Asian Startups @ SXSW 2013

At SXSW 2013, there were three Asian countries with their own pavilions.

Some thoughts about the pavilions at SXSW

1. When exhibiting in the USA and the primary language for your country is not English (like Japan and Korea), it really helps that a member of your team has studied, lived or worked in the USA. The most engaging booths from Korea and Japan had representatives who had spent significant time living in the USA; these representatives excelled in communicating with the attendees.

2. Having said that, do not hire local folks just for the event to pitch your company. While talking to exhibitors, it was immediately obvious to me which booths had just hired folks for SXSW. Usually, these representatives of the company had no passion and knowledge when talking about the company and the company’s product.

3. It was easy to know which booths were part of the Korean and Japan contingent; for Singapore not so much. Maybe there really is such a thing as Cultural Technology.

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Singapore

The awesome folks from IDA Victor and Jasmine were on the ground at SXSW 2013 supporting the Singapore companies.

Imgembed
Imgembed, which has big ambitions to change the way stock photography is paid for and used online, had a brilliant tactic to get folks to the booth – free popcorn!

YouCommentate
YouCommentate is a mobile application that allows fan to broadcast and listen to sports commentary.

YouCommentate also presented at Launch.

Kindernomics
Kindernomics showcased mobile apps to educate children.

CarbonStory
CarbonStory is a social enterprise to help folks become carbon neutral. Carbon Story helps you estimate your carbon footprint and provides you with the means to sponsor green projects by buying carbon credits.

Japan

grafic
grafic was one of many applications (e.g. zeega) seen at SXSW that aim to make it easier for folks to publish content. As befitting its Japanese heritage, grafic was one of the more beautiful applications around.

Hatsune Miku
Hatsune Miku English version is to be released in Summer 2013. For those who don’t know who Hatsune Miku is (I only learned about her from SXSW 2013), Hatsune Miku is a virtual celebrity that is focal point for a massive body of collaboratively created works like YouTube videos, songs and artwork.

Living Rooom

Living Rooom is a mobile application that aims to replace the old fashioned way parents track and reward chores done by children. Gone are the days of star stickers on a piece of paper stuck to the fridge!

OpenPool

OpenPool = Pool Table + Two Kinects + Projector. The video below explains more about the project. Its source code will eventually be made available on GitHub so that folks can create their own effects.

Factory.org & FabCafe

On display at the FabCafe and Factory.org booth were various tools like a 3D printer and laser cutter that are fast becoming an integral part of the maker movement.

Time-sharing of such tools is probably going to be more common in the coming years.

Korea

At the Korean pavilion (by kocca), there were seven startups. Korea was clearing milking the hype generated by the viral video Gangnam Style.

Between

Between, which was the runner-up for Echelon 2012, has been covered previously by SGE. It is a beautifully crafted app that aims to enrich the shared life of couples through messaging and photo sharing.

ClipPick

ClipPick allows you to copy text or image from one device and paste into another device instantly.

FazeCat
At FazeCat’s booth, attendees were playing the award-winning Paladog.

FXGear

Virtual Fitting with 3D Avatar Solution from FXGear on Vimeo.

Happenin

Happenin is a mobile application that uses photo sharing to help users discover what’s happening around the world. The most interesting thing about this application is that users can only upload photos taken on the spot (as opposed to Instagram where past images from the phone can also be uploaded).

The design of the application is very similar to Pov.io (which presented at Launch) in that they are trying to encourage a certain sort of behaviour and data on the respective platforms by constraining the way the camera is used.

Recood

Recood is a mobile application for easy video creation and sharing. Real-time video filters were the most interesting thing about the application.

Flitto
Flitto aims to allow you to read any content in your native language. The translation of the content is done by fellow users of the service. Challenges faced would be to grow and incentivise the community of translators especially for the less popular feeds. Also, only a curated set of Twitter accounts are available for translation.

Other startups that were at the Singapore pavilion:

Sprooki: Sprooki connects mobile-enabled shoppers with shopping malls, major retailers and consumer brands across the Asia-Pacific region with the latest events, promotions and offers, when and where they shop.

Read: SGE’s coverage of Sprooki

Tripvillas: Tripvillas is the leading Holiday Rental website in Asia. It connects travelers looking to visit Asia with private homes as an alternative to hotels.

ConnectedHealth: ConnectedHealth is a Singapore eHealth company with primary focus on the US market (deployed in California hospitals). ConnectedHealth provides the wireless connectivity platform connecting health devices to health care providers via the cloud.

Read:ConnectedHealth gets funding

Tell My Friends: Tell My Friends is providing a patent-pending method for everyone to share music, ebooks, videos and apps. It is a means to counter online piracy. Rather than passing an illegally downloaded copy of a song freely, Tell My Friends gives you the choice to share a link to licensed music every time you buy — and pay you when someone else buys from the link you share.

Digital XS: Digital XS offers an “in-a-box” online game publishing solution, which allows websites or any business with access to gamers to create their own game channel in a few minutes to increase stickiness and monetize traffic through great online game content.