Winit Cincinnati Fulfillment Center deploys Geek+ Picking robots to meet the uptick in online sales
SAN DIEGO, July 2, 2020 — Geek+, a global AMR leader, announces its commitment to provide smart logistics solutions for enabling efficient and flexible operations to Winit, an integrated supply chain solutions provider for cross-border e-commerce serving industry leaders like eBay, for its fulfillment center located Cincinnati, Ohio.
With an inventory subject to a wide variety of products, massive SKUs, and a rapid increase in online sales, Winit has been looking for solutions that can streamline their warehouse operations, mitigate against management issues due to high turnover of warehouse workers, and enable flexible yet affordable scaling of operations.
Rick DeFiesta, Director of Business Development and Partnership at Geek+, said: “We are pleased that Winit has chosen our Goods-to-Person solution for optimizing their warehouse operations and we are confident that our P-series robots will exceed expectation to increase picking efficiency, simplify processes, and reduce management issues.”
Winit Cincinnati Fulfillment Center will be expanding it’s already 6,200 square meters (66,736 square feet) of robotics warehouse space to 11,000 square meters (118,403 square feet). In turn, the company sees great opportunities in the Geek+ Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) Model, which provides affordable and tailored solutions that help companies flexibly and quickly scale their operations to meet fluctuations in demand.
“We look forward to working with Geek+ and are very happy to be deploying their smart logistics solutions as they provide an affordable option that can enable a flexible expansion of our operations and mitigate against challenges associated with a shortage of warehouse workers,” said Xiaoliang Luo, Vice President of Operation at Winit. “With an automated warehouse, we will ensure a smooth operation by reducing the COVID-19 impact for our fulfillment center”.
Geek+ Goods-to-Person Picking System, empowered by Geek+ proprietary smart algorithms, uses P-series warehouse robots to eliminate redundant walking of the picking workers, improve picking accuracy, and reduce labor intensity. The AI-driven system features robot task management, combined order optimization and picking, inventory management, dynamic wave optimization, and adjustments of inventory layouts for maximum efficiency.
About Geek+
Geek+ is a global technology company leading the intelligent logistics revolution. We apply advanced robotics and AI technologies to realize flexible, reliable and highly-efficient solutions for warehouses and supply chain management. Geek+ counts 300 global customers and has deployed more than 10,000 robots worldwide. Founded in 2015, Geek+ has over 800 employees and is headquartered in Beijing, with offices in Germany, the UK, the US, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Top developers across five regions invited to create innovative apps by integrating with HMS Core,a full suite of Huawei’s Chipset-Device-Cloud capabilities
USD$1 million total in cash prizes, funded by the Shining-Star Program, on offer to developers worldwide in flagship contest
Prizes on offer include HUAWEI AppGallery promotional resources to reach 650 million Huawei device users and more
SHENZHEN, China, July 1, 2020 — Developers around the world are being invited to put their skills to the test on a global stage with the launch of HUAWEI HMS App Innovation Contest, Apps UP, launching on 30th June.
The inaugural contest will see entrants compete against other experienced developers to create innovative apps that improve and help navigate everyday life. Apps UP contest provides a platform for developers in each of the five competition regions: Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, Latin America and China to showcase their skills and innovation.
USD$1 Million Innovation Incentives Award From Shinning-Star Program
HMS Core integrates Huawei’s Chipset-Device-Cloud capabilities, providing core capabilities to developers such as Machine Learning Kit, HiAI, AR Engine and more. Developers can easily achieve direct access and global all-scenario intelligence distribution across all devices by integrating their apps with HMS Core.
With AppGallery’s continued growth and position as one of the top three global app marketplace, winners of the Apps UP contest will get the chance to have their apps promoted on HUAWEI AppGallery, making them accessible to hundreds of millions of device users from more than 170 countries and regions, combined with the benefits of AppGallery Connect, providing one-stop service open platform for mobile apps, which help developers innovate and carry out efficient operations.
Prizes and wider benefits also include:
USD$1 million total funded by the Shining-Star Program, in cash prizes in the following categories: Best App, Best Game, Best Social Impact App, Most Popular App, Honorable Mention
Opportunity to compete on a global stage and showcase technical ability using leading HMS Core
Discussion with industry experts and Apps UP expert judging panel
Free access to Huawei Developers events, courses and certifications
To celebrate the launch of the contest, Huawei hosted a live virtual event on Tuesday 30th June at 12:00 UTC+1 to showcase what’s in store for developers. The event marked the opening of the global contest including talks from Zhang Ping‘an, President of Consumer Cloud Service, Huawei Consumer Business Group, successful app developers, and HMS Core experts.
Zhang Ping’an, President of Consumer Cloud Service, Huawei Consumer Business Group, delivered a keynote Speech titled “HMS Innovate For All”
Examples of the integration with HMS Core showed at the launch event include art app Sketch AR, an application that uses HUAWEI HiAI to create a smarter app for virtual art creation. Another is StorySign, which integrates with Machine Learning Kit and blends image recognition, HUAWEI HiAI Optical Character Recognition (OCR) translate popular children’s books into sign language to ensure deaf children can enjoy story time.
Innovate For All
Commenting on the launch of the HUAWEI HMS App Innovation Contest, Apps UP, Zhang Ping‘an said: “The number of talented developers of HMS ecosystem is growing. The work that developers do is integral to so much of our daily life. Through the apps they create, they empower us to seamlessly navigate the world around us. At Huawei, we want to invite developers to join us in building a better future and turn their ideas into reality using HMS Core offered by Huawei Mobile Services.”
How to enter
To enter, participants must register an account on the official website, https://developer.huawei.com/consumer/en/digix/appsup between 30 June – 30 August 2020 and sign up either as an individual or as a team of up to three members. All apps must be developed integrating HMS Core and submitted on the contest official website before 18:00 UTC+8 on 30 August 2020, where a panel of regional industry experts will score each entry on social value, business value, user experience and originality.
From there, at the stage of public review, the top 20 shortlisted apps in each region will be made available for the public to download on the contest official website or HUAWEI AppGallery from 21 September, making their way to the finals in October.
Integrated Test Data Management and Automated Testing Ensures Test Data Consistency, Accuracy and Security
DETROIT, July 1, 2020 — Compuware Corporation, a BMC company and the leading provider of software for mainframe DevOps, today announced new capabilities that further automate and integrate test data and test case execution, empowering IT teams to achieve high-performance application development quality, velocity and efficiency.
The new integration tightly couples the Topaz for Enterprise Data solution with the Topaz for Total Test solution enabling test data setup to be directly embedded into automated testing. By further automating shift-left testing in the Autonomous Digital Enterprise, teams can ensure test data consistency, accuracy and security.
Business demand for faster innovation is putting pressure on IT organizations. According to a recent survey1, 85 percent of organizations find it difficult to deliver innovation faster without compromising quality, security, customer experience and operational efficiency. Test automation is cited as the single most important factor in overcoming these risks.
“The collective efforts to build quality into software as early as possible is one of the biggest and most important changes I see in the industry,” said Gary Gruver, digital transformation author and consultant. “It is also frequently one of the most difficult due to all the challenges with coordinating and automating code changes, test case changes and test data. It’s good to see Compuware addressing this need.”
The lack of test automation and easy access to good test data is holding organizations back from necessarily improving mainframe software quality, velocity and efficiency. The Topaz for Total Test and Topaz for Enterprise Data integration empowers teams to:
Improve test consistency. Continuous automated testing requires consistent test data. Improper test data can lead to inconsistent or incorrect test results, wasted time troubleshooting errors, or worse, the introduction of bugs. With the new integration, teams can ensure test consistency is maintained by calling the data load process as part of the test case and automatically loading a subset of data into a test environment. In the event the test fails, developers and testers can confidently tie the problem to the code and not the data.
Remove friction and empower developers. Developers often rely on a specialized team or database administrator to build and load data into a test environment—a practice rife with manual processes, wait times and handoffs that put an unnecessary drag on velocity and efficiency. Now, developers themselves can setup and access the right test data when they need it.
Ensure adoption through continuous testing. A repeatable data extract and load process can be part of an automated testing toolchain, driving data consistency and reducing complexity. And, as an aid to nudging developers’ transition away from manual methods, automation can be set up incrementally to properly manage the scale and pace of adoption.
Protect sensitive data. With this integrated process, once the test data is loaded, it can also be privatized to protect personally identifiable information (PII). Automating the privatization as part of the continuous test reduces the risk of a security breach.
“We are dedicated to providing our customers with superior digital products and services,” said Lynn Farley, VP, Manager, Digital Banking and Test Data Privacy at TCF Bank. “Compuware Topaz is helping us do that by disguising sensitive data and populating the environments to improve our testing processes while still being compliant. We can deliver quickly without compromising quality, efficiency or security.”
“High-performance organizations in the Age of Software are maniacally focused on removing software delivery bottlenecks that waste precious development time, money and energy,” said Chris O’Malley, CEO of Compuware. “Driving intrinsic automation throughout a mainframe-inclusive DevOps pipeline frees up these development resources so teams can focus 100 percent on quickly—and continuously—turning ideas that matter to their always wonderfully, beautifully dissatisfied customers into deliverables that make a difference. This is no longer an IT aspiration. It’s an absolute business imperative to effectively compete for both your current and potential customers.”
1A global survey of 400 senior IT leaders responsible for application development in organizations with a mainframe and 1,000+ employees conducted by independent research company Vanson Bourne on behalf of Compuware.
About Compuware Compuware, a BMC company, empowers the world’s largest companies in their ongoing transformation to an Autonomous Digital Enterprise by delivering innovative software that enables IT professionals with mainstream skills to develop, deliver, and manage mainframe applications with ease and agility. Learn more at compuware.com.
SINGAPORE, June 30, 2020 — It has now been a month since Quadrant’s Asia Pacific Data Alliance (APDA) launched, and over 100 companies, including some of the world’s leading consulting, geospatial and data analytics firms, have joined the program. The program helps leading corporations, governments, and researchers access quality mobile location data to understand the effects, mitigate the risks and optimize their solutions throughout the pandemic.
We are proud to present some of the pioneering work being done in the world of smart cities by one of our members, Mantra Studios. They are leading built environment intelligence agency focused on providing human insights within big data to help government, developers and designers create and invest in people-centric places. Mantra Studios makes it simple for their clients to understand their community by providing powerful insights on local audiences, uncovering commercial potential, highlighting spatial activity, and discovering the magnetism of places.
Calibrating Mobile Device Data with Smart City Data to Inform Urban Redevelopment Strategies During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic has created atypical demand patterns in cities and places, creating significant challenges for urban redevelopment in major cities. With social distancing and stay at home orders in effect, historic and trendline data sets are becoming increasingly sought after in the urban arena. They are especially used to inform business and planning strategies as they offer insights into patterns of place use and movement trends.
One of the primary challenges when relying on data findings to underpin long-term investments is that no single data source can provide information on place utilisation. To address this issue, Mantra Studios developed proprietary data calibration methods which use machine learning technologies to ingest cross platform smart city data sources (e.g. IOT, Wi-Fi, and sensor data) to produce reliable calibration metrics to enhance mobile location data, a key data source providing information on place use and utilisation.
In a recent project for a major transportation planning authority in Australia, Mantra Studios was engaged to provide insights into network utilisation during the pandemic. By joining the APDA, Mantra Studios leveraged historic city-scale mobile location data to produce core inputs into the cities multipurpose traffic simulation framework. This framework provides critical intelligence for the allocation of capital to improve and construct metropolitan transport infrastructure.
John Draper, Director of Data Analytics at Mantra Studios, explains, “By starting with metro-scale mobile location data from Quadrant, Mantra Studios was able to develop a city-wide demand model for vehicle movements – to and from major destination centres. This created valuable insights into when and how transport infrastructure was used over time as well as the relative demand profiles of each activity centre.”
Location Intelligence can save Billions of Dollars in Public Infrastructure Investments
The next step was to calibrate the data using a combination of smart city data sources including SCATS (real-time traffic monitoring data on traffic signals to dynamically optimise congestion and improve traffic flow), city Wi-Fi, and public transport tag on/off terminal data. Using neural network regression analysis including Stochastic Gradient Descent and backpropagation algorithms, Mantra Studios was able to produce calibrated data sets and generate validated historic origin-destination matrices.
Applying machine learning regression analyses from diverse smart city data sources to mobile location data can deliver insights with levels of accuracy previously only achievable through the deployment of high cost sensors and manual survey methods. Julien Escande, General Manager of APAC at Quadrant, says, “By revealing patterns and trends of place use and movement, especially at macro or city scale, governments and business can potentially save billions of dollars in public infrastructure investments through optimal design and planning.”
The Quadrant APDA program is still open, and data will remain available to all organizations that require mobile location data until July 31, 2020. As part of the program all partners in this alliance will have access to APAC mobile location datasets that covers over 100 million devices and 50 billion events per month at no cost. Visit our APDA website to learn more and join.
BEIJING, June 30, 2020 — A news report by China.org.cn on China’s remote graduation under COVID-19:
 
Graduation season is drawing near. However, with COVID-19 still lurking, most Chinese universities are yet to resume to normal. This has caused substantial obstacles for both graduation ceremonies and graduates looking for a job.
To cope with the situation, Chinese universities have turned to seek remote solutions. Universities in Shanghai, for instance, have held livestream lectures on social media platforms, and shared employment guidelines, as well as tips for interviewing. Recruitment introductions and job interviews have also moved online. Likewise, a university in Zhengzhou, Henan province held a VR exhibition for its design-majored graduates, making the exhibition accessible to more people. What’s more, the university opened a special channel for companies, so that recruiting teams could contact graduates for interviews after watching the exhibition.
Remote exhibitions and interviews have broken the limits of time and space. Some novel ideas are also used in graduation ceremonies.
Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, for example, has shown its humanistic side in this respect.
The university combined robots and livestreaming in their commencement ceremony. The robots each carried a screen, allowing graduates to witness and even experience the rituals of the whole ceremony from home. Since the graduates were not able to attend, these measures to some extent made it up for them.
The reasons behind this are worth considering. Indeed, the epidemic will eventually be over, and all walks of life will resume to normal. But to each individual student, graduation is an irreplaceable memory in life. A commencement ceremony is supposed to fulfill the students’ sense of ritual. Therefore, Chinese universities didn’t want these temporary challenges to disappoint graduates, and did whatever they could to give the graduates a proper conclusion of their college life. A student from the university said that he had found it to be an interesting experience.
With such facilitating measures, this graduation season is bound to be a special one for graduates.
China is able to make these efforts due to the proficient use of technology. The epidemic has presented challenges to all walks of life. But, remote communication tools and online-to-offline coordination – such as VR, live streams – have helped the social life to move on in an orderly and efficient way in the past few months. As China seeks to build “new infrastructure” featuring new technologies, such utilization attempts have been playing pioneering roles. Hopefully, when the epidemic is over, these technologies will still be valued in various fields, injecting vitality into people’s lives.
SHANGHAI, June 30, 2020 — Trip.com Group Limited (Nasdaq: TCOM) (“Trip.com Group” or the “Company”), a leading provider of online travel and related services, including accommodation reservation, transportation ticketing, packaged tours and in-destination services, corporate travel management, and other travel-related services, today announced that it has completed its previously announced put right offer relating to its 1.99% Convertible Senior Notes due 2025 (CUSIP No. 22943F AH3) (the “Notes”). The put right offer expired at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on Monday, June 29, 2020. Based on information from The Bank of New York Mellon as the paying agent for the Notes, US$395,240,000 aggregate principal amount of the Notes were validly surrendered and not withdrawn prior to the expiration of the put right offer. The aggregate purchase price of these Notes was US$395,240,000. The Company has accepted all of the surrendered Notes for repurchase and has forwarded cash in payment of the same to the paying agent for distribution to the applicable holders. Following the settlement of repurchase of these Notes, the total number of ordinary shares of the Company on a fully diluted basis will be reduced by 0.9 million shares.
Materials filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) will be available electronically without charge at the SEC’s website, http://www.sec.gov. Documents filed with the SEC may also be obtained without charge at the Company’s website, http://investors.trip.com.
About Trip.com Group Limited
Trip.com Group Limited (Nasdaq: TCOM) is a leading one-stop travel service provider consisting of Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar. Across its platforms, Trip.com Group enables local partners and travelers around the world to make informed and cost-effective bookings for travel products and services, through aggregation of comprehensive travel-related information and resources, and an advanced transaction platform consisting of mobile apps, Internet websites, and 24/7 customer service centers. Founded in 1999 and listed on Nasdaq in 2003, Trip.com Group has become one of the largest travel companies in the world in terms of gross merchandise value.
SHANGHAI, June 30, 2020 — Hosted by the Shanghai municipal government, the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2020) is opening to the public from July 9 – 11 in Shanghai, China, with registration now open for visitors. Under the theme of “Intelligent Connectivity, Indivisible Community,” the annual conference is set to leverage state-of-the-art technologies including 5G, virtual and augmented reality to create an unprecedented tech fest this year by combining physical and virtual exhibitions.
AI and cloud-based technologies have played a crucial role in the fight against the pandemic and revitalizing economic growth. Committed to becoming a global AI tech hub, Shanghai has pledged fresh efforts in advancing the construction of new infrastructures, the projects involving information and communication technologies, 5G, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, with new policies and investments initiated to boost AI cooperation and innovation globally. Set against this backdrop, WAIC 2020 aims to build a platform to accelerate global digital transformation by displaying the practical and innovative implementation of AI, cognitive technology and intelligent automation.
The online section of WAIC 2020 features a cloud platform showcasing a 3D virtual AI community alongside the cutting-edge AI solutions for future smart cities. A comprehensive AI industrial ecosystem will be laid out within the virtual community, allowing the global audiences to learn the strategic and tactical benefits of AI by following the roadmap for next-generation technologies across seven major sectors including education, medicine, transportation, finance, infrastructure, urban management and business.
Integrated with interactive features, both online and offline exhibitions enable audiences to have a close-up experience with world-leading AI technologies. In addition, the world’s most advanced humanoid robots for business and home are set to take the central stage. One of the highlights of the exhibition is the world’s first human-friendly dual-arm robot equipped with breakthrough functionality such as self-balance, collision prevention, object identification and the ability to cope with complex terrains.
The largest WAIC with more than 550 industry leaders joining the conference
WAIC 2020 consists of four regular sections, which include an opening ceremony, two plenary sessions and over ten themed and industry forums inviting experts to share their opinions on topics covering finance, education, 5G, intelligent algorithms, chips and smart hardware. The broadcasting teams in Germany, Korea and Singapore also will join the online showroom in Shanghai to demonstrate local cutting-edge technologies and share industry insight.
Over 550 AI experts, scientists, industry leaders, including Nobel laureates Thomas Sargent and Turing Award winners Manuel Blum, Judea Pearl, and David Patterson will attend the WAIC 2020, with tech gurus from Microsoft, Apple, IBM and Amazon also joining the online events. The conference has also set up “Investor Lounge” which serves as a platform to help leading AI innovators to carve out more commercial opportunities and land their AI innovations.
More than 50 new products and technologies are expected debuted with over 30 milestone partnerships planned to be signed during this year’s event. The conference will feature more competitions and awards to reward leading young innovators and tech trailblazers for their contributions to the AI industry.
To learn more about World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2020, please visit www.worldaic.com.cn
2020 World Artificial Intelligence Conference Summit Online
About World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2020
With the theme of “Intelligent Connectivity, Indivisible Community,” the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2020 is a platform for AI scientists, world leaders and entrepreneurs to share their insights on AI innovations and applications, gathering the brightest minds under one roof to enable them to shed light on a better future powered by intelligent technologies. It aims to connect the best from academia and industry to collaborate and offers opportunities for talented innovators to transform the world, meet investors and distribute their ideas globally.
TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 27, 2020 — Taiwan’s immersive content has emerged as an international powerhouse and featured in the 2020 Cannes XR program keynote forum, “How to Build an Ecosystem for XR? Taiwan as an example” along with the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA). Due to the pandemic, the forum was held online at the official site of Cannes Marche du Film on June 25 from 21:00 to 22:00 GMT+2.
TAICCA’s First VR Grant Winners.
The president of TAICCA, Lolita Ching-Fang HU, who is also the chairperson of the Immersive Content Grant international jury panel, moderated the forum. She invited speakers from across the XR industry including, Wen-Hao HUANG, the Chairperson of Digital Art Foundation and well-known art curator; Shou-Jung PENG, Technical Director of Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI); Grace Huai-Chin LEE, VR Programmer of Kaohsiung Film Archive and Kaohsiung Film Festival; and Jimmy CHENG, Director of Content & Business Operations of Iconic Engine.
Chairperson HUANG opened up the discussion by sharing his experiences in XR archives and story-telling. “The Digital Art Foundation views VR development from the perspective of contemporary art. We hope to be a professional third-party platform for creators and anyone unfamiliar with VR to enter this field through promotion and experiment.” HUANG added, “we too can explore the possibilities of VR as museum pieces.”
Regarding Taiwan’s technology-end of the XR industry, ITRI Technical Director PENG, who helped and supervised building the first Volumetric Capture Studio in Taipei, spoke about how the innovation combines culture with technology. “ITRI hopes to create a hub here in Taiwan to connect with international organizations within the industry,” said PENG, who stressed the importance of the 5G network, which will allow audiences to enjoy the exciting breakthrough of immersive content from mobile devices. President HU added that aside from co-operating the 4DViews Lab with TAICCA, ITRI also assists artists to in utilizing technology, which can be exemplified by Huang Yi Studio’s human-robot dance duet.
Award-winning film producer Grace Huai-Chin LEE touched on immersive content trends and how Taiwan seizes this opportunity to join the global supply chain. In 2017, Taiwan already noticed that major international film festivals, including Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, and Venice film festivals, were expanding their completion to the VR domain. In the same year, Taiwanese Director John Han-Chiang HSU and Serendipity Films’ “Your Spiritual Temple Sucks” amazed the world through the newly-developed Microwave Camera, proving technological breakthroughs are no less important than creative minds.
An essential part of the XR ecosystem is the market. Iconic Engine’s Director of Content, Jimmy CHENG, shared feedback from international VR platforms and buyers on Taiwan’s immersive content. He also spoke of the expectations from international markets. CHENG pointed out how global telecommunications companies, including Taiwan, are all developing their strategies for ways to showcase 5G capabilities — and the answer is through VR.
In terms of themes of and subjects for immersive content, CHENG believes that the sentiment of Taiwan’s culture and history is easily relatable for a global audience. For instance, the short VR film, “The Abandoned Deity,” talks about a missing deity statue with an underlying element of familial relationships and emotions. “It’s a universal topic. TAICCA can help our creative content creators promote their works to the world. Maybe to start with film festivals, then to the telecom platforms,” said CHENG, who also believes by allowing buyers to understand these works will make Taiwan’s cultural content convincing and reach a further audience.
Chairperson HUANG commented on the changes VR brought to art. “When VR technology is introduced to the art world, it allows creators to think from different compositions and narrative structures. This young form of art reconstructs time and space. It gives the audience the power and to alter the dramatic intensity for the experience.”
As a final remark, President HU emphasized her belief in the somatosensory experience VR creates, which could transform an audience into a participant. HU concluded, “cultural content is everything, and technology, after all, comes from human beings. We are the ones who use technology to activate our imagination for the future.”
Taiwan has already enjoyed a reputation as a key player in immersive content production. As an intermediary organization, TAICCA is devoted to support and promote Taiwan’s cultural content industries, and to serve as a platform for international and cross-industry collaborations. To encourage multinational XR content development in Taiwan, TAICCA has launched the first edition of the Immersive Content Grant for International Joint Ventures or Co-Productions in March 2020, offering NT$3.5 million(US$118,000). TAICCA recently announced the grant recipients at a press conference on June 22.
The grant recipients are all projects with co-production partnerships with Taiwan-based teams: an unannounced game developed by UK-based Oiffy, “The Starry Sand Beach” by French-based Lucid Realities, “Anthem to the Fading Flowers” by Taiwan-based ET@T Lab Theater, “Missing Pictures” by Taiwan-based Serendipity Films Ltd., and “Through the Body” by Virtual & Physical Media Integration Association of Taiwan.
The full recording of the forum will be available on TAICCA’s official YouTube site on June 25 from 9 PM to 10 PM Central European Time (June 26 from 3 AM to 4 AM CST) for audiences in Taiwan and the world to join the discussion.
The Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA), established in June 2019 and supervised by the Ministry of Culture, is a professional intermediary organization working to promote the development of Taiwan’s content industries including film and TV, publishing, pop music, ACG and more.
The new vehicle will be East Ventures’ eighth fund, as the firm remains bullish on the ASEAN’s digital economy and predicts that innovative startups will transform the region’s post-lockdown landscape for the better.
Quick Facts:
Southeast Asia’s most active early-stage tech investor has reached a first close on its latest seed fund, designed for Southeast Asian innovation in a post-COVID-19 era.
The new fund will be East Ventures’ eighth tech investment vehicle to date, with the firm aiming to raise US$88 million from limited partners.
The capital is being raised from institutional investors, global funds, and family offices.
East Ventures was recently named the most consistent top performing VC fund globally by Preqin.
In addition to funding new startups in Southeast Asia, the firm is also working closely with existing portfolio companies and advising on how best to implement wartime leadership.
JAKARTA, Indonesia, June 26, 2020 — Earlier today, Southeast Asia’s most active early-stage tech investment firm East Ventures announced that it has reached the first close on a new venture fund for innovative startups in the region. The new seed fund is designed for digital companies emerging in the post-lockdown aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Willson Cuaca, Co-founder and Managing Partner East Ventures.
The fund is East Ventures’ eighth investment vehicle to date, and the firm aims to raise no more than US$88 million from limited partners.
As the world has slowed down in the time of COVID-19, businesses in the region continue to struggle and lives have been changed forever. Local entrepreneurs are forced to rethink how they operate, understand what is truly essential, and learn how to live with less physical contact. As a result, many are now accelerating to the point where they’re leap-frogging into digital transformation and bypassing years of the usual adoption process.
East Ventures’ latest fund is attracting global and regional institutional investors.
“We are excited to continue our partnership with East Ventures. The firm is well-positioned in Southeast Asia to guide entrepreneurs to achieve their full potential,” said Tow Heng Tan, CEO of Pavilion Capital.
Sunil Mishra, Partner of Adams Street Partners added, “Adams Street is pleased to be committing to the new East Ventures fund. We are impressed with the track record of the team, their local market reputation, ability to work with young founders to guide them and hope that they will continue to generate strong returns.”
Crisis Brings Clarity
East Ventures’ management team believes new global conditions have provided unprecedented clarity for startup decision-makers.
“The pandemic has created a chance for a new breed of entrepreneurs to think about new problems and how to solve them in efficient ways via technology,” says East Ventures’ Managing Partner Willson Cuaca. “We remain optimistic about the future of Southeast Asia’s digital economy, and we’re particularly bullish on the Indonesian market. We feel the current situation proves our core hypothesis that great founders will find a way to make their companies thrive, even in times of crisis. Great people withstand the test of time.”
Cuaca adds that East Ventures’ eighth fund will remain sector agnostic, as exceptional founders exist across the board, in a multitude of industries.
According to East Ventures, the team intentionally seeks to keep its latest fund under US$100 million, as this makes it easier to deploy money into early-stage companies. In turn, the fund is designed to help East Ventures more quickly achieve its key objective of being the best asset class for its limited partners.
Investment Focus
East Ventures’ management team believes the main objective in early-stage investing is to find product-market fit as quickly as possible. As such, it makes a point of working with fledgling founders to navigate the market and neutralize biases.
By having full teams in multiple cities and understanding both Singapore and Indonesia deeply, East Ventures is able to bridge geographic and cultural biases. This is useful for Singapore-based startups looking to expand to Indonesia. It’s also useful for Indonesia-based startups that need to use global practices to become locally dominant.
The same principle can also extend beyond Southeast Asia. Over the past 11 years, East Ventures has formed a knowledge-base and playbook for tech investment success, born from one of the most advanced emerging markets for digital innovation.
East Ventures has developed a concise theory of Indonesia having a “flywheel effect.” The firm works closely with all stakeholders — local industry players, family offices, entrepreneurs, early-stage startups, and growth companies — to build a frictionless flywheel. It has formed a complete startup life cycle from investing at the early-stage, finding product-market fit, creating value and scaling, and finally exits and re-investing.
COVID-19 Response
“We realized that the majority of our CEOs have never been in crisis before,” explains Cuaca. “Because of this, we are doing health checks with our portfolio companies. Instead of immediately advising on tactical business plans, we first try to help the founder understand the crisis and how severely it is impacting their company. Only after founders understand these things can they begin to cultivate their own strategy and implement it tactically. In this respect, we’re trying to convey the importance of wartime leadership.”
The Bigger the Market, the Bigger the Flywheel
Representing approximately 40% of the region’s economy, Indonesia’s internet economy has progressed rapidly — starting as a humble e-commerce-based game and blooming into an everyday staple that touches all industries.
Regionally, venture capital has become a relatively new asset class for investors. East Ventures has established an outstanding track record as one of the first movers. The firm has grown its portfolio value significantly and assisted in the successful exits of multiple companies.
Some of the firm’s deals have reached 1,000x in terms of Multiple on Invested Capital (MOIC). East Ventures claims a Distributions to Paid-in Capital (DPI) rate as high as 7x, with notable exits including Grab’s acquisition of Kudo in 2017, as well as GoJek’s more recent purchases of Loket and Moka POS. Two out of four East Ventures funds have returned beyond the amount of capital invested by limited partners.
About East Ventures
Founded in 2009, East Ventures is an early-stage sector-agnostic venture capital firm. The firm has supported more than 170 companies in the Southeast Asian region that are present across Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
An early believer in the startup ecosystem in Indonesia, East Ventures is the first investor of Indonesia’s unicorn companies, namely Tokopedia and Traveloka. Other notable companies in the portfolio include Mercari, Ruangguru, Warung Pintar, Fore Coffee, Kudo (acquired by Grab), Loket (acquired by Gojek), Tech in Asia, Xendit, IDN Media, MokaPOS, ShopBack, CoHive, Koinworks, Waresix, and Sociolla.
In 2019, East Ventures remains the most active startup investor in Southeast Asia and the firm was recently named the most consistent top performing VC fund globally by Preqin.
TIANJIN, China, June 26, 2020 — On the afternoon of June 23, the Fourth World Intelligence Congress kicked off in Media Theater, Tianjin. Wan Gang, Vice Chairman of CPPCC and Chairman of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), attended the online opening ceremony. CPC Tianjin Committee Secretary Li Hongzhong addressed the congress. Li Xiaohong, President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), congratulated the congress through video. Huai Jinpeng, Executive Vice Chairman of CAST, Zhang Guoqing, Mayor of Tianjin attended the meeting. Park Won Soon, Mayor of Seoul, Republic of Korea, delivered a speech via video. The congress was presided over by Gong Ke, Chairman of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations. 58.6 million people watched the cloud opening ceremony and theme summit at the same time on 40 live streaming websites and platforms, and the total number of views reached 392 million.
Venue of the Fourth World Intelligence Congress
Wan Gang pointed out that the congress is a high-end platform for artificial intelligence communication jointly created by Tianjin and CAST. We will open up big data, apply blockchain and innovate in cloud services during the pandemic prevention and control; promote the development of new industries, further drive the intelligent process and digitization of the entire industry chain, and continuously boost the close combination of artificial intelligence with real economy; create a new platform for employment, build an open source sharing platform, and forge the "Sci-Tech Innovation China" brand; continuously deepen basic research, build a world-class artificial intelligence development platform and industrial ecosystem; and promote international cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence.
Li Hongzhong said that Tianjin comprehensively promotes the strategic layout of the new generation artificial intelligence industry, and intelligent technology is becoming the core driving force for high-quality development in the city. Tianjin will take the initiative to embrace the new era of intelligence, push forward the construction of a pioneer city in the fourth industrial revolution, build itself into an innovative city in intelligent technology, an energization city of the intelligent industry, and an ecological city of intelligent development, continuously optimize its business environment, and strengthen cooperation in intelligence fields with various parties from home and abroad.
According to Li Xiaohong, Tianjin has embarked on a new way of innovation-driven development with the intelligence technology industry as the lead, and Tianjin Intelligent Port shows a promising future.
Park Won Soon said that this year is a crucial year for the construction of 5G networks in Tianjin. He hoped Seoul and Tianjin will strengthen communications and share experience on the construction of intelligence industrial infrastructures.
At the theme summit, representatives from the global intelligence technology industry and academia delivered speeches on site or via video accesses. Among them include Gao Wenjiu, academician of CAE, Ma Huateng, Chairman of the Board of Tencent, Max Tegmark, tenured professor at the MIT Department of Physics, Yang Yuanqing, Chairman of Lenovo Group, Yang Xu, Global Vice President of Intel Corporation, Edmund Phelps, laureate of Nobel Economics Award, Wang Jian, Chairman of the Technical Committee of Alibaba Group, and Raj Reddy, foreign academician at CAE and winner of Turing Award.
Themed on Intelligence New Era: Innovation, Energization and Ecology, the Fourth World Intelligence Congress applied the modes of "meetings, exhibitions, contests and intelligence experience" to hold six cloud events namely, cloud promotion, cloud release, cloud bilateral talk, cloud intelligence experience, cloud intelligence technology exhibition, world intelligent driving challenge contest, "Fifth Space" intelligent safety competition, Tianjin "Haihe Talents" Entrepreneurial Competition, as well as 13 cloud parallel forums, cloud and on-site contract signing activities.
