelstiltskin introduced him to me. Meeting him in person kinda strengthened the theory he has preached at TED, which is to integrate compassion as part of every businesses and individuals. It is the sort of moment when you can really feel someone’s influence just by having some casual chats. Sounds like bullshit but people who had this experience will understand what I mean. If you have the time, catch Meng’s TED talk below:

Learning doesn’t just come from the big boys. In all honesty, I learned a great deal just by chatting and listening to start-up founders, who are like me, trying to make a living doing what we really feel excited about. Every start-up has its own story and something worth learning from. Trading enthusiasm and ideas to improve our product/service really helps to keep founders sharp and on the ball. As always, networking is a crucial part in every business.

Wrapping Up

No better way than to wrap up last week with photos:

Courtesy of Flickr user Salsabeela

Courtesy of e27's Mohan Belani