Digital Disruptor

Founded in 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swanpnil Jane, Ather Energy is an electric vehicle start–up based in Bangalore. Driving in India can be tricky, with roads cratered with potholes, nameless streets, chronic traffic congestion, and confusing city layouts. To bring cost-effective mobility solutions to India‘s fast-growing economy, Ather Energy developed Ather 450 and Ather 450X, two intelligent scooters, and established AtherGrid, an electric vehicle charging network. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, Ather Energy‘s scooters provide users structured electricity plans, predictive maintenance, and route optimization information, ensuring long-term transportation cost savings. Cloud software and architecture solutions have also enabled the company’s team to deploy microservices in real time constantly, delivering more frequent monthly platform updates to maximize the connected scooters. Innovative updates include “guide me home“ lights and real-time ride/energy efficient indicators. Meanwhile, the scooters’ aggregated data while on the road has given the Ather Energy team essential intelligence to develop future models based on customer habits and requirements. Ather Energy has since launched its AtherSpace experience center and over 50 charging points and plans to increase its production output to 100,000 units annually. 

MediConCen is a Hong Kong-based insurtech start-up that automates insurance claims for insurance companies, medical networks, and clinics using hyperledger blockchain. It has been recognized in various well-known innovation and technology competitions in China, India, and Hong Kong. Combining domain knowledge, understanding of regulations, and technical know-how with a staff of former senior insurance executives, serial entrepreneurs, senior programmers, and investment bankers, MediConCen launched the first blockchain-based medical ecosystem in Asia in April 2019, used by over 200,000 group employees. In its new medical ecosystem, individual clinics ruled out by the traditional medical card system due to fixed prices and complicated administrative and settlement processes can join the insurance market through a simple app. It utilizes digital signatures and smart contracts to ensure that each party executes the contract based on defined terms, preventing abuses and fault claims. Currently, MediConCen has connected with multiple insurers and more than 460 medical experts. It is also one of the top 10 contributors in Greater China to the global Hyperledger Fabric codebase. MediConCen continues to push the boundaries of technology, applying the latest technologies to deliver a strong, lasting impact on how insurance and finance are operated. 

Beike Zhaofang is the country’s largest housing transactions and services platform, providing all-around service connections for high-quality family residences across China. Leveraging data resources and technical capabilities, Beike Zhaofang aggregates and empowers service providers in the real estate industry to create a “new residence” quality service ecology with the industrial internet. Beike Zhaofang covers service categories in existing housing, new apartments, rental, decoration, and community services. As of June 2020, Beike Zhaofang is in 103 cities across the country, connecting 265 new brokerage brands, 42,000 stores, and 456,000 agents on its platform. Based on an authentic property listing inventory and through in-house-developed virtual reality (VR) acquisition equipment and VR scene construction algorithm, Beike Zhaofang has reproduced an offline space for its customers. It has created products such as VR property showing, VR viewing, Beike future home, and an artificial intelligence (AI)–based home decoration design tool. These greatly optimize users’ experience of viewing and searching properties, leading to improved real estate transaction efficiency. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, customers could fully understand housing information without leaving their homes. Online consultations, recognition, and subscriptions were all covered through VR, accelerating the online migration of housing selections and purchases while guarding customers’ health and safety.

GetCapital is an award–winning nonbank lender dedicated to meeting the needs of Australian businesses. Headquartered in Sydney, GetCapital offers a broad range of business finance products designed for cash flow and everyday business financing, asset purchases, expansion, growth, and payments. Based completely online, GetCapital has rapidly grown to become one of Australia’s leading nonbank lenders by developing and offering technology-enabled finance solutions that solve common business problems. Shift Payments was developed by GetCapital, a new payment platform that simplifies trade credit. In Australia, the use of credit terms among businesses is so widespread that, if combined as a source of capital, it would create the fifth-largest bank in the country by assets. Moreover, because much of this trade credit is not provided by financial institutions, everyday businesses across Australia are acting similarly to banks. Shift Payments solves this problem by removing the friction of trade terms from the business relationship. With Shift Payments, businesses get paid on time and every time, and customers get better payment terms. Helping businesses release capital faster and grow, Shift Payments simplifies and streamlines trade credit between buyers and suppliers. Shift Payments also allows buyers to take control and improve business cash flow through its easy-to-use platform with payment terms to suit different business needs. 

As part of Lippo Group, OVO provides highly personalized offers and services through a big data analytics platform that integrates information from organizations under the Lippo Group. These offers and services span across F&B, travel, and retail. As part of the OVO ecosystem, organizations under the Lippo Group use real-time insights to improve customer experience and generate new revenue streams for the conglomerate.

Chunyu Doctor is the first online medical consultation platform in China that provides real-time communications between doctors and patients. It brings convenient, accurate, and economical medical services to 125 million users, while bringing economic benefits and better brand recognition to 500,000 registered doctors. Recognizing the potential of online medical services, Chunyu Doctor also launched its Online Medical Consultation Open Platform for enterprises.

Users can access related webpages and public accounts for medical consultation services without opening the Chunyu Doctor app. The company has alleviated China’s traditional medical problems such as uneven distribution of medical resources, inefficient medical systems, and poor medical experiences and continuously scaling up, handling more than 1 million online medical inquiries every day.

WeDoctor HuaTuo Intelligent Doctor is a cloud-based diagnosis and treatment system for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatments. It is built upon the experiences of reputable TCM doctors into an AI engine where after the diagnosis on the symptoms of the patient recommended, TCM prescriptions are made. The onsite TCM doctors then fine-tune the dosage and frequency of the prescription, which are then dispensed to the patient.

Through WeDoctor HuaTuo, TCM doctors are able to leverage upon the experiences of reputable doctors and reduce their workloads. Currently, WeDoctor HuaTuo is housed at Wuzhen Internet TCM Center and has successfully connected with 384 TCM institutes and has made more than 236 million TCM prescriptions. Within the TCM community, WeDoctor HuaTuo is commonly referred to as the “Cloud-Based TCM Brain.”

ALLCARE addresses the compensation gap where the alternative workforce, composed of freelancers, solo entrepreneurs, professionals, and other informal workers do not have access to care and welfare that traditional employees have.

ALLCARE aggregates freelancers’ benefits demand around the world and uses economies of scale to make benefits affordable and accessible to them. Utilizing blockchain technology, ALLCARE helps open this new and underserved market to providers without sacrificing operational costs through the usage of fully automated transactions in smart contracts. By incentivizing both workers and benefit providers through real-world value and utility, ALLCARE has grown to be a major disruption in the workforce technology space. 

By combining lifestyle needs and digital technology, the Boost e-wallet has made transactions easier, faster, and more secure while giving rewarding experiences to its customers. Boost was launched in 2017 and has partnered with 17 banks to support the in-app reload feature for wallets as well as prepaid mobile accounts, regardless of telco network. Each transaction merits rewards for users and Boost also offers digital vouchers for deals and discounts with partner merchants.

Boost has also enabled P2P (peer-to-peer) lending, where users can instantly send or request money from other contacts, free-of-charge. To date, Boost has more than 2.5 million registered users with 25,000 touchpoints nationwide including pasar malam (night market) stalls, food trucks and restaurants, online stores, and physical retailers.

Dishthefish transforms traditional fish mongering into a lifestyle experience. Augmenting its online sales with physical retail locations, the startup brings each customer on a journey of seafood discovery. Dishthefish uses smart technology to help remember and understand customers’ preferences. The organization is aimed towards make buying and eating seafood at home an enjoyable experience.

HelloToby is Hong Kong’s largest online services marketplace for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and freelancers, built for the country’s emerging gig economy. Looking for qualified service professionals has been made easier with the platform; instead of browsing manually through each business listing, consumers answer several questions to receive tailored quotations from qualified service providers interested in the job.

HelloToby’s robust matching algorithm utilizes machine learning to analyze 700 service categories to ensure that only qualified service professionals are matched and provides a measurable and actionable acquisition channel for SMEs and freelancers to grow their business. In addition, HelloToby has built a risk engine and pricing system that ensures each lead has high intent and equitable pricing. Since launching two years ago, HelloToby has close to 200,000 registered users and is estimated to have brought service providers more than HK$500 million worth of business.

SCB Abacus’ E-Marketplace Digital Lending Platform was designed for Thailand’s small businesses, which comprise majority of the country’s economy. To support the growth of small business owners in a sustainable fashion while managing the bank’s risk, SCB Abacus uses AI-powered algorithms to build a new risk model. Alternative data such as store ratings and shipment patterns automatically pulled from digital e-marketplace partners via an open API enables SCB Abacus to personalize loan products in terms of pricing, tenor, and repayment schedules to match the needs of individual customers.

This platform eliminates human intervention – with automation, the standard loan process is reduced from 3 days to 10 minutes. To offer further convenience to customers, SCB Abacus has integrated the platform into the core banking system, allowing instant disbursement of approved loans into customer accounts.

With its goal to expedite the decision-making process for medical professionals while providing better accuracy for diagnoses, VUNO has developed VUNO-MED™, a medical data analysis solution built on AI technology. In collaboration with South Korea’s largest hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, as well as radiologists and medical scientists, VUNO has utilized medical imaging to create the VUNO-MED™ platform, which comprises the Bone Age, Chest X-ray, Chest CT, and Lung Quant series. With its own deep learning engine, VUNO-MED™ develops diagnoses-assisting solutions and services and data analysis based on X-ray features, CT scans, and a bio-signal monitoring system.

VUNO is available in large hospitals as an on-premise solution, and as a cloud-based service to clinics. The VUNO-MED™ Bone Age series is the first among AI-based medical diagnosis solutions and devices in South Korea to be approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and has received accolades for improving reading speed by 40% and increasing reading accuracy by 8%.

“Mobike created the first smart-shared bike model in the world and has entered over 100 cities in the world. The patented smart lock developed by Mobike is integrated with GPS and communication modules, which allows users to detect the smart bikes from their terminals. Utilizing new generation IoT technologies, users can position and use the closest bike with their mobile phones whenever and wherever possible.

MoBike’s 5 million bikes go through more than 2.5 million transactions daily, which are in turn analyzed to power its bike operation platform. Mobike brings commute convenience to more people, and sustainable smart solutions to environment-friendly transportation in cities, while generation and collection of data produced from riding activities are ingested into a self-developed AI big data platform (Magic Cube) to generate insights to forecast demands and redistribute availability accordingly.”

BIMA allows for microinsurance coverage for most Filipinos, especially low-income families and the largely unbanked sector, through its Mobile Microinsurance offering. This innovation leverages Pinoys’ heavy mobile phone usage and the country’s unique “tingi” culture, offering insurance coverage via automatic prepaid deductions (installments of as low as PHP 45), postpaid charges, or mobile money.

These were made possible by BIMA’s paperless transactions and the development of its internal app for insurance agents and brokers. Through this, BIMA opened up microinsurance to the mass market, offering service inclusivity for even those living in the remotest locations in the archipelago.

Combining local understanding and smart data science, Grab launched two solutions in 2016: a specially-designed algorithm to support the real-time odd-even car license plate matching policy and GrabHitch (Nebeng) Bike. The filtering and matching algorithm supports the Indonesian government’s efforts to control the volume of private vehicles during rush hours in the capital.

Targeted at 38 million daily commuters who travel from Jakarta’s outskirts into the city center, GrabHitch (Nebeng) Bike improves traffic congestion by reducing the number of commuters who travel alone.

Grab continues to solve Malaysia’s transport challenges with its carpooling services, GrabHitch and GrabShare. Through these, Grab’s algorithms calculate and determine a match, factoring closest available drivers, travel time, overlap of trip routes, detour distance, and current traffic conditions before intuitively sequencing pick-ups and dropoffs. Carpooling allows vehicles to carry more passengers, reduces vehicle maintenance cost, and alleviates congestion and carbon emissions.

These services have created more job opportunities and provided access to faster, safer, and cheaper transport. Grab’s carpooling services shows the organization’s understanding of Malaysia’s unique transport and economic needs through corresponding technology solutions. Grab has also found ways to work with and complement the Malaysian government, to support its efforts and vision to develop a more sophisticated and extensive public transport infrastructure.

Grab is known in Southeast Asia for making transportation and payments safe, accessible and affordable for everyone. Driven by a vision to improve the way people travel and pay for things everyday by tackling real local challenges in a new and different way through innovative disruptive technologies, Grab has developed innovative solutions for Singapore’s growing population including the launch of three flagship programmes GrabShare, GrabCoach and GrabPay Credits.

The services are tackling congestion, pollution and mobility challenges and help everyone go cashless, by putting more people in fewer vehicles, and moving people across Singapore faster, safer and more conveniently. The affordable transport services, which are focused on filling gaps in areas not currently served by Singapore’s public transport networks, have saved more than 1.7 million kilograms of carbon emissions in Singapore.

Oovvuu uses artificial intelligence to navigate every video in the world. Compass, their proprietary AI, reads 300,000 articles by 100,000 publishers in real time and ascertains what they are about.

Compass then watches thousands of video clips and full programs from global broadcasters to ascertain their content, and establishes whether they are a match. When a video and an article match, Compass places the video in the article, where it is watched with advertising.

Trringo is a startup that sets to create a shared economy for farm mechanization, making high-end farm equipment available to the smallest of farmers on a pay-per-use basis. Trringo allows farmers to rent agricultural and high-end farm equipment through a phone call or via the app or website, with end-to-end order and service fulfilment.

Quality service, along with high-end equipment and trained professional drivers are provided to farmers on a pay-per-use model. Leveraging high-end technology such as algorithms and predictive demand, Trringo offers ease of access to high-end equipment, enabling growth in the agricultural industry. Trringo’s algorithms match supply and demand, predictive demand generation, and recommendation engines to simplify the rental process for farmers.

With an aim to provide the innovative financial services that is convenient and efficient for all, the e-money project called TrueMoney Wallet was established. The continuous effort has been focusing on the use cases that really matter in the local market.

Today, TrueMoney Wallet has become the flagship consumer product of True Money, with a promising ecosystem and support from partners such as 7-eleven and Apple. As of now, the company has gained leading market share of the overall e-wallet market in Thailand, with the number of active users growing from 770,000 at end of 2016 to 3M in Oct 2017.