CEO Roundtable bridging Asia

Today's guest is Onyeka Akumah, founder and CEO of Farmcrowdy.Farmcrowdy is Nigeria’s First Digital Agriculture Platform that empowers rural farmers by providing them with improved seeds, farm inputs, training on modern farming techniques and provides a market for the sale of their farm produce. This gives the farmers the capacity to farm more acres and by extension leads to increased food production and security in Africa.Since launching in 2016, Farmcrowdy has empowered over 200,000 small-scale farmers across Nigeria. We are committed to expanding our reach in order to continue to empower local farmers, positively impact their lives and their families while boosting food production and sustainability in Nigeria.

Roundtable discussion: David Kim, Founder of Northhead Capital, lived and worked as an expat in Korea, HK, China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, speaks Japanese, Korean, English and Thai. Keishin Yamashita, CEO of Lib Commerce, Inc. based in Osaka, Japan (Japanese of Korean origin), speaks Japanese, Korean, and English Jocelyn Clark, Assistant Professor at Pai Chai University (Korea), studied in Japan, China and and US incl Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard. speaks Chinese, English, German, Japanese, and Korean Ryuichiro Abe: Partner at Northhead Capital, lived and worked in Japan, US, Australia and Singapore. speaks Japanese and English Giang Lam, Managing Director at RDA VIETNAM Fund, lived and worked in US and Vietnam, speaks English and Vietnamese. Do you know how many people in the world speak English as their first language in their countries? Do you know how many people actually learn English at all whether they are able to speak English or not. . According to the UN, About 360 million people speak English as their first language 1.5 billion are learning to speak English — that's just 5% and 20% of the global population, respectively Hi Everyone and welcome to the podcast, CEO roundtable bridging Asia. My name is David Kim, your host. Today we are going to talk about an interesting topic, “language barriers in international business.” I am very pleased to be joined by fabulous guests who have very diverse backgrounds culturally and linguistically As the main theme of my podcast, we plan to feature a lot of interesting and passionate young entrepreneurs around the world to introduce them to Asian markets and investors. To that end, we are supporting a multilingual communication environment, no matter where they are from, what kind of language they speak. Simply I don’t want to exclude anyone or put them into backstage, given 80 to 90% of non-English speaking entrepreneurs in Asia still may have great ideas, stories, technology and business models even with a great social purpose. So, we will use English as the main language as usual, however, this podcast will support multilingual communication. Basically, every guest will speak any language they feel comfortable with and then we plan to add English subtitles into our YouTube channel to bridge the gap. That is the plan.

What if a poorer community created its own currency to foster social exchange? That’s what happened in the informal settlement, or slum, known as Bangladesh in the town of Mombasa on the Kenyan coast.People use these currencies to pay for food, education and health care. "We operate under the fundamental assumption that the goods, resources and human capacity exist in these communities—the only thing that's missing is money," Grassroots co-founder Will Ruddick says.Today’s guest is Will Ruddick, the founder of Grassroots Economics Foundation, a non-profit foundation in Kenya that seeks to empower marginalized communities to take charge of their own livelihoods and economic future. Will has implemented community currencies using blockchain technology in over 40 locations across Kenya to enable more than 40,000 small businesses to take an active role in their own economy and development. Will is currently working to educate and scale these solutions together with humanitarian and technology partners worldwide including the Red cross.

People usually don’t realize that money is an invention that works only because a community stands behind it, willing to use it in exchanges for goods and services. Most currencies are creatures of national governments that manage and back them. But what if a poorer community created its own currency to foster social exchange? That’s what happened in the informal settlement, or slum, known as Bangladesh in the town of Mombasa on the Kenyan coast.People use these currencies to pay for food, education and health care. "We operate under the fundamental assumption that the goods, resources and human capacity exist in these communities—the only thing that's missing is money," Grassroots co-founder Will Ruddick says.Today’s guest is Will Ruddick, the founder of Grassroots Economics Foundation, a non-profit foundation in Kenya that seeks to empower marginalized communities to take charge of their own livelihoods and economic future. Will has implemented community currencies using blockchain technology in over 40 locations across Kenya to enable more than 40,000 small businesses to take an active role in their own economy and development. Will is currently working to educate and scale these solutions together with humanitarian and technology partners worldwide including the Red cross.

Sonia Kabra is the Co-founder and Director of BuuPass Kenya Limited. BuuPass is an offline and online ticketing company that has developed ticketing solution for Standard Gauge Railways (Madaraka Express) and several bus companies such as Easy Coach Limited and Modern Coast Express. BuuPass won the USD 1 million Hult Prize Challenge which is supported by President Bill Clinton. Hult Prize is a social entrepreneurship competition that brings together 25,000 + teams around the world. She leads the product and marketing functions of the business .BuuPass is driven by young entrepreneurs who are passionate about solving real everyday problems by making simple and powerful solutions. Their idea was born in response to the 2016 Hult Prize Challenge (www.hultprize.com) a global student competition for social entrepreneurship, which launches students into developing scalable business models in order to solve global challenges. The challenge for 2016 was to better connect people to goods, services, and resources. After a year long process, the diverse team went on to win the prestigious competition with President Bill Clinton, under their former name Magic Bus Ticketing. The BuuPass team is motivated by the idea of transforming inefficient transport systems into a catalyst for growth and impact, in order to connect people to opportunities.

Today’s guest is Alan Chanda. He is the founder and CEO of Dytech, better known as a Zambian Honey company in Africa. Alan, calling himself an accidental Honeyman, designed a new eco-friendly beehive, what he calls, ZamHive®, an innovative double-decker made from unwanted wood waste. The eco-friendly design boosts productivity, increasing honey production per beehive from 15 kilograms to 75 kilograms per season. Higher productivity means higher incomes for thousands of rural out-growers and small-scale farmers who work with Alan’s Zambia-based honey business. The producers, many of them women, benefit from having a guaranteed market. They also earn much more money than they did before as maize farmers.In this way, honey has become the main source of income for these producers, enabling them to provide for their families, invest in their children’s education, and even start side businesses. We have been hearing similar stories for many years about how we can solve the problems and end the poverty in African rural areas. But the ideas oftentimes have been quite theoretical. Alan thinks he has found a solution with his business model which helps to solve the problems in rural communities and is also good for the environment.

Today’s guest is Tomoko Yakushigawa in Kenya. She is the founder and chief executive of Alphajiri. Now, we all know that the agricultural supply chain is problematic in Africa. Despite endless unforeseen obstacles everywhere. Alphajiri has been developing a social infrastructure called Alpha-Ecosystem, whereby rural communities in Africa can combat poverty and stand on their own feet. She spent the first 3 years in Migori County, the border county of Kenya and Tanzania, to organize rural small scale farmers into what they call as "Alpha-Chama," a kind of private farmer’s co-op equipped with rotating savings and credit club, a form of combined P2P banking and P2P lending. Since the establishment, Tomoko has put so much emphasis on the education of farmers, development of Alpha chama, farm training, and the concept of contract farming business.Tomoko has introduced many different business models to establish the supply chain, such as wholesale to food processing companies selling in open-air markets, delivery of over 100 farm produce to restaurants and hotels, and finally, retail grocery "Alphajiri Greengrocer, she recently launched to deal with the impact from the current global economic crisis.

Today’s guest is Tomoko Yakushigawa in Kenya. She is the founder and chief executive of Alphajiri. Now, we all know that the agricultural supply chain is problematic in Africa. Despite endless unforeseen obstacles everywhere. Alphajiri has been developing a social infrastructure called Alpha-Ecosystem, whereby rural communities in Africa can combat poverty and stand on their own feet. She spent the first 3 years in Migori County, the border county of Kenya and Tanzania, to organize rural small scale farmers into what they call as "Alpha-Chama," a kind of private farmer’s co-op equipped with rotating savings and credit club, a form of combined P2P banking and P2P lending. Since the establishment, Tomoko has put so much emphasis on the education of farmers, development of Alpha chama, farm training, and the concept of contract farming business.Tomoko has introduced many different business models to establish the supply chain, such as wholesale to food processing companies selling in open-air markets, delivery of over 100 farm produce to restaurants and hotels, and finally, retail grocery "Alphajiri Greengrocer, she recently launched to deal with the impact from the current global economic crisis.

Vula Mobile is a mobile healthcare application that connects primary healthcare workers in remote rural areas directly in touch with on-call specialists in hospitals. Today’s guest is Dr. William Mapham. He is the founder and Chief Executive of South African startup, Vula Mobile, the app that links primary healthcare workers in remote rural areas in Africa with medical and surgical specialists in hospitals, is eyeing what it describes as the “huge potential” of the global m-healthcare market. Vula Mobile allows healthcare workers to capture basic patient information, take photographs, do a basic test and capture a brief medical history before sending it directly to a specialist. They can ask for advice over a dedicated messaging platform, and decide on the best course of care for the patient.

Jehiel Oliver is the founder and CEO of Hello Tractor, an agricultural technology company, better known as "AFRICAN UBER for TRACTORS and FARMS" that connects tractor owners with smallholder farmers in need of tractor services. At Hello Tractor, Jehiel is responsible for overall management and strategy. He has been honored with numerous awards for his work in social entrepreneurship including being recognized by Foreign Policy Magazine as a Top 100 Global Thinker for 2016. He was appointed under the Obama Administration to serve two years as a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, where he most recently chaired the technology subcommittee. Prior to Hello Tractor, Jehiel worked in consulting and investment banking. He lives with his wife and daughter in Nairobi, Kenya.Jehiel Oliver: Across sub-Saharan Africa, 220 million farmers live on less than $2 a day. Many of them struggle to produce enough food to feed their families and sustain their livelihoods. My experience working in global finance and agriculture brought me to frontier markets where I saw this firsthand.Smallholder farmers don’t have the machinery they need to fully cultivate their land. Tractors and farm equipment are expensive, and financing is virtually nonexistent. But I realized, if farmers have access to a tractor, that’s as good as owning one. That’s why I started Hello Tractor. Our platform connects tractor owners to farmers through a digital app. Most buyers of compact tractors purchase these assets as an income-generating business opportunity. Our technology makes it easier and less risky for tractor owners to run these businesses while connecting smallholder farmers to machinery that lets them plant 40 times faster at one-third the cost.