WEBVTT - Kopi Time E073: Vulcan AI’s Manik Bhandari on new tech’s application and ethics 0:00:07.140 --> 0:00:07.350 Mhm 0:00:09.340 --> 0:00:12.650 Hello, you're listening to Kobe time a podcast series on 0:00:12.650 --> 0:00:15.660 markets and economies from dBS group research on camera break. 0:00:15.660 --> 0:00:19.560 Chief economist, Welcome to our 73rd episode 0:00:20.140 --> 0:00:24.220 today we will take a break from current affairs and 0:00:24.220 --> 0:00:25.959 talk about something for the medium term, 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:31.070 specifically the direction of technology to better our lives and 0:00:31.070 --> 0:00:33.000 the kind of work that has been done here in 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:34.150 Singapore by 0:00:34.540 --> 0:00:39.390 Interpret entrepreneurs to achieve that. Our guest is married Bhandari 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:44.080 Ceo and founder of Vulcan Ai, an artificial intelligence company 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:48.409 that focuses on building safety and productivity solutions for industry. 0:00:48.409 --> 0:00:50.760 4.0 will elaborate on all that. 0:00:51.140 --> 0:00:54.350 Previously. Manic was a senior partner at EY where he 0:00:54.350 --> 0:00:57.690 set up and ran the analytics business for Asean and 0:00:57.690 --> 0:01:00.950 delivered a i powered productivity projects across government. 0:01:01.340 --> 0:01:05.900 Agriculture, transport and logistics sectors. Manic and very welcome to 0:01:05.900 --> 0:01:06.460 Covid Time. 0:01:06.940 --> 0:01:07.090 Good 0:01:07.090 --> 0:01:11.290 morning tomorrow. Thanks for having me on into the conversation. 0:01:11.300 --> 0:01:11.750 Great 0:01:11.750 --> 0:01:14.700 to have you here. I have had you know, small 0:01:14.700 --> 0:01:17.080 chit chat about this issue with you in the past 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:19.720 but I look forward to having an in depth chat today. 0:01:19.730 --> 0:01:24.240 Money let's begin by setting some context as a tech 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.150 entrepreneur based in Singapore, you're part of the local ecosystem. 0:01:28.340 --> 0:01:31.630 So even before we talk about your company and your products, 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.020 tell us about your experience with the open innovation program 0:01:35.020 --> 0:01:37.330 and I N. D. A. And also for the benefit 0:01:37.330 --> 0:01:40.060 of the listeners introduced to them what these programs are. 0:01:40.540 --> 0:01:44.509 Yeah Tamar in Singapore. You know, there's a whole lot 0:01:44.510 --> 0:01:49.690 of Corporates, there are government agencies which have various problem 0:01:49.690 --> 0:01:55.590 statements like they could be dealing with issues regarding to manpower, safety, security, 0:01:55.590 --> 0:01:58.150 many different issues and problems statements 0:01:58.340 --> 0:02:01.510 Now what happens is sometimes, you know, when you are 0:02:01.510 --> 0:02:03.560 looking for an answer to that problem statement, 0:02:03.940 --> 0:02:06.910 there may not be a ready solution for that. And 0:02:06.910 --> 0:02:09.290 if you want the smartest brains to work on it, 0:02:09.300 --> 0:02:12.210 you would typically do a, you know an RFP and 0:02:12.210 --> 0:02:14.760 a big consulting company will come in and they will 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.260 custom build a very nice solution for you and it 0:02:17.260 --> 0:02:21.250 turns out to be pretty expensive, takes a year 0:02:21.340 --> 0:02:23.850 and it's, it's, I mean and it may still fail, right? 0:02:23.850 --> 0:02:24.359 So 0:02:24.540 --> 0:02:28.590 so that kind of is one of the reasons why 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.320 an open innovation program works quite well. So what the 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.290 government has tried to do is they have multiple problem 0:02:35.290 --> 0:02:38.919 statements which they collect sometimes from government agencies, sometimes from 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:42.700 Corporates and then they have an ecosystem of startups as 0:02:42.700 --> 0:02:43.760 well as companies 0:02:43.940 --> 0:02:45.160 And they connect the two. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.330 So there are problem solvers and there are problems statement 0:02:48.340 --> 0:02:52.440 owners so they host these challenges every few months. They 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.520 lived down the problem statements and then as a startup 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:55.560 you can take a look at it 0:02:55.940 --> 0:02:58.579 and then two things can happen. One is, you may 0:02:58.590 --> 0:03:00.700 look at the problem statement and say, hey, I've, I've 0:03:00.700 --> 0:03:03.540 done something like that before and I can take what 0:03:03.540 --> 0:03:05.960 I have changed it and I think I can solve 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.370 that problem or the second is you look at it 0:03:08.370 --> 0:03:10.450 and then you say which is what we did is 0:03:10.450 --> 0:03:12.859 that this problem seems worth solving 0:03:13.139 --> 0:03:15.500 right, if we can solve this problem, I think we 0:03:15.500 --> 0:03:17.100 can make a lot of money because a lot of 0:03:17.100 --> 0:03:20.720 other companies will have similar problem statements so you go 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:23.460 in with that mindset and what the government does, I 0:03:23.460 --> 0:03:26.610 am doing what they do is they essentially give a 0:03:26.610 --> 0:03:29.480 little bit of a prize money to do a POC. 0:03:29.490 --> 0:03:33.230 So you get 2000, Yes, so you get a proof 0:03:33.230 --> 0:03:35.550 of concept, so you get some seed money, so it's 0:03:35.550 --> 0:03:38.460 like a seed round but without any state, 0:03:38.540 --> 0:03:41.450 but basically I m d puts up some money, 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.850 the problem order puts up some money and that that 0:03:44.850 --> 0:03:48.130 gets you going and then once it's proven like you 0:03:48.130 --> 0:03:51.460 know it works, the product works, then the company may 0:03:51.460 --> 0:03:55.760 adopt it or they may actually help fund it further 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.410 so that you can actually product is the solution and 0:03:58.420 --> 0:03:59.960 sort of go to market with it. 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.990 And I think the reason it's a very good program 0:04:02.990 --> 0:04:05.660 because what it does is basically 0:04:05.740 --> 0:04:09.670 channeling the best thought leadership and capability to a problem 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:11.560 statement which is very relevant 0:04:11.940 --> 0:04:14.550 and it's, it's not like just for one person, it 0:04:14.550 --> 0:04:16.620 may actually help the whole industry, so it's a good 0:04:16.620 --> 0:04:17.659 utilization of 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:22.690 resources, you know, fast prototyping fail fast and basically startups 0:04:22.690 --> 0:04:25.740 also get the exposure because sometimes startups may not have 0:04:25.740 --> 0:04:29.560 the business acumen or the network to actually understand what 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.200 the real problem statements are from the industry. So this 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.589 connecting of the industry with some young and sometimes, you know, 0:04:35.589 --> 0:04:37.150 not so young entrepreneurs 0:04:37.339 --> 0:04:40.220 to solve problems. It's a it's a pretty good way 0:04:40.220 --> 0:04:41.060 of doing things. 0:04:41.339 --> 0:04:44.159 Is this a unique to Singapore? Because I can't think 0:04:44.170 --> 0:04:46.980 in the US for example, the U. S. Government providing 0:04:46.980 --> 0:04:50.089 interesting incentives and not just for Silicon Valley companies is 0:04:50.089 --> 0:04:53.490 a sink or swim situation. There is has Israel and 0:04:53.490 --> 0:04:55.590 stuff like this or is it something that is very 0:04:55.589 --> 0:04:56.490 special to Singapore? 0:04:56.500 --> 0:05:00.560 I think Israel does a bit of that. 0:05:00.740 --> 0:05:02.359 Plus there are, 0:05:02.540 --> 0:05:06.360 I guess there are accelerators and then the accelerators are 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:11.300 basically some like it's like a informal JV between some 0:05:11.300 --> 0:05:14.810 big corporate is and then some vcs and they tried 0:05:14.810 --> 0:05:16.880 to do that, right? So they identify some startups and 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.690 then they post those problem statements. But yeah, I've not 0:05:19.690 --> 0:05:23.360 come across as maybe there are other programs, but the 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:25.160 I N. D. Open innovation program, 0:05:25.339 --> 0:05:27.290 I think now it's in its seventh round and I 0:05:27.290 --> 0:05:30.350 think there are like 100 problem statements which which have 0:05:30.350 --> 0:05:33.900 been put forward and it is operating at scale and 0:05:33.900 --> 0:05:38.750 the good thing is they are basically unlocking startups capabilities 0:05:38.750 --> 0:05:40.849 across the world, so it's not just, you know, 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.620 Singapore startups can apply like one of the challenges which 0:05:44.620 --> 0:05:47.940 we won. We were selected from 18 other startups around 0:05:47.940 --> 0:05:48.349 the world, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.310 right? So it is not just that just because you're 0:05:51.310 --> 0:05:54.969 a singaporean startup, you get some extra credit. But um, 0:05:54.980 --> 0:05:56.930 but yeah, it's good 0:05:56.940 --> 0:06:01.190 fascinating money. We'll talk about the innovations and the solutions 0:06:01.190 --> 0:06:03.270 that your company is doing, but can you at the 0:06:03.270 --> 0:06:05.780 top of your head think of a few other problem 0:06:05.779 --> 0:06:08.760 statements that were done that you didn't go for but 0:06:08.770 --> 0:06:11.659 you thought were interesting and others are engaging. 0:06:12.940 --> 0:06:16.409 Yeah, I think one of the ones I remember were 0:06:16.420 --> 0:06:18.250 sort of Vancouver 19 came out 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:24.070 and you know, there was you know, social distancing and 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.030 you know, contact tracing which was supposed to be done. 0:06:26.029 --> 0:06:29.089 Then there was a startup which I think very quickly 0:06:29.100 --> 0:06:33.370 started using some, you know, barely devices which the workers 0:06:33.370 --> 0:06:36.450 at construction sites could basically put on 0:06:36.540 --> 0:06:38.549 and then you could keep track of, you know, people 0:06:38.550 --> 0:06:40.690 who are supposed to be in zone versus zone B 0:06:40.690 --> 0:06:43.130 and when they come close to each other, they it 0:06:43.130 --> 0:06:46.030 buzzes and it is basically on the prevention side. So 0:06:46.029 --> 0:06:49.850 I think that was pretty good. I think the technology 0:06:49.850 --> 0:06:53.590 was being used in cruises and casinos and other sort 0:06:53.589 --> 0:06:56.790 of use cases, they quickly took that and adapted it. 0:06:56.790 --> 0:07:00.360 And then I think now thousands of workers are already 0:07:00.370 --> 0:07:00.960 using it. 0:07:01.339 --> 0:07:05.900 Right, right. I'm pretty sure that in terms of solutions 0:07:05.900 --> 0:07:09.300 for saying climate change related activities, whether it's an easy 0:07:09.300 --> 0:07:13.160 to use current calculator or you know, not just people 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.030 can have on a daily basis in terms of pursuing 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.160 responsible behavior. I've seen 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.780 applications like that all over the world and sometimes it 0:07:21.780 --> 0:07:24.560 is sort of useful to have a 0:07:24.940 --> 0:07:27.530 non commercial body sort of, you know, nudge the privacy thing, 0:07:27.530 --> 0:07:29.830 you can actually make money out of it and and 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:32.170 do good at the same time. And, and of course, 0:07:32.170 --> 0:07:34.580 you know, money as we go deeper into the conversation 0:07:34.580 --> 0:07:38.450 and I'll talk about this more. So let's talk about 0:07:38.460 --> 0:07:41.540 your company Vulcan. Ai I'm in case you're curious about 0:07:41.540 --> 0:07:44.190 the genesis of the name and why and how you 0:07:44.190 --> 0:07:44.650 set it up. 0:07:46.540 --> 0:07:50.970 Well, I think I'll start with the name because I 0:07:50.970 --> 0:07:53.950 mean if anybody, if anybody has watched a star trek, 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.160 right? So then then you know, Spock comes to mind 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.850 And but that was not the reason why we call 0:08:01.850 --> 0:08:04.850 it Vulcan, I think when I started Vulcan I was 0:08:04.860 --> 0:08:07.760 wanted to focus on industry 4.0 0:08:08.340 --> 0:08:11.070 And because my point of view was that that you know, 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.470 as we digitize, I think we there is a new 0:08:14.470 --> 0:08:18.030 way of doing things, whether it's improving the processes or 0:08:18.030 --> 0:08:23.860 improving yield and or now more recently digitizing of human work. Right? 0:08:23.860 --> 0:08:26.010 So you're focusing on industry 4.2. And then I was 0:08:26.010 --> 0:08:28.260 looking at like who was the 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.500 like God of, you know, manufacturing or metal works and 0:08:32.500 --> 0:08:35.520 then welcome was that? And then welcome click. I, I 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.950 immediately thought, hey, that's also like a spot 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.870 and his whole point was that, you know, that alien 0:08:40.870 --> 0:08:44.480 sort of race was about, um, not going with, you 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.180 know gut or emotion, but every decision they make is 0:08:47.179 --> 0:08:50.300 very logical and fact based and that is what, that 0:08:50.300 --> 0:08:52.820 is the cultural change we wanted to drive in industry 0:08:52.820 --> 0:08:54.439 four point oh so it was a combination of those 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:54.960 two 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.120 ideas and then how that's how I came up with 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:58.250 the name balcony. 0:08:59.340 --> 0:09:00.020 So 0:09:00.030 --> 0:09:03.949 Yeah. So yeah. So the longer story is, I mean 0:09:03.950 --> 0:09:09.920 I've been in consulting nearly 20 years and we, it 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.250 was fun. I mean, but you moved from client to 0:09:12.250 --> 0:09:15.570 client and you solve very interesting problems and clients pay 0:09:15.570 --> 0:09:16.260 money 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:18.750 to solve those problems and do that work because it's 0:09:18.750 --> 0:09:21.030 too difficult to do it for themselves or it may 0:09:21.030 --> 0:09:23.580 not be poor to them. Right? So I had been 0:09:23.580 --> 0:09:29.500 working interestingly, I mean initially mostly work was with telcos 0:09:29.500 --> 0:09:32.760 and banks and that's mostly consumer data. So it was 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:37.380 becoming quite mature already but it's the same thing, how 0:09:37.380 --> 0:09:40.240 do we sell more? How do we manage risk? That 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:41.760 is the problem statement essentially. 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.720 Then when I switched gears to another industry, so the 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.320 whole agriculture and forestry industry was going through a early 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.860 stages of some big transformation. 0:09:52.340 --> 0:09:56.719 So the drones were becoming more and more pervasive. But 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.860 the problem with drones was basically when you fly drones 0:09:59.860 --> 0:10:04.610 on these huge plantations or forests, uh it's hours and 0:10:04.610 --> 0:10:08.360 hours of flying data that you've collected and you traditionally 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.360 had people looking at that, 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.560 I'm holding it and then saying, okay that 0:10:12.740 --> 0:10:16.709 three there may have an issue. It doesn't look that green. Right? 0:10:16.710 --> 0:10:19.000 So we did the math for one of the biggest 0:10:19.010 --> 0:10:23.500 paper companies in the world. And if they actually processed 0:10:23.500 --> 0:10:27.060 all the drone imagery manually, it would have taken them 0:10:27.100 --> 0:10:29.860 100 people in 100 years to go through it. So 0:10:29.860 --> 0:10:31.660 it was just not possible. 0:10:31.740 --> 0:10:34.729 So one of the innovations we did was basically used 0:10:34.730 --> 0:10:35.550 of ai 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.550 to automatically process all this imagery which is being collected 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:42.660 and then pinpoint exactly which tree had an issue so 0:10:42.660 --> 0:10:46.060 they could do something about it. Now this project 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.660 because 12 months, 0:10:49.140 --> 0:10:51.560 20 people $3 million. 0:10:51.940 --> 0:10:54.650 So of course for a big company, I mean, which 0:10:54.650 --> 0:10:57.340 is like a $10, $12 billion dollar company, this is 0:10:57.350 --> 0:10:58.960 still pretty good on the way. 0:10:59.740 --> 0:11:02.130 Then we started thinking that hey, if the same thing, 0:11:02.140 --> 0:11:04.650 if we have to democratize it and make it available 0:11:04.650 --> 0:11:07.060 for a small farmer somewhere, 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:09.570 this is not going to work. Right? So how do 0:11:09.570 --> 0:11:12.390 we make that shift? So the reason I started working, 0:11:12.390 --> 0:11:14.370 I was then how do we take some of the 0:11:14.370 --> 0:11:17.850 best kind of solutions and ideas which we had conceptualized 0:11:17.850 --> 0:11:21.260 for big MNCs big companies, billion dollar companies 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.300 and build it into products which are bite sized, which 0:11:24.309 --> 0:11:26.510 even the small guy on the street or the small 0:11:26.510 --> 0:11:30.600 farmer can start using. So so coincidentally and I think 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.089 that was a pretty good meeting of the minds. One 0:11:33.090 --> 0:11:35.760 of my biggest clients which is a big Indonesian 0:11:36.140 --> 0:11:38.810 family business which have interests in oil palm and paper 0:11:38.809 --> 0:11:41.970 and forestry. They said that's great. Like you build it 0:11:41.970 --> 0:11:44.160 for us and then can be monetized it and open 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.280 it up for others because this should become a utility. 0:11:46.290 --> 0:11:48.679 This should not, this does not have to be a 0:11:48.690 --> 0:11:51.950 secret competitive advance. This should be a utility and everybody 0:11:51.950 --> 0:11:53.150 should benefit from it. Right. 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.730 So that's how we started. We started as like a 0:11:55.740 --> 0:11:56.949 JV between 0:11:57.140 --> 0:12:00.830 me and another big family business and now we are 0:12:00.830 --> 0:12:03.650 at a stage where we have built these products and 0:12:03.650 --> 0:12:06.490 we are opening up for other companies and we are 0:12:06.500 --> 0:12:09.830 making the product so easy to use that and so 0:12:09.830 --> 0:12:13.469 easy to deploy that smaller smaller companies. And the vision 0:12:13.470 --> 0:12:16.540 is that a small farmer saying Bangladesh somewhere can just 0:12:16.540 --> 0:12:19.460 open an app and get access to the same technology 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.140 which just five years back people were paying millions of 0:12:22.140 --> 0:12:23.650 dollars to access. 0:12:24.740 --> 0:12:29.390 All right. So among the products that your company sells. 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:31.510 So would that be the first one that looking at 0:12:31.510 --> 0:12:33.559 satellite imagery of agriculture feeds? 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:38.020 Yes, that's right. So I think our first basically flagship 0:12:38.020 --> 0:12:40.120 product is and I will tell you a little bit 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.550 of a story right? Because it's important to visualize how 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.080 why it is important. So like one client of ours 0:12:46.090 --> 0:12:51.760 is 500,000 hectares. That's the amount of plantation they have, 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.640 They have. So which is I think 20 times the 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:56.140 size of Singapore. So 0:12:56.150 --> 0:12:59.260 that's a good and scaling point. Yes. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.550 Yeah and it's an oil pump. So the way it 0:13:02.550 --> 0:13:05.000 works and basically you plant a tree and then that 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.170 plant gives you food for the next 25 years. Right? 0:13:08.170 --> 0:13:10.699 And then uh you don't need to do much actually, 0:13:10.700 --> 0:13:13.870 you just have to give some fertilizer once or twice 0:13:13.870 --> 0:13:18.360 a year. And then every day basically there are harvesters 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.360 who are going to the tree and harvesting the fruit 0:13:20.540 --> 0:13:22.390 and then the fruit is then sent to the mill 0:13:22.390 --> 0:13:25.190 where it's converted into oil and there's the same oil 0:13:25.190 --> 0:13:28.010 which is you know if you eat the Mcdonald's the 0:13:28.010 --> 0:13:31.410 soft serve cone or french fries, it's the same oil 0:13:31.420 --> 0:13:34.080 which is being used. Palm oil is pretty prevalent, We 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:35.660 may not know it, but it's there. 0:13:35.740 --> 0:13:38.230 And even if you have some beauty clean products, it's 0:13:38.230 --> 0:13:38.870 their great 0:13:38.870 --> 0:13:40.750 shampoos, toothpaste. 0:13:40.940 --> 0:13:44.949 That's right, it's everywhere. Right. And so the biggest things 0:13:44.950 --> 0:13:47.840 you can do to sort of change the the yield 0:13:47.850 --> 0:13:50.420 in terms of if I have 500,000 hectares, how do 0:13:50.420 --> 0:13:53.020 I make more money. The only thing you can do 0:13:53.020 --> 0:13:56.329 is make sure that tree is healthy and it's producing 0:13:56.330 --> 0:13:58.540 the fruit, right? That's the and the quality of the 0:13:58.540 --> 0:13:59.260 fruit is good 0:13:59.540 --> 0:14:03.369 and the levers there are mostly whether you cannot control, right? 0:14:03.370 --> 0:14:06.340 So whether it is what it is fertilization you can control. 0:14:06.340 --> 0:14:08.470 And then the second thing you control is harvesting, you 0:14:08.470 --> 0:14:09.760 have to harvest is that the right thing? 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.630 Like it's simple, right? So if you have a garden 0:14:12.630 --> 0:14:16.330 then you if you're planting tomatoes you will you know 0:14:16.340 --> 0:14:18.560 pluck it when it's like ripe and very because you 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.810 want to use it immediately but with fruit it's a 0:14:20.810 --> 0:14:22.920 bit different. So right so the timing of the harvesting 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:26.640 is is really important. So they have 30,000 workers, right? 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.359 So they have to then 0:14:28.540 --> 0:14:32.860 Basically go and walk this 500,000 hectares 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.060 and look at the trees and then figure out whether 0:14:35.060 --> 0:14:38.490 the trees are healthy or not. It's hot. There are 0:14:38.490 --> 0:14:41.110 there is wildlife, there are snakes. So for a regular 0:14:41.110 --> 0:14:44.830 person who's in the village and who's helping run this 0:14:44.830 --> 0:14:48.450 plantation life is pretty tough. You may be walking tens 0:14:48.450 --> 0:14:51.360 of kilometers every day trying to find issues but 0:14:51.630 --> 0:14:53.560 in the end you may not still find it because 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:54.560 you don't know where to look, 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.910 right? So the big change we did was get the 0:14:57.910 --> 0:15:00.830 satellite image, we do the processing. Then we give the 0:15:00.830 --> 0:15:03.380 location of each tree where there could be an issue. 0:15:03.390 --> 0:15:07.000 Then this guy goes to that particular location and verifies 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.590 whether it's correct or not and then takes a picture, 0:15:09.590 --> 0:15:11.700 sends it back and say yes there is an issue. 0:15:11.710 --> 0:15:13.860 Either we need to spray some pesticide 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:15.660 more, more fertilizer. 0:15:15.740 --> 0:15:20.620 So it's basically completely changing the way things used to 0:15:20.620 --> 0:15:23.910 operate earlier where people are just going around randomly walking 0:15:23.910 --> 0:15:26.560 and tough life. Whereas now they only go to the 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:28.410 places where they actually need to go. So it's a 0:15:28.410 --> 0:15:32.680 much more targeted and less work. But the impact is 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:33.860 a lot more. 0:15:34.140 --> 0:15:35.860 Can you give us a sense of what kind of 0:15:35.860 --> 0:15:38.090 impact we're talking about? Is it like a 5% increase 0:15:38.090 --> 0:15:39.660 in yield or more than that? 0:15:40.540 --> 0:15:41.460 Yeah. So 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.460 so the the the yield is it 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.359 Would be between 2-5%. 0:15:49.340 --> 0:15:52.440 Which is and it's just coming from simple I would 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:53.620 say fertilizer 0:15:53.630 --> 0:15:55.560 optimization. Right? 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.820 So basically we can actually tell you that, you know, 0:15:58.820 --> 0:16:01.010 the nitrogen level of this particular tree is a bit 0:16:01.010 --> 0:16:02.360 low support more fertilizer. 0:16:02.740 --> 0:16:05.000 So that's the 5%. So if you give the fertilizer 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.600 right time the food production will go up right at 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:10.490 the same time. You also don't want to put too 0:16:10.490 --> 0:16:13.290 much fertilizer because it's not good for the environment. And 0:16:13.290 --> 0:16:16.800 the soil is right. So we also find out trees 0:16:16.810 --> 0:16:19.660 which are good meaning you don't need to fertilize. And 0:16:19.940 --> 0:16:23.360 So so one of our clients spends $300 million dollars 0:16:23.540 --> 0:16:27.350 A year on fertilizer and we save like 20%. 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.260 So which is that 16 million to 16 million a year. 0:16:31.270 --> 0:16:33.360 But at the same time it's great for the environment 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.160 because you're not putting chemicals into the soil, right? So 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:36.750 it's a 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.150 so on one side you're increasing year but you're also 0:16:39.150 --> 0:16:41.740 doing it in a more sustainable way. 0:16:41.900 --> 0:16:44.630 But it could be be a little more regular without 0:16:44.630 --> 0:16:46.610 giving away your trade secret as it. How is this 0:16:46.610 --> 0:16:49.990 processing done? I mean is it just a photo image analysis? 0:16:49.990 --> 0:16:52.470 Like looking at the spectrum that the trees have? 0:16:53.540 --> 0:16:57.560 Yes, you're right. Nearly there. You guessed it. So basically 0:16:57.570 --> 0:17:02.700 when you take an image from the satellite and it 0:17:02.700 --> 0:17:07.550 basically measures the reflected its so when the sun bounces 0:17:07.550 --> 0:17:11.830 off and it has basically infrared and red edge and 0:17:11.830 --> 0:17:13.060 the visible spectrum. 0:17:13.140 --> 0:17:15.360 So you have sort of energy bands across 0:17:15.540 --> 0:17:18.530 the spectrum and then what is bouncing back which they 0:17:18.530 --> 0:17:20.939 call it reflecting its that will have a very unique 0:17:20.940 --> 0:17:24.480 spectral sort of profile for different things. So what we've 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:27.770 done is we've taken like millions of trees 0:17:28.140 --> 0:17:30.960 and these trees have been labeled by ground proving that 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.280 whether it's healthy or not healthy and then we sort 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.710 of we have matched So the ai matches the spectrum 0:17:36.710 --> 0:17:38.550 profile with what's good, what's bad and 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.570 I'm simplifying it, but basically that's what it does. But 0:17:41.570 --> 0:17:43.869 it has evolved to such an extent that not only 0:17:43.869 --> 0:17:46.850 does it tell whether it's healthy or not, you can 0:17:46.859 --> 0:17:49.050 even tell the type of disease 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.840 which is suffering from. So it could be gannon, normal 0:17:51.850 --> 0:17:54.870 leaf eating caterpillar. And the beauty of that is once 0:17:54.869 --> 0:17:57.090 we tell that the person doesn't even have to go 0:17:57.090 --> 0:17:57.960 and check, 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.190 You can straightaway go with the right intervention and the 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.280 insecticide that you have to spray right there and the 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.750 sooner you fix it, right? So one tree is infected, 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:08.550 it's like COVID-19 it can spread. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:11.530 So if I please have it and you don't intervene 0:18:11.530 --> 0:18:14.639 on time that disease will spread and that's a massive 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:19.000 impact on yield. So with satellite imagery you're getting more 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:22.130 recurring every three months. What's wrong? You take the action 0:18:22.130 --> 0:18:24.200 and you sort of nip it in the bud in 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:26.359 a way it's like contact tracing 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:28.960 just hearing this. It sounds like it's a perfect solution 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:31.050 for a very large farm. 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.050 Is this also useful for a small farm? 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:39.180 Yes, I mean there are so there is obviously an 0:18:39.190 --> 0:18:43.270 inflection point where it may not make sense for a 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.719 very small farm because there's a very small farm farmer, 0:18:46.730 --> 0:18:50.340 you're walking your farm and your whole livelihood depends on it. 0:18:50.350 --> 0:18:52.270 So you can see visibly 0:18:52.540 --> 0:18:54.640 if anything is going wrong, right? So it may not 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.950 make sense in that context. But having said that there 0:18:58.950 --> 0:19:01.859 are certain things which the satellite imagery gives you, which 0:19:01.859 --> 0:19:05.340 the human eye cannot. Like I was saying as a human, 0:19:05.340 --> 0:19:07.490 you only see the visible spectrum. So you see what 0:19:07.490 --> 0:19:07.960 you see. 0:19:08.540 --> 0:19:12.940 But the satellite has more spectral band data coming in 0:19:12.950 --> 0:19:16.260 and in fact a lot of the nutrients and health 0:19:16.270 --> 0:19:19.190 information is captured in those banks. So the tree may 0:19:19.190 --> 0:19:21.859 look perfectly fine from outside to a naked eye. 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:24.470 But actually there may be something wrong. So it helps 0:19:24.470 --> 0:19:27.810 still helps with early detection. So it does make sense. 0:19:27.820 --> 0:19:31.800 I think the only constraint probably is the order size. 0:19:31.810 --> 0:19:34.490 Let me rewind a little bit. So like six years, 0:19:34.490 --> 0:19:35.560 seven years back. 0:19:35.940 --> 0:19:39.640 Um satellite imagery was really expensive and the big governments 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.230 of the world would use it for defense and intelligence. Right? 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.900 So now with the satellite space booming and it's pretty 0:19:46.900 --> 0:19:50.450 congested out there, the cost of satellite imagery is going down. 0:19:50.460 --> 0:19:52.460 So they have reduced the order size. 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.050 But even now if you want to get satellite in 0:19:55.050 --> 0:19:57.090 misery you have to get at least 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:58.760 100 square kilometers. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.760 All right, so it would not make sense to get 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.860 that kind of satellite imagery for the small farmer. 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.639 But co operatives and governments are sort of getting together 0:20:07.650 --> 0:20:12.060 source sourcing it at scale and then distributing the insides 0:20:12.540 --> 0:20:14.400 to the farmers because it does help the economy and 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:15.450 the GDP 0:20:16.340 --> 0:20:21.580 fascinating. Okay, so from agriculture to other products that you 0:20:21.580 --> 0:20:23.290 have some of the stuff that you and I have 0:20:23.290 --> 0:20:25.619 talked in the past to share with us some of 0:20:25.619 --> 0:20:29.560 the other things that Vulcan Ai is producing and marketing. 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.880 Sure. The other thing we focused on is what I 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.110 would call is sort of the worker two point oh 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:41.619 I think we talked about industry four point Oh I 0:20:41.630 --> 0:20:44.570 think there's a lot of talk about ai automatic automating 0:20:44.570 --> 0:20:48.060 things and you know, robots taking over. But there are 0:20:48.060 --> 0:20:49.560 certain things which are, 0:20:50.540 --> 0:20:52.360 you require humans to do that, 0:20:52.740 --> 0:20:57.300 right? So whether it's like in construction or you're lashing 0:20:57.300 --> 0:20:59.550 containers on a on a ship 0:20:59.940 --> 0:21:03.110 or you know, cleaning toilets. I mean of course they're 0:21:03.109 --> 0:21:07.080 robots but they can't get everywhere. So my I mean 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.560 I think the point of view I have is that 0:21:09.940 --> 0:21:14.450 yes, I think productivity gains will happen, but humans are 0:21:14.450 --> 0:21:16.649 pretty essential and there will be a lot of things, 0:21:16.650 --> 0:21:20.930 especially physical work, which which may not be completely automated. 0:21:20.940 --> 0:21:25.540 So how do we make it work and more enriched, 0:21:25.550 --> 0:21:30.350 safer and better for for blue collar workers. Right, So 0:21:30.350 --> 0:21:33.850 like during covid 19, your go to Starbucks, but 0:21:33.940 --> 0:21:36.379 and you can work from there. But then along when 0:21:36.380 --> 0:21:39.000 you go there, they could also be a cleaner who's 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.540 cleaning the road, right? So life is pretty tough for them. 0:21:41.540 --> 0:21:45.550 So I consciously decided that we should be using ai 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:49.010 not to just replace humans, but make lives better for 0:21:49.020 --> 0:21:52.129 the more sort of blue collar workers whose life is 0:21:52.130 --> 0:21:53.050 pretty tough. So 0:21:53.140 --> 0:21:56.560 so we developed a solution which basically taps into 0:21:56.740 --> 0:21:57.850 variables 0:21:58.340 --> 0:22:00.680 and there is a i in it which sort of 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:02.270 gives nudges 0:22:02.740 --> 0:22:06.250 to them if they are sort of not taking care 0:22:06.250 --> 0:22:06.500 of their 0:22:06.500 --> 0:22:07.240 health 0:22:07.250 --> 0:22:11.050 or if they fall down during the course of work, 0:22:11.060 --> 0:22:13.060 then an alert is sent to the supervisors so they 0:22:13.060 --> 0:22:13.770 can send help 0:22:14.340 --> 0:22:17.100 or it could be keeping track of their exertion because 0:22:17.100 --> 0:22:20.300 it's physical exertion and giving them nudges that hey, you 0:22:20.300 --> 0:22:23.210 may be dehydrated, can you rest a little bit? So 0:22:23.210 --> 0:22:26.290 it gives them those notches so they can take control 0:22:26.290 --> 0:22:30.280 over their health and sort of fatigue and exhaustion while 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:32.670 they're working. But more importantly, 0:22:32.940 --> 0:22:36.270 we're also giving visibility to the enterprise level 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:40.630 to the employer to basically point out areas or teams 0:22:40.630 --> 0:22:42.990 which may be overworked and may be at risk of 0:22:42.990 --> 0:22:44.170 workplace accidents 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:46.560 because sometimes people, 0:22:47.340 --> 0:22:48.869 You know, you may have 50 people working at a 0:22:48.869 --> 0:22:49.770 construction site 0:22:50.340 --> 0:22:52.680 And there may be somebody who has a preexisting heart 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:55.170 condition and you may not even know that. And you've 0:22:55.170 --> 0:22:57.379 given him the same amount of work as somebody else 0:22:57.390 --> 0:22:59.760 and then you but you don't want people to just 0:22:59.770 --> 0:23:03.139 die on your watch. Right? So this gives them that. Okay, fine, 0:23:03.150 --> 0:23:05.810 I have the same 50 people but this person I can, 0:23:05.820 --> 0:23:09.060 you can reallocate resources based on how they react 0:23:09.340 --> 0:23:11.860 to physical stress or exertion 0:23:11.940 --> 0:23:15.570 because what we can now show employers is that same 0:23:15.570 --> 0:23:18.570 amount of exertion. Physical exertion, which is captured based on 0:23:18.580 --> 0:23:20.070 physical movement and heart rate. 0:23:20.540 --> 0:23:22.940 What is the impact on fatigue? What is the impact 0:23:22.940 --> 0:23:27.040 on their heart rate and you can rebalance the workload. 0:23:27.050 --> 0:23:31.620 So this solution is, you know, targeted at the construction sector, 0:23:31.619 --> 0:23:36.580 maritime sector facilities management. We are now starting to use 0:23:36.580 --> 0:23:38.790 it for aircraft cleaning because the other thing we do 0:23:38.790 --> 0:23:39.260 is 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:41.060 just like in your foot bed 0:23:41.140 --> 0:23:44.090 basically using your hand motion. it can detect whether you're 0:23:44.090 --> 0:23:48.270 exercising or not. We have work activity detection 0:23:48.940 --> 0:23:50.859 meaning if you're doing some work 0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:53.460 it can quantify that work actively. 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.410 So like in agriculture when you're spraying fertilizer you spray 0:23:57.420 --> 0:23:58.960 like that. It's a very unique and motion. 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:01.890 We use AI which is embedded in the variable to 0:24:01.890 --> 0:24:05.790 convert it into fertilization then if the plantation owner wants 0:24:05.790 --> 0:24:08.810 to see okay which part of my plantation was fertilized? 0:24:08.810 --> 0:24:10.440 Which one was not because most of it is still 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:12.850 manual application. We can see 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:14.820 we can see that that and we can sort of 0:24:14.820 --> 0:24:17.399 have a geospatial view of that. So the idea is 0:24:17.410 --> 0:24:22.189 to make the person's job safer make him more in 0:24:22.190 --> 0:24:25.010 charge of his own health and and fitness but at 0:24:25.010 --> 0:24:28.250 the same time also given aggregated view to the employers. 0:24:28.250 --> 0:24:30.120 So they know where the risk and the hotspots are 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:31.859 in their workforce so they can manage it better 0:24:32.450 --> 0:24:35.790 naive question which is is by wearable. Do you mean 0:24:35.790 --> 0:24:38.110 a watch or does it have to be or could 0:24:38.109 --> 0:24:38.960 be something else? 0:24:39.740 --> 0:24:42.460 So right now we have our own watch 0:24:43.940 --> 0:24:46.580 and so we have basically optimized because the one thing 0:24:46.580 --> 0:24:48.190 we wanted to do was we didn't want to send 0:24:48.190 --> 0:24:49.670 the data out of the watch. 0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:52.660 And so we needed like a 0:24:53.040 --> 0:24:56.810 smartwatch like with some inherent sort of a good processor 0:24:56.810 --> 0:24:59.290 so that we can embed our aI inside it. So 0:24:59.290 --> 0:25:02.430 it's always listening in terms of the sensor data and 0:25:02.430 --> 0:25:05.910 processing it and only when the person has an incident 0:25:05.920 --> 0:25:08.359 or needs help, we send an alert back 0:25:09.540 --> 0:25:13.010 and what's been the experience so far in terms of 0:25:13.020 --> 0:25:16.369 overall health and well being of workers in the pilots 0:25:16.369 --> 0:25:18.359 or the actual cases that you've looked at so far. 0:25:19.640 --> 0:25:23.410 I think surprisingly the workers have been very welcoming. I 0:25:23.410 --> 0:25:25.760 think they are quite complementary. They, 0:25:26.140 --> 0:25:28.610 I mean there's two things which literally like one is 0:25:28.619 --> 0:25:31.180 they think that I mean and rightly so that the 0:25:31.180 --> 0:25:32.869 company is investing in their safety and 0:25:32.869 --> 0:25:34.480 health. So 0:25:34.490 --> 0:25:37.429 that's good. It's like generally the thing is that, you know, 0:25:37.430 --> 0:25:41.200 we're just working, working, working, nobody cares enough and you know, 0:25:41.210 --> 0:25:43.060 finally the company has bought 0:25:43.540 --> 0:25:46.060 and then is now keeping track of my safety. 0:25:46.640 --> 0:25:50.359 The second thing, which is more I would say 0:25:51.140 --> 0:25:51.500 on 0:25:51.500 --> 0:25:54.080 a more lighthearted way is that they also feel very 0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:57.240 happy when they go back to their family and then say, hey, 0:25:57.240 --> 0:26:00.050 I have a new smartwatch because a smart watch, it 0:26:00.050 --> 0:26:02.840 has two modes. It has a work mode and it 0:26:02.840 --> 0:26:05.490 has like a life mode. So when you go to work, 0:26:05.500 --> 0:26:09.300 it's running all those ai things to keep you safe 0:26:09.300 --> 0:26:12.140 and productive. But when you check out our work, it's 0:26:12.140 --> 0:26:15.859 just another smartwatch and you can watch youtube listen to music, 0:26:15.940 --> 0:26:17.590 you can do all of that. So it comes also 0:26:17.590 --> 0:26:21.380 as an employee perk. So the reception has been quite good. 0:26:21.390 --> 0:26:22.960 I think on the corporate side 0:26:23.340 --> 0:26:26.669 there is some resistance, I won't say to the idea, 0:26:27.040 --> 0:26:29.260 but some resistance to 0:26:29.740 --> 0:26:31.560 like what the business cases, 0:26:32.340 --> 0:26:35.850 right? Because like if you're a company which provides cleaners 0:26:35.859 --> 0:26:38.360 say to um BFC 0:26:38.940 --> 0:26:40.950 then they will say I am footing the bill but 0:26:40.960 --> 0:26:43.100 it's not like DBS is paying me for this, right? 0:26:43.100 --> 0:26:46.860 So because I am also a service provider to somebody. 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:49.330 So the angle we are taking in and this is 0:26:49.330 --> 0:26:51.919 with the government and the the union is that we 0:26:51.920 --> 0:26:55.350 need to educate the service buyers. The end clients to 0:26:55.350 --> 0:26:58.389 basically tell them that you know, safety is important. You 0:26:58.390 --> 0:27:00.689 don't want a cleaner to slip and break his hip 0:27:00.700 --> 0:27:03.810 while he's working at, you know, mbf see tower one, right? 0:27:03.820 --> 0:27:05.449 They say yeah of course we don't want that. 0:27:05.940 --> 0:27:08.040 Then you say, okay then you're cleaning company. You tell 0:27:08.040 --> 0:27:11.350 them that you know, they need to equip these solutions 0:27:11.350 --> 0:27:14.190 in their workforce and to be honest it's like 5 0:27:14.190 --> 0:27:16.419 $10 a month per person is hardly anything. So if 0:27:16.420 --> 0:27:19.550 the solution is there and if people wanted people will 0:27:19.550 --> 0:27:22.660 definitely take it. Right? So that was one the second 0:27:22.660 --> 0:27:23.160 one 0:27:23.440 --> 0:27:25.750 which I don't think is the right attitude. But we 0:27:25.750 --> 0:27:26.770 do come across 0:27:27.040 --> 0:27:30.159 some people, I was talking to a person who manages 0:27:30.170 --> 0:27:31.169 like 100 cleaners 0:27:31.540 --> 0:27:33.510 and his point, I think he was a bit too 0:27:33.510 --> 0:27:35.770 transparent was that if I give this watch, 0:27:36.140 --> 0:27:40.359 then we may discover people who have heart trade issues 0:27:41.140 --> 0:27:44.560 and then we may have to find replacements for them. 0:27:45.740 --> 0:27:46.690 Which is true. 0:27:46.700 --> 0:27:47.980 Yes, of course. 0:27:47.990 --> 0:27:50.680 Which is true. But when you're in a constrained labor 0:27:50.680 --> 0:27:53.720 market you don't want to unearth suddenly and then you're 0:27:53.720 --> 0:27:56.420 applying to saying, hey, you know then of your cleaners 0:27:56.420 --> 0:27:59.760 are not healthy enough to do this kind of work 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:03.780 I need younger, I need healthier. So there is that 0:28:03.790 --> 0:28:05.990 you know fear which people have and I think this 0:28:05.990 --> 0:28:08.129 fear is quite valid for the person who's wearing it. 0:28:08.130 --> 0:28:08.660 Also 0:28:08.740 --> 0:28:11.050 like if I have if my sole livelihood 0:28:11.640 --> 0:28:14.330 it can be impacted just because I'm not healthy. Like 0:28:14.330 --> 0:28:16.520 for you and me it doesn't make a difference, right? 0:28:16.520 --> 0:28:18.909 So if I have a hypertension or something and you 0:28:18.910 --> 0:28:21.010 know I will go to the doctor but I can 0:28:21.010 --> 0:28:23.470 still continue to my work. But if you're like a 0:28:23.470 --> 0:28:26.350 small breadwinner and somebody gives you a watch all good. 0:28:26.359 --> 0:28:28.640 But the watch tells you that actually you're a very 0:28:28.640 --> 0:28:31.050 high risk of getting a heart attack while you're working 0:28:31.140 --> 0:28:34.669 and hence we have to find somebody else. It's pretty scary, 0:28:35.640 --> 0:28:38.910 very interesting. I mean yeah it's that wasn't sort and 0:28:38.910 --> 0:28:41.370 I think that you know of course you know we 0:28:41.370 --> 0:28:44.110 want all employers to do the right thing which is 0:28:44.110 --> 0:28:46.050 looking after the well being of their employees. 0:28:46.540 --> 0:28:49.600 But an employee perspective when they're the sort of bread winner, 0:28:49.610 --> 0:28:53.700 you are posing a very very interesting dilemma money. Are 0:28:53.700 --> 0:28:57.850 there other implicated sort of applications of the same model? 0:28:58.940 --> 0:29:02.440 We were doing a lot of work on sort of 0:29:02.440 --> 0:29:05.770 general improving productivity using a 0:29:06.140 --> 0:29:10.060 like one of the solutions we have with J. D. C. 0:29:10.950 --> 0:29:14.460 Town council is around a state inspection. 0:29:14.840 --> 0:29:16.750 So you know, they are one of the biggest landlords 0:29:16.750 --> 0:29:21.380 in in Singapore and they also maintain or basically inspect 0:29:21.380 --> 0:29:24.510 the roads regularly. So given that there is not enough 0:29:24.510 --> 0:29:28.040 people in Singapore were not able to inspect the roads 0:29:28.040 --> 0:29:30.130 as regularly as you want and you would have noticed 0:29:30.130 --> 0:29:33.450 over the years the number of potholes has has has 0:29:33.450 --> 0:29:34.060 gone up 0:29:34.140 --> 0:29:35.850 and the portals don't get fixed 0:29:36.340 --> 0:29:40.910 as soon and it's not just about a comfort, comfortable ride, right? 0:29:40.920 --> 0:29:44.660 It's a safety risk because people sometimes may swerve out 0:29:44.670 --> 0:29:47.900 to avoid the Porthole and accident. Plus we have delivery riders. 0:29:47.900 --> 0:29:50.530 So one of the things we did was we basically 0:29:50.540 --> 0:29:53.990 took our Ai and embedded into like a small sized 0:29:53.990 --> 0:29:54.550 device 0:29:54.740 --> 0:29:57.460 this edge devices now being put in busses 0:29:57.540 --> 0:30:00.770 and other vehicles as you're just driving around the AI 0:30:00.770 --> 0:30:04.400 is automatically detecting portals, tagging it with the location and 0:30:04.400 --> 0:30:08.459 then sending it back. So instead of having somebody inspected 0:30:08.460 --> 0:30:12.080 once a year. So we have like memorized the road 0:30:12.080 --> 0:30:14.850 inspection process. So that's another 0:30:15.040 --> 0:30:17.780 pretty cool project which we're now scaling to the rest 0:30:17.780 --> 0:30:18.760 of Singapore 0:30:19.440 --> 0:30:21.390 back in the States in the middle of the night. 0:30:21.390 --> 0:30:23.990 They have this ad it's called I fallen and can't 0:30:23.990 --> 0:30:27.290 get up at. So it's about the elderly and a 0:30:27.290 --> 0:30:31.150 signal goes out to the nurse or the caregiver or 0:30:31.150 --> 0:30:33.620 their Children that you know, the, the elderly person has 0:30:33.620 --> 0:30:36.450 fallen and they need help. I think you have something 0:30:36.450 --> 0:30:37.950 like that up your sleeve as well, correct? 0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:40.260 Yes, that's right. 0:30:40.740 --> 0:30:43.590 And in fact we were, we have tried to move 0:30:43.590 --> 0:30:46.300 away from this may be giving away too much, but 0:30:46.300 --> 0:30:49.950 basically we're trying to move away from the variable because 0:30:50.340 --> 0:30:52.710 the elderly may not wear it at night and at 0:30:52.710 --> 0:30:56.580 night is when you have most of these incidents. So 0:30:56.580 --> 0:30:58.950 we're trying to count with some hacks where you basically 0:30:58.950 --> 0:31:03.170 stick our device next to the bed and then basically 0:31:03.170 --> 0:31:05.620 it is able to then figure out whether you're on 0:31:05.620 --> 0:31:07.050 the bed or you're not on the bed. 0:31:07.340 --> 0:31:10.850 So a simple rule which basically says, hey, it's nighttime 0:31:11.240 --> 0:31:13.710 and you've been away from your bed for more than 0:31:13.720 --> 0:31:15.670 one hour. Send an alert 0:31:16.040 --> 0:31:18.520 to your family or to somebody else because you should 0:31:18.520 --> 0:31:21.180 be in your bed. So like simple tweaks like that 0:31:21.180 --> 0:31:24.640 with technology and you can solve big problems. 0:31:25.010 --> 0:31:29.300 Yeah, fine line between being too intrusive and being cognizant 0:31:29.300 --> 0:31:31.120 of one's well being. I think that's where you have 0:31:31.120 --> 0:31:32.060 to do a lot of tweaking. 0:31:32.740 --> 0:31:34.780 Yes. I mean the way we deal with it is 0:31:34.780 --> 0:31:37.860 that because in the consumer setting, you can, 0:31:38.340 --> 0:31:40.770 you can assign who you want the alert to go to. 0:31:40.780 --> 0:31:44.450 So the power is, is with the person who's like, 0:31:44.450 --> 0:31:46.750 so you stick the device then you say, okay, this 0:31:46.750 --> 0:31:48.260 is the person I want to send, So it's like 0:31:48.260 --> 0:31:51.990 your emergency contact. Right? So it's you who's saying who 0:31:51.990 --> 0:31:53.830 needs to be alerted? 0:31:53.840 --> 0:31:56.640 That's right, That's right. But I was gonna ask you 0:31:56.640 --> 0:32:01.120 a question about the lessons for the for the medium 0:32:01.120 --> 0:32:03.680 term challenges in terms of, you know, bring the customers, 0:32:03.680 --> 0:32:05.430 but I think more or less covered that. I want 0:32:05.430 --> 0:32:07.730 to stay with this point because I'm picking up this 0:32:07.730 --> 0:32:11.010 team from your response is that you are very much 0:32:11.010 --> 0:32:13.610 in favor of ethical use of Ai, which is a 0:32:13.620 --> 0:32:17.520 big issue out there and you are a contributing author 0:32:17.520 --> 0:32:19.050 to Singapore's first 0:32:19.240 --> 0:32:22.360 Ai ethics body of knowledge. Can you expand on that? 0:32:24.540 --> 0:32:28.460 Yeah, I think that's a great question. So as a 0:32:28.460 --> 0:32:32.360 I becomes more pervasive, I think we come across um 0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:36.300 a little bit of ethical dilemmas once in a while, 0:32:36.310 --> 0:32:38.290 like I was talking to somebody who was doing a 0:32:38.290 --> 0:32:41.770 project for one of the big casinos 0:32:42.140 --> 0:32:45.560 and they had, they had developed an Ai model 0:32:46.040 --> 0:32:51.890 whose objective function was to obviously maximize profit? Right, So 0:32:51.900 --> 0:32:55.340 it was more around that. How do you optimize the, 0:32:55.350 --> 0:32:57.130 like the line of credit, like if they want to 0:32:57.130 --> 0:33:00.090 gamble and how much can you give and how do 0:33:00.090 --> 0:33:01.060 you manage risk? 0:33:01.440 --> 0:33:02.460 And but 0:33:02.840 --> 0:33:05.840 what was missing from that objective function was that are 0:33:05.840 --> 0:33:07.550 we making this person a, 0:33:07.940 --> 0:33:09.350 you know habitable 0:33:09.840 --> 0:33:11.460 gambler and 0:33:11.940 --> 0:33:16.210 you know, and then that and can you really afford it? Right. So, 0:33:16.220 --> 0:33:18.570 so now do you do that or do you do 0:33:18.570 --> 0:33:21.940 the profit optimization? So there is this trade off of course, 0:33:21.940 --> 0:33:24.610 in pure profit optimization, you also don't want that person 0:33:24.610 --> 0:33:25.860 to go completely 0:33:26.340 --> 0:33:28.980 um over the top so that, you know, he goes 0:33:28.980 --> 0:33:31.750 bankrupt and doesn't come back. So there's always advance but 0:33:31.750 --> 0:33:34.250 there are these kind of questions which are coming up 0:33:34.250 --> 0:33:36.910 more and more because in the traditional world it's a 0:33:36.910 --> 0:33:39.400 human and the human uses some judgment. Part of it 0:33:39.400 --> 0:33:42.470 is emotional part of it is, you know, profit seeking 0:33:42.470 --> 0:33:42.960 and 0:33:43.140 --> 0:33:45.430 you try to balance and you do it but different 0:33:45.430 --> 0:33:47.360 people may react to it in different ways 0:33:47.540 --> 0:33:49.750 and the way I work has been basically trained on 0:33:49.750 --> 0:33:52.560 decisions which have been made in the past. So unless 0:33:52.560 --> 0:33:55.880 you also tell whether this decision was good about the 0:33:55.890 --> 0:33:58.420 way I will learn from whatever decisions have been made 0:33:58.430 --> 0:34:02.300 in the past. So there are some obviously some parameters 0:34:02.300 --> 0:34:03.350 which we can set 0:34:03.740 --> 0:34:06.860 to improve the ethical implementation we have. So with that 0:34:06.860 --> 0:34:10.810 in mind basically the Singapore Government and the Singapore Computer 0:34:10.810 --> 0:34:14.860 society and it was announced in the World Economic Forum, 0:34:14.860 --> 0:34:17.700 it's the first sort of body of knowledge of its 0:34:17.700 --> 0:34:19.360 kind where 0:34:19.940 --> 0:34:22.540 um there are, you know, case studies in terms of 0:34:22.540 --> 0:34:26.399 what could go wrong, but they also specify the things 0:34:26.400 --> 0:34:28.670 that we have to keep in mind to make sure 0:34:28.680 --> 0:34:29.750 that we're doing the right thing 0:34:30.140 --> 0:34:34.450 and it has basically four different dimensions. So one is 0:34:34.450 --> 0:34:38.200 around governance and the governance is basically, you know, in 0:34:38.200 --> 0:34:41.660 the ai value chain there are different players, it could 0:34:41.660 --> 0:34:44.230 be the business owner, there's the data guy, there's the 0:34:44.230 --> 0:34:46.969 Ai guy and then the person who executes it, 0:34:47.040 --> 0:34:50.650 so who governs that? How do you formulate the right 0:34:50.650 --> 0:34:51.560 problem statement? 0:34:51.940 --> 0:34:55.500 And it should also become part of the board agenda 0:34:55.500 --> 0:34:57.830 because things can really go wrong if you don't implement 0:34:57.830 --> 0:34:59.990 it correctly. So it talks a little bit about governance 0:34:59.989 --> 0:35:03.650 around that. Then the second important point is around human 0:35:03.650 --> 0:35:06.720 centric city, which is basically saying hey we still need 0:35:06.719 --> 0:35:08.470 to put humans at the center of it 0:35:08.739 --> 0:35:11.509 and when we design something, it has to be designed 0:35:11.510 --> 0:35:13.860 with the humans best interests in mind. 0:35:14.040 --> 0:35:15.779 So then there are sort of steps on how to 0:35:15.780 --> 0:35:20.140 do that. The third pieces around operations management and operations 0:35:20.140 --> 0:35:24.720 management is more around over a period of time, circumstances change, 0:35:24.719 --> 0:35:28.670 environment changed data changes and the model made drift. So 0:35:28.670 --> 0:35:31.060 when you put an Ai model into production, how do 0:35:31.060 --> 0:35:33.750 you make sure it is not biased, it is fair 0:35:33.940 --> 0:35:36.260 and there should be like statistical measures put in place 0:35:36.260 --> 0:35:37.960 to manage the operations of that. 0:35:38.040 --> 0:35:42.049 And lastly it talks about stakeholder communication, so like how 0:35:42.050 --> 0:35:46.640 do you communicate to um every user in the summer? 0:35:46.640 --> 0:35:49.339 The ecosystem. Right. So basically if you are in the 0:35:49.340 --> 0:35:52.290 gambling example, if you're refusing to give credit widely doing 0:35:52.290 --> 0:35:54.490 that and how do you explain it? Because people may say, hey, 0:35:54.489 --> 0:35:55.860 I didn't get it, but my friend 0:35:56.239 --> 0:35:59.870 got it, so it doesn't have all the answers, but 0:35:59.870 --> 0:36:02.509 at least it gives you a toolkit to start thinking, 0:36:02.520 --> 0:36:07.120 start sensitizing yourself to ethics and some frameworks to be 0:36:07.120 --> 0:36:09.460 more smart about ethical implementation. 0:36:09.830 --> 0:36:12.160 I think it's extremely important to do that money, I 0:36:12.160 --> 0:36:15.350 mean the world is almost flat in terms of 0:36:15.730 --> 0:36:19.690 social media apps and various uh you know, a wearable 0:36:19.690 --> 0:36:23.750 apps that are ubiquitous developing country, developed country across societies, 0:36:23.760 --> 0:36:26.569 but the capacity to deal with some of these ethical 0:36:26.570 --> 0:36:29.730 ramifications seems to be very uneven, so I'm glad that 0:36:29.730 --> 0:36:31.970 you know, you and your colleagues in Singapore have sort 0:36:31.969 --> 0:36:33.540 of pushed it through and I hope that it's not 0:36:33.540 --> 0:36:35.649 just a question of Singaporean companies 0:36:35.830 --> 0:36:37.350 benefiting from it, but it has 0:36:37.530 --> 0:36:40.439 some degree of global reach because you know, it affects 0:36:40.450 --> 0:36:43.610 all of us. Facebook is not just for some rich countries, 0:36:43.610 --> 0:36:48.310 it's everywhere. Uh and and similarly I want to talk 0:36:48.310 --> 0:36:49.650 a bit about your 0:36:50.030 --> 0:36:53.800 personal experience as an entrepreneur in general and also in 0:36:53.800 --> 0:36:56.660 the context of, of being an entrepreneur in Singapore 0:36:57.130 --> 0:36:58.840 now, you know, it's a small nation, 0:36:59.230 --> 0:37:02.360 it is wealthy, it is well educated, has world class 0:37:02.360 --> 0:37:06.360 infrastructure notwithstanding the potholes that you were talking about, but 0:37:06.360 --> 0:37:09.100 the markets here are small by global standards and so 0:37:09.100 --> 0:37:12.730 is the talent for, So how should a local entrepreneur 0:37:12.739 --> 0:37:15.850 deal with this scaling issue as far as Singapore is concerned? 0:37:16.430 --> 0:37:19.299 Yeah, I think what Singapore has is 0:37:20.230 --> 0:37:21.550 I think a very 0:37:22.230 --> 0:37:24.350 forward looking government 0:37:25.530 --> 0:37:28.460 and it's, I think they catch 0:37:28.930 --> 0:37:33.100 the uptrends pretty early on, like I think right now 0:37:33.110 --> 0:37:36.660 it's tech, it's a, i it's you know, all the 0:37:36.670 --> 0:37:40.109 consumer apps, so I think there is and we're now 0:37:40.110 --> 0:37:43.300 switching very quickly to make sure that we have enough 0:37:43.310 --> 0:37:47.740 talent um to you know, serve that demand. 0:37:48.330 --> 0:37:51.600 So that's one plus there is a lot of support, 0:37:51.600 --> 0:37:54.350 I would say both financial support as well as 0:37:54.730 --> 0:37:58.550 um you know, just guidance and and getting local entrepreneurs 0:37:58.560 --> 0:38:02.520 connected with local companies to do some schoolwork, prior new solutions, 0:38:02.530 --> 0:38:06.660 but also globalized. I mean the way they have architected 0:38:06.660 --> 0:38:10.940 the whole value chain is pretty amazing, right? So, very 0:38:10.940 --> 0:38:14.239 early stage you have these innovation programs where people give 0:38:14.239 --> 0:38:16.450 problem statements and you do that. So we also benefited 0:38:16.450 --> 0:38:18.140 from that. Right? So some of our products are coming 0:38:18.140 --> 0:38:18.640 out of 0:38:18.820 --> 0:38:21.180 that, so you do the problem when you do the 0:38:21.190 --> 0:38:23.640 proof of concept, you have the prototype, there is some 0:38:23.640 --> 0:38:24.840 seed funding, you do that. 0:38:25.320 --> 0:38:28.370 Then the next step is basically you have, so I 0:38:28.370 --> 0:38:31.330 M B A will help with that then, as it 0:38:31.330 --> 0:38:35.500 starts to get some traction, there is enterprise Singapore which 0:38:35.500 --> 0:38:38.280 focuses on local smes right? So as a local startup 0:38:38.280 --> 0:38:40.710 will qualify as a local sme initially. Right? So then 0:38:40.710 --> 0:38:44.540 they have programs where they would even give you 80% 0:38:44.620 --> 0:38:47.600 of the cost of doing a pilot with any other 0:38:47.600 --> 0:38:48.540 company in Singapore. 0:38:49.219 --> 0:38:52.360 So now you sort of have a few pilot clients 0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:55.719 and the product market fit is established. The next step 0:38:55.719 --> 0:38:59.070 is basically you want to globalize now the Singapore government 0:38:59.080 --> 0:39:02.270 also has sort of funding and support available to open 0:39:02.270 --> 0:39:06.320 offices overseas and again, do those pilots now, once you've 0:39:06.320 --> 0:39:08.450 done that, then obviously then the, 0:39:08.620 --> 0:39:11.330 the VCS and the institutional investors and kicking and they 0:39:11.330 --> 0:39:13.330 also helped make those connections. 0:39:13.620 --> 0:39:17.520 So the infrastructure is there, the funding is there? I 0:39:17.530 --> 0:39:20.160 think the talent we're slowly getting there. So it's it's 0:39:20.160 --> 0:39:23.560 actually a pretty good place to, you know, have a 0:39:23.560 --> 0:39:27.000 startup and do things, but but you're right in terms 0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:27.840 of scale, 0:39:28.420 --> 0:39:29.250 you may not 0:39:29.719 --> 0:39:32.580 have that scale. Right? So, so it's a great place 0:39:32.580 --> 0:39:35.250 to start a startup, but you have to have the 0:39:35.250 --> 0:39:38.580 mindset that I need to make it global to really 0:39:38.580 --> 0:39:41.390 make it big. So even when you start in conceptualizing you, 0:39:41.400 --> 0:39:43.340 you always have to put the lens on that. Is 0:39:43.340 --> 0:39:45.950 this is this problem statement, something which can apply to 0:39:45.950 --> 0:39:47.150 other markets in hardware 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:49.890 globalized. So I think that, so it's just a good springboard, 0:39:50.320 --> 0:39:52.839 I could, I would say a test bed to do things, 0:39:52.840 --> 0:39:55.690 but you're definitely, but the capital is here, but you 0:39:55.690 --> 0:39:58.330 have to think global, if you have to be successful, 0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:00.440 how open 0:40:00.810 --> 0:40:04.520 is the rest of Asia to Singapore entrepreneurs, so if 0:40:04.520 --> 0:40:08.580 you develop a product here um introducing and marketing it 0:40:08.580 --> 0:40:12.060 in Southeast Asia or South Asia or even the holy 0:40:12.060 --> 0:40:15.630 grail of all china, I mean is that a considerable 0:40:15.630 --> 0:40:19.730 realistic dream and and other examples where companies have gone big, 0:40:20.910 --> 0:40:24.230 so I will give two data points on that and 0:40:24.230 --> 0:40:25.319 this may not represent 0:40:25.810 --> 0:40:28.960 You know everything. I think one is 0:40:29.910 --> 0:40:32.420 I think the reputation of Singapore as a tech hub 0:40:32.420 --> 0:40:35.770 is still not there, I think it's not like if 0:40:35.770 --> 0:40:38.850 you talk about Israel then, oh wow, that anything which 0:40:38.850 --> 0:40:41.250 is coming out of here out of Israel is good, 0:40:41.260 --> 0:40:43.529 so we are not like that, I think 0:40:43.910 --> 0:40:47.160 what were known in the market is more for like 0:40:47.160 --> 0:40:51.919 valuation capital and people raising big rounds and things like that, right? 0:40:51.930 --> 0:40:53.420 But I think in terms of tech, I think our 0:40:53.420 --> 0:40:56.700 branding is, is not there yet, so other markets may 0:40:56.700 --> 0:40:57.230 not 0:40:58.110 --> 0:41:00.690 immediately think that just because you're a Singapore startup, you 0:41:00.690 --> 0:41:03.630 must be good in tech, that is not the connection 0:41:03.640 --> 0:41:06.720 they will make. But having said that, what I realized 0:41:06.719 --> 0:41:10.330 is that if you're playing in the industries which Singapore 0:41:10.330 --> 0:41:12.860 is going for like you can be a tech company, 0:41:12.870 --> 0:41:15.140 which is saying the real estate or construction sector, 0:41:16.110 --> 0:41:18.600 you will be taken more seriously because Singapore is known 0:41:18.600 --> 0:41:20.520 for that, if you're in Fintech 0:41:22.010 --> 0:41:24.800 and yep you will be taken more seriously because Singapore 0:41:24.800 --> 0:41:27.810 is a financial help, right? And we have the, you know, 0:41:27.820 --> 0:41:30.680 one of the world's biggest ports and maritime industry is big, right? 0:41:30.680 --> 0:41:33.670 So if you do something tech in maritime again, you 0:41:33.670 --> 0:41:34.940 will be taken very seriously. 0:41:35.410 --> 0:41:38.739 Same thing with the airlines, you have Singapore airlines, changi airport, 0:41:38.750 --> 0:41:43.100 So if you, so if you are in a tech startup, 0:41:43.100 --> 0:41:48.940 which is focusing on these industries, which Singapore is famous for, 0:41:49.610 --> 0:41:51.910 then I think you have a much better chance of 0:41:51.910 --> 0:41:55.730 being sort of appreciated and taken seriously than if you 0:41:55.739 --> 0:41:56.739 like for us 0:41:57.110 --> 0:41:59.890 for sure. Like when I talk about agriculture, people will say, hey, 0:41:59.890 --> 0:42:04.020 what I mean, Singapore doesn't even have agriculture, what are you, 0:42:04.030 --> 0:42:06.300 have you? Right? So they will not take place. But 0:42:06.300 --> 0:42:08.950 of course we counter that because we have years of 0:42:08.950 --> 0:42:11.480 experience and even though the team is here, our experiences 0:42:11.480 --> 0:42:13.680 outside Singapore, right? We don't have a client in Singapore, 0:42:13.680 --> 0:42:14.570 but everybody's outside. 0:42:15.000 --> 0:42:17.759 So I think that's the challenge. The other thing I've, 0:42:17.770 --> 0:42:20.220 I think, which is very, some is 0:42:20.400 --> 0:42:24.870 we have talked to some disease and we talked about like, 0:42:24.870 --> 0:42:27.850 you know, the ease of getting funded in Singapore and, 0:42:27.860 --> 0:42:30.530 and so this was some Malaysia based VC and their 0:42:30.530 --> 0:42:33.090 point was, and I'm not sure whether it's right or 0:42:33.090 --> 0:42:35.280 wrong or even politically correct, but what he was saying 0:42:35.280 --> 0:42:39.810 that don't take money from sort of Singapore because 0:42:40.000 --> 0:42:43.050 you may end up getting fat and lazy, right? So 0:42:43.050 --> 0:42:45.880 basically there's a lot of easy money out there and 0:42:45.880 --> 0:42:48.020 he's saying over the last 10 years, he's seeing so 0:42:48.020 --> 0:42:51.530 many startups, it's so easy to make money that there, 0:42:51.540 --> 0:42:53.270 it is not the scene where, you know, there is 0:42:53.270 --> 0:42:56.160 a startup guy and you know, he's worrying about his 0:42:56.160 --> 0:42:58.629 next paycheck and he just has to get it right. 0:42:58.640 --> 0:42:59.919 So that kind of 0:43:00.000 --> 0:43:03.420 aggression, desperation is missing from the Singapore startups 0:43:03.600 --> 0:43:05.370 and his point of view is that, you know, Singapore 0:43:05.370 --> 0:43:09.060 startups have it easy, there's a lot of government support, right? 0:43:09.070 --> 0:43:12.550 It's it's interesting, right? So you could argue that today, 0:43:12.560 --> 0:43:15.190 even in Silicon Valley, there is so much money and 0:43:15.190 --> 0:43:18.040 you were talking about accelerators earlier, it may not be 0:43:18.040 --> 0:43:20.210 driven by the public sector, but there are these very, 0:43:20.210 --> 0:43:23.830 very large accelerators out there which also make capital available 0:43:23.830 --> 0:43:26.010 to just about any single idea that's out there, 0:43:26.200 --> 0:43:28.839 which also leads to a massive boom bust cycle. So 0:43:28.840 --> 0:43:31.680 I think, I don't think that isn't necessarily specific to 0:43:31.680 --> 0:43:37.730 public support for entrepreneurism, private sector also overreaches and over 0:43:37.730 --> 0:43:41.569 invest and invest in ridiculous things many times as well. Um, 0:43:41.580 --> 0:43:43.630 but no, I, you know, from the very beginning of 0:43:43.630 --> 0:43:46.350 this conversation, I've been struck by the proactive role the 0:43:46.350 --> 0:43:47.920 government of Singapore plays 0:43:48.000 --> 0:43:52.000 indulging entrepreneurs in going in the right direction, as long as, 0:43:52.000 --> 0:43:54.220 you know, just producing value for the society, I see 0:43:54.219 --> 0:44:00.290 nothing wrong with that. Um you briefly touched upon skills 0:44:00.290 --> 0:44:03.550 and labor. So let's get into that. We've been reading 0:44:03.550 --> 0:44:04.710 a lot about it lately. 0:44:05.290 --> 0:44:08.750 And as a, you know, a company that is growing, 0:44:08.750 --> 0:44:12.469 that you run manic, I'm sure you recruit regularly. So 0:44:12.469 --> 0:44:16.080 what are you seeing in terms of the homegrown supply 0:44:16.080 --> 0:44:16.810 of labor 0:44:17.190 --> 0:44:18.110 and 0:44:18.489 --> 0:44:20.800 maybe going even once to further, what can be done 0:44:20.800 --> 0:44:24.080 to get singaporeans ready for this tech heavy future that 0:44:24.160 --> 0:44:25.920 is inevitably out there. 0:44:26.690 --> 0:44:29.420 Yeah, I think it's quite clear that there are not 0:44:29.420 --> 0:44:32.420 enough singaporeans to meet the current tech demand. 0:44:32.890 --> 0:44:39.120 Um, we've seen, you know, salary expectations changing within days. 0:44:39.130 --> 0:44:43.170 It's like when you interview somebody a week ago, his 0:44:43.170 --> 0:44:46.270 salary expectations are X. And then by the time you 0:44:46.270 --> 0:44:48.630 get around to making an offer to three weeks later, 0:44:48.640 --> 0:44:50.899 he's already got three or four other offers and now 0:44:50.900 --> 0:44:52.600 he's expecting to X. 0:44:52.790 --> 0:44:54.610 Right? So that is just not 0:44:54.790 --> 0:44:59.340 sustainable. Right? And I think there is this huge divergence 0:44:59.340 --> 0:45:02.060 which is happening between the tech haves and the tech 0:45:02.060 --> 0:45:05.810 have not, right? Because at the same time, I, you know, 0:45:05.810 --> 0:45:09.270 I take grab rights and then I'm talking to some 0:45:09.270 --> 0:45:11.810 of these drivers and you know, some of them have 0:45:11.810 --> 0:45:12.720 been displaced. 0:45:12.989 --> 0:45:15.770 Um, and they had, you know, regular jobs before covid 0:45:15.770 --> 0:45:17.310 and they got displaced and, 0:45:17.590 --> 0:45:22.460 and smart guys, you know, but the, it's so much 0:45:22.460 --> 0:45:25.100 easier to basically for the short term, like if you 0:45:25.100 --> 0:45:28.230 have a two year blip something like a covered to 0:45:28.230 --> 0:45:31.640 basically just become a grab driver, do delivery and you know, 0:45:31.640 --> 0:45:35.110 you can sort of, you can support your family. Right? So, 0:45:35.489 --> 0:45:38.450 but that displaced group and I think in the earlier 0:45:38.450 --> 0:45:41.550 days we had semiconductor and other industries. Right? I think 0:45:41.560 --> 0:45:44.420 that to us offers a much bigger pool 0:45:44.790 --> 0:45:48.960 of people and opportunity and that can change in six months. Right? 0:45:48.960 --> 0:45:51.810 So if you address the talent from like let's start 0:45:51.810 --> 0:45:55.850 teaching quoting in schools and then let's have, you know, 0:45:55.850 --> 0:46:00.790 six new programs saying n tur in us for computer science, 0:46:00.800 --> 0:46:03.000 it will take time. It will take you know, four 0:46:03.000 --> 0:46:04.709 or 56 years to see that 0:46:04.780 --> 0:46:05.799 come on board. 0:46:05.980 --> 0:46:08.509 But if you take some of these other people who 0:46:08.510 --> 0:46:11.130 are professionals, they're very serious. They are very hard working 0:46:11.130 --> 0:46:14.120 and you know between 30 to like 50 years of age. 0:46:14.130 --> 0:46:16.850 And if we can tap into that and get them 0:46:16.850 --> 0:46:20.500 some sort of basic um tech skills that unlocks a 0:46:20.500 --> 0:46:23.290 huge opportunity for us. Right? So, 0:46:23.580 --> 0:46:26.200 so I think that if we have, we have to 0:46:26.200 --> 0:46:28.110 focus on that. But I think it needs 0:46:28.110 --> 0:46:29.300 some 0:46:30.280 --> 0:46:32.630 education because the programs are there. Right. You have the 0:46:32.630 --> 0:46:35.450 skills future and you have a whole lot of subsidy 0:46:35.450 --> 0:46:37.850 available but we need to do more in terms of 0:46:37.850 --> 0:46:41.750 education that computer science doesn't need to be that complicated right? 0:46:41.750 --> 0:46:44.580 With some, it's and there are a lot of no 0:46:44.580 --> 0:46:46.900 code platforms. So you may not even need to cold 0:46:47.080 --> 0:46:49.660 and there are other aspects of that you can get into, 0:46:49.660 --> 0:46:50.800 it could be designed, 0:46:51.080 --> 0:46:53.750 it could be testing, it could be other things where 0:46:53.750 --> 0:46:56.260 you may not necessarily have a code, so if we 0:46:56.260 --> 0:46:57.710 tell people that, you know, 0:46:58.080 --> 0:47:00.190 you can be a non techie but still do a 0:47:00.190 --> 0:47:03.660 good tech role, I think that may unlock a lot 0:47:03.660 --> 0:47:04.910 of the sort of 0:47:05.480 --> 0:47:08.239 talent which we have, but traditionally we've, we've not been 0:47:08.239 --> 0:47:09.590 able to tap into 0:47:10.080 --> 0:47:12.750 no code platform. That's a very, very nice way of 0:47:12.750 --> 0:47:15.180 putting it to Monica and I think that would be 0:47:15.190 --> 0:47:16.709 music to the ears of many 0:47:17.080 --> 0:47:20.290 who out there are keen to embrace the 0:47:20.680 --> 0:47:21.649 future 0:47:21.660 --> 0:47:24.680 where technology is everywhere, but they feel that, you know, 0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:27.310 their math skills are not good enough or their coding 0:47:27.310 --> 0:47:29.150 skills are never going to be good enough and therefore 0:47:29.150 --> 0:47:31.110 they probably will get left behind. And I think to 0:47:31.110 --> 0:47:34.250 your point that there is a whole ecosystem that is 0:47:34.250 --> 0:47:37.990 beyond just the engineering aspect, but it's also very um 0:47:38.080 --> 0:47:40.820 high value added and people can have for the carriers 0:47:40.820 --> 0:47:41.910 and make lots of money and be 0:47:42.180 --> 0:47:45.509 part of the whole tech side. Guys know manic looking 0:47:45.510 --> 0:47:47.790 at the video, it looks like you're in your office, 0:47:48.280 --> 0:47:49.989 so you're not working from home. 0:47:50.780 --> 0:47:54.410 Um no, I've, I've been working from the 0:47:54.880 --> 0:47:59.130 office more and more in the last few months. Yeah, 0:47:59.140 --> 0:48:02.460 Alright. Why I thought people like you can work anywhere 0:48:02.460 --> 0:48:04.520 and have given on the concept of office or am 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:05.400 I misjudging that. 0:48:06.570 --> 0:48:09.160 So I so we have team A team B and 0:48:09.160 --> 0:48:10.770 I like to spend time with each of the teams 0:48:10.770 --> 0:48:14.350 and I think some of the brainstorming work white boarding, 0:48:14.350 --> 0:48:18.310 I think it's best done face to face and but 0:48:18.310 --> 0:48:21.290 what we've done for our team is we have no 0:48:21.290 --> 0:48:24.350 prescribed regime as in who needs to come and when 0:48:24.350 --> 0:48:25.200 they need to come 0:48:25.570 --> 0:48:28.219 we let our ports figure out when they want to 0:48:28.219 --> 0:48:28.689 come 0:48:29.170 --> 0:48:32.340 and so it's pretty flexible and we are now using 0:48:32.340 --> 0:48:33.790 the office more as a 0:48:34.670 --> 0:48:38.030 obviously like a social brainstorming kind of facility where people 0:48:38.030 --> 0:48:40.790 just come in and your white board and because we 0:48:40.790 --> 0:48:43.640 have physical infrastructure, right? So like we have the watch 0:48:43.640 --> 0:48:45.930 and we have sensors and all that. So it's become 0:48:45.930 --> 0:48:48.060 more like a lab. So you basically come here, you 0:48:48.060 --> 0:48:51.069 try out different things and it's a good people want 0:48:51.070 --> 0:48:51.590 to come here. 0:48:51.870 --> 0:48:54.080 Right? So I think when the government allowed people to 0:48:54.080 --> 0:48:58.140 come back, they were so happy everybody was, everybody was back. Yeah, 0:48:58.150 --> 0:49:00.980 I'm so happy to hear that. Especially your point that 0:49:00.980 --> 0:49:03.000 you know the workplace is also becoming a 0:49:03.469 --> 0:49:05.560 point of sort of social interaction for the team to 0:49:05.560 --> 0:49:08.520 come together. So yes, some of the work may be 0:49:08.520 --> 0:49:11.050 doable from home. Maybe a lot of the work but 0:49:11.050 --> 0:49:12.410 at the end of the day you work with human 0:49:12.410 --> 0:49:14.090 beings and you need to see them in person 0:49:14.469 --> 0:49:17.520 to get full synergy. I think that's a great note 0:49:17.520 --> 0:49:20.430 to conclude our discussion. Monique Landry, thank you so much 0:49:20.430 --> 0:49:22.120 for your time and insights. 0:49:22.260 --> 0:49:23.470 Thanks thanks 0:49:23.469 --> 0:49:26.900 also to our listeners. Kobe time was produced by ken 0:49:26.900 --> 0:49:30.330 diverge from Spice Studios. This is his first episode of 0:49:30.330 --> 0:49:31.690 Kobe time. Welcome ken, 0:49:31.770 --> 0:49:34.670 daisy Sharma and violently also provided additional assistance. 0:49:34.870 --> 0:49:37.740 Kobe time is for information only and does not represent 0:49:37.750 --> 0:49:41.890 any trade ideas or recommendations. All 73 episodes of Kobe 0:49:41.890 --> 0:49:45.530 time are available on Youtube and all major podcast platforms 0:49:45.540 --> 0:49:49.100 including apple google and Spotify. As for our research publications, 0:49:49.100 --> 0:49:51.410 webinars and live streams. You can find them all by 0:49:51.410 --> 0:49:55.089 googling Devious Research Library. Have a great day.