RISE 2019: The Hottest Names in Technology & Start Ups Meet in Hong Kong
The hottest names in start-ups and technology descended on Hong Kong again for RISE 2019 and the annual conference has been another huge success.
Thousands of the brightest minds in the world, including investors and innovators, spent four days networking, sharing ideas and looking for the latest global innovative trends. The conference is so wide and diverse that the start-ups who attend are from all around the world and cover many different industries and fields.
Speakers
As usual, there were some incredible speakers invited to add star power to the event. One of the main draws was Air Asia's founder, Tony Fernandes, who spoke of how he started and grew the low-budget airline to become one of the biggest names in the airline industry. On the main stage, Fernandes spoke candidly about the rise of the airline and how branding was so important.
"I sponsored Manchester United and it was painful for me as I hate that club!"
Elie Seidman, CEO of Tinder after explaining the dating app's growth strategies, gave some advice on how to create the perfect online biography.
"Show your interests and what you are passionate about as I think it is more interesting and a lot easier to engage with rather than if you just put a headshot. What you hear from many people from our members in South-East Asia is, I want to bond with people and connect with people who share my interests."
With the rise of K-Pop around the world, another famous speaker was the YouTube star, Wengie, who shared how she rose from being a blogger to being a YouTube star and now a K-Pop star. During her talk on the center stage, she shared tips on her rise to the top.
"I think the beautiful thing about having an online platform is that you can kind of do whatever you want. I started off making K-Pop covers in English in the very beginning of my career.
"I do not know if this is like six years ago and I just decided that, I don't understand Korean and I love these K-Pop songs so lets just rewrite the lyrics and record a new version. I put them up on my YouTube channel, it sounds easy but it took me a month. I also realized that I want to make this thing a replacement for my income so I realized I needed to focus on something more realistic.
"Also there was a copyright thing which meant you could not monetize if you did not own the content. So I decided to put that dream aside and focus on something more practical online so I posted items twice or three times online per week."
HelperChoice
There is a growing trend of Start-Ups looking to give back to society and to use the power of technology to help those in need of assistance or less fortunate in life. One such online platform is HelperChoice, the leading site connecting foreign domestic workers and families.
At RISE 2019, it was announced that HelperChoice has been acquired by Yoopies. With this acquisition, the European-based group Yoopies becomes the global leader outside of the United States in domestic jobs recruitment.
HelperChoice was launched in Hong Kong in 2012 by two French investment bankers, with the aim of helping foreign domestic workers find jobs without paying extortionate illegal fees to recruitment agencies and loan sharks.
Employers were also in search of a more efficient recruitment service than what the traditional agencies had to offer, and HelperChoice rapidly became the leading platform in Hong Kong, where more than 390,000 foreign domestic workers are currently employed.
With the acquisition of HelperChoice, Yoopies is intending to create a global champion. Already present in 16 countries across Europe, Yoopies' expansion into Asia now positions it as the number one global platform in services to individuals outside of the US.
"It was an enriching experience to build a social enterprise and make it profitable without ever compromising its ethical mission. We are proud to have contributed to raise awareness about the situation of foreign domestic workers in Asia, and today we are thrilled to entrust HelperChoice to Yoopies, a group that shares the same values", explains Laurence Phaeton and Florian Garivier, founders of HelperChoice who have since then launched Quantilia, an innovative portfolio management platform for institutional investors.
Benjamin Suchar, CEO of Yoopies, wants to bring HelperChoice to the next level and explains:
"We want to make the most out of Yoopies' technical expertise to help push HelperChoice's mission to end modern slavery in Hong Kong and Singapore even further. We have positive signs from the local administrations and we hope that soon we'll be able to begin collaborating with them to completely review and digitalize the foreign domestic workers visa and recruitment processes so that these workers can finally stop relying on unethical third parties."
LaLiga
In terms of sports, LaLiga, the Spanish football league, presented its transformative technologies of LIVE match broadcasting through an interactive innovation showcase in Hong Kong, coinciding with the RISE 2019 Conference.
The showcase was created by LaLiga, together with its production partner Mediapro, a leading group in the European audiovisual sector, and in collaboration with Samsung and Microsoft.
"At a time when there is much talk about artificial intelligence and machine learning, LaLiga is demonstrating its leadership in football and the sport sector as we start to use these technologies to optimize scheduling of our matches. LaLiga is committed to discovering how the likes of AI and VR can expand viewing experiences of our fans worldwide," said Joris Evers, LaLiga's Chief Communications Officer.
Yoga
The RISE Conference sees many people from different fields join in over the course of the four days. One of the volunteers and attendees, Vivian Wong has attended the conference for the past few years and was inspired to start her own app Yippee which is based on one of her passions, Yoga. Wong is a huge fan of the RISE Conference and likes how so many like-minded people can meet and join together.
"RISE conferences bring the Asian startup community together. At RISE, people can find what they need within the community. It could be a fund raising opportunity, a work partnership, or simply meeting new friends who share the same passion in the startup world."
"YIPPEE is a community-based online yoga platform where teacher users can create their classes while students can join through the app. Users can also create and share their yoga living. Whereas other yoga apps mainly focus on online video classes or a simple class listing without community elements."
"In Asia, people tend to attend a real yoga class in a studio and sweat with other yogis more than staying home alone to take a video class. This is due to the fact that the population is denser in Asia and yoga studios are much more accessible and convenient where people can easily attend a class before or after work even during their lunch break. So a video app is not what yogis want in Asia."
Wong stressed the importance of having a sense of community especially for those people whom enjoy yoga.
"Feeling part of a community is important in yoga, because yoga is not just about working out. Yoga is a lifestyle and a path to happiness and it's better with the company of some inspirational people and the support of other like-minded yogis."
Wong then went onto describe how she got to the idea to set up her own App.
"YIPPEE was born when she struggled to get up-to-date about the yoga training that she would have joined had she known about them earlier.
Often she found out about the classes only after fellow yogis shared their practice photos. At the same time, she heard from many teacher friends on their struggle to find students and the difficulty to create a presence. She thought there are clearly many students who want to join classes but do not know how to start, and many good teachers who find it hard to acquire enough students. Is there an easier way to connect the two?"
"As a yogi, she knew word of mouth was very important when yogis decide to attend a certain class. A simple class-listing app will not be able to solve the problem in the yoga world. Therefore, she decided to build a community platform empowering yogis to create and join classes on their own and more importantly, see the classes friends are going to and join together before it is too late!"
Another attendee who enjoyed going to the RISE Conference was Winky Ng.
"I think RISE has been very interesting, bringing not only local but also global organizations all into one city in Hong Kong. The topics are all state of the art and the technologies of today for the future. But I think anyone who wants to know how their daily lives will be transformed then this is one arena you would like to be involved in. This is a highly motivated and collaborative crowd as well.
Haulio
RISE 2019 also had several start-ups battle it out in-front of investors for the chance to win funding opportunities. This year, container haulage startup, Haulio, was named the winner of PITCH 2019 at RISE.
PITCH, in partnership with Manulife, brings together the world's leading early-stage startups for a live on stage battle. This year around half of the 777 startups at Asia largest technology event RISE applied to be part of the competition, with 60 being selected and given the opportunity to present at the PITCH stage in front of Asia's top investors.
From Singapore, the operating system for container haulage enables containers to move like clockwork beyond the port, saving time and resources for hauliers. It's the simplest and most reliable way for businesses to get their containers moved. Haulio comes from PSA unboXed incubator and is now working with tens of thousands of containers in Singapore.
"Winning PITCH is validation for our business," said co-founder Alvin Ea. "Containers are so big but people don't actually notice them. We're trying to bring to the world stage something that is hidden to many people. PITCH can help bring our company to the world stage and let people know this a problem worth solving."
For information on RISE see riseconf.com
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