H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (9 March 2019) – Danawa interview with CEO Sohn Yung-hwan; Unicorns in winter: China’s formerly white-hot tech sector is in the doldrums

March 9, 2019 Leave a comment

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (9 March 2019) – Danawa interview with CEO Sohn Yung-hwan; Unicorns in winter: China’s formerly white-hot tech sector is in the doldrums

Companies

  • Overseas buying of surging Han’s Laser Technology hits 28 per cent limit on foreign ownership; MSCI responds by saying the hot company will no longer be in its basket of A-shares in its global indexes (SCMP)
  • Danawa interview with CEO Sohn Yung-hwan (ETN)
  • Delta Electronics acquires lighting solution brand Amerlux (Digitimes)
  • For IDP Education, India is the new China (AFR)

BATTSS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Samsung, Softbank

  • Baidu invests further in WM Motor to raise stakes in smart mobility (Technode)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

  • Facebook’s Pivot to Messaging Puts Advertisers In a Tight Spot; While marketers are very familiar with Facebook’s wide-open community, they are far less experienced with messaging apps (WSJ)
  • Facebook Says It’s Evolving, So What About Its $55 Billion in Ad Sales? (Barron’s)
  • Mark Zuckerberg Wants Facebook to Emulate WeChat. Can It? (NYT)
  • Apple could launch augmented reality headset in 2020 (TC)
  • I Want to Stop Liking Microsoft Again. Why Is It So Hard? (Barron’s)
  • How Microsoft built the Hololens 2 (FT)
  • Google just launched an app to teach Indian kids to read (CNN)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

  • China’s game streaming site Panda TV confirms it will end service amid cash crisis; Panda TV still ranked as China’s No. 3 game streaming network in terms of active users at the end last year (SCMP)
  • Unicorns in winter: China’s formerly white-hot tech sector is in the doldrums; Technology startups are finding it harder to attract venture capital and are shedding staff (Economist)
  • Tech culture: Chinese consumers are buying cars online using VR, without kicking the proverbial tyre; Amid the recent economic slowdown more and more ordinary Chinese are turning to the second-hand car market to meet their driving needs (SCMP)
  • China’s tech moguls bet on 5G to help lift economy amid increased security scrutiny in the West; Nationwide 5G capital spending forecast to range from 900 billion yuan and 1.5 trillion yuan between 2020 and 2025 (SCMP)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

  • Wearable devices may help prevent stroke: Monash wants $100m for trials (AFR)
  • The Servant Economy: Ten years after Uber inaugurated a new era for Silicon Valley, we checked back in on 105 on-demand businesses. (Atlantic); The Sharing Economy Was Always a Scam; ‘Sharing’ was supposed to save us. Instead, it became a Trojan horse for a precarious economic future. (Medium)
  • Salesforce at 20 offers lessons for startup success (TC)
  • Scaleway releases cloud GPU instances for €1 per hour (TC)
  • With Big Stars and Paid Subscriptions, Luminary Aims to Be the Netflix of Podcasts (NYT)
  • How a 250-year-old government department is digitising Indian maps using drones (qz)
  • How Turning Down A Nearly $1 Billion Acquisition Deal Helped Foursquare See Its 10th Anniversary (Forbes)
  • A $2,000 Phone Won’t Cure an Industry’s Midlife Crisis; Folding screens, ultra-luxe devices and 5G won’t solve the problems of the no-growth smartphone market. (Bloomberg)
  • AI Researchers Are Pushing Bias Out of Algorithms; Practical ideas for ensuring that artificial intelligence is ethical and fair are gushing from inside the tech profession. (Bloomberg)

Life

  • Stan Lee unleashed the heroic power of the outcast (Wired)

Filed under Innovation

About bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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