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Asian startups should look regional and planglobal, event organiser tells delegates at theunConference Singapore 2009.
By Teng Fang Yih22 May 2009
Orsiso founder Thorben Linneberg responds to judge Tahn Joo Chin during the StartupPitches session.
SINGAPORE, 22 MAY 2009 -- The relatively little-known unConference 2009 came and wentover one May weekend with little fanfare, but loads of strong ideas and hopefully muchventure capital flowing.Organised by local events company e27 Singapore, sponsored by government science andechnology agency A*STAR, tech company Cisco and blog advertising community Nuffnang,and supported by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the MediaDevelopment Authority of Singapore (MDA), this year’s, the fourth, unConference saw toabout 450 delegates thronging the startup showcase booths area at the show’s beginning.This figure, according to e27 Singapore, is a 50 per cent increase on last year’s delegatecount of 300.A total of 32 startups from Singapore, Sweden, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, India,Malaysia, Hong Kong (SAR) and the US were represented at the all-day show on May 16 inhe Matrix@Biopolis complex.“At last year’s unConference, we featured 17 local startups. This time we brought in more than30 from 10 countries, and we also managed to arrange a profile of international speakers,” said director of e27Singapore Mohan Belani, opening the conference portion of the show. “There are two fundamental ideas that wehope to bring across at this event. First: we strongly believe that the main bulk of Web innovation is going to bedriven by Asian startups. Second: we believe that startups, not just Singapore startups but Asian startups shouldlook regional and plan global. They should dream big and dream global from day one. It shouldn’t be a strategy later on. It should be planned right from the start.”And to make them think big, regionally, if not globally, Belani and his crew at e27 Singapore made sure the speaker lineup included the likes of: veteran startup founder and CEO of online user analysis firm Lookery, Scott Rafer;partner at online community setup CMUNE, Benjamin Joffe; co-founder of network of premium blogs OpenWeb Asia,Dr Gang Lu; co-founder and CEO of developer of global communities and consumer services Buzzcity, Dr Lai KokFung; founder of local foodies’ site HungryGoWhere.com, Wong Hoong Ann; partner at technology venture capital(VC) fund IDG Ventures Vietname, Reza Behnam; VP and GM of Internet communications firm Skype APAC, DanNeary; and, former partner at VC company WIIG-TDF Partners LLC, Tahn Joo Chin.
High Lights
However, the most stellar highlight of the day was a series of pitches made by the day’s choice startups to Rafer,Neary, Behnam and Tahn. These startups—their products, services and business models—were so interesting theyinspired the creation of a series on online entrepreneurs by e27 Singapore’s media partner Fairfax Business Media(FBM) Asia through its three key media outlets: mis-asia.com, Computerworld Singapore and ComputerworldMalaysia.Among the startups pitching their wares at the unConference 2009 (and so moved the editors at FBM Asia) who willbe progressively featured in the coming months are the Singapore-based: desktop application for consolidatingsocial and business networks and information onto a single platform Orsiso (www.orsiso.com); hardware-basedsecure global access network solution iTwinn; and, wireless technology for location-oriented devices andapplications Human Network Labs.According to Belani, the judges and other venture capitalists in attendance were clearly impressed by all the startupsrepresented on the day, and for good reason. “Investor feedback was that a number of the start-ups had a strongechnology foundation, with technology that was either patentable or very difficult for competitors to copy,” Belanisaid. “The startups had a compelling competitive differentiator that put them ahead in terms of their technology.Investors also like that the startups offered unique value propositions, either by reinventing their business models or mashing up different user experiences to deliver a more compelling one.”Belani also expressed high hopes for the young companies who set up shop at the Matrix@Biopolis last month,citing the success of previous entrepreneurs represented at the unConference. “As organisers, we want to highlighthe best start-ups in unConference and have a stringent selection processes,” he said. “We are proud that theunConference has been picking out and showcasing quality startups since 2006. A number of entrepreneurs have‘ ’
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Setup small, think bighttp://mis-asia.com/news/articles/setup-small,-think-big1 of 26/24/09 5:16 PM
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