Open For Business

With the pandemic raging, a new spotlight has been thrown onto health services and equipment, and as everyone has been practicing physical distancing and even quarantine, it hasn’t been easy to check up on our elderly relatives for fear of putting their health at risk - but not checking up on them is just as worrying. Laurent Yew, founder of Preventech, discusses his solution to that problem.

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Plant popularity has surged during the pandemic. With more people working from home, the demand for indoor shrubs and stalks to spruce up the environment has spiked exponentially. We speak to Nur Fatyha Farhana (Tya), founder of popular online plant store, Berrykinn, about the ups and downs of this new “green wave”, what business has been like these last few months, and a few tips for those who want to be new plant-parents.

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For businesses that have survived the economic devastation of COVID-19, it’s time to build your foundation to thrive. Jeevan Sahadevan, founder of Leverage Lab, has 21 strategic questions about 3 areas - your customers, products, and competition - to help your company rebuild.

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Finding a vending machine that has snacks that are both nutritious and healthy is almost an impossibility. myFITBOX were setup up with this exact problem in mind, how to get the best snack to gym customers without it being a major pain. 

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42 is the first digital training center that is completely free and available to students with or without degrees. Using peer-to-peer learning, they have trained many talented future developers and offered infrastructures in innovating in Paris and Fremont (Silicon Valley). Now, 42 has rolled out a global development with the opening of 21 campuses across the world in 2020, with Sunway iLabs in Malaysia building its first 42 as well. Olivier Crouzet, Head of Pedagogy of 42, sheds light on this new path of digital education.

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The pandemic has changed the way we watch movies. Blockbusters have been postponed, cinemas have barely opened, and everyone is relying on streaming services for their entertainment fix. But there was a time when people would watch movies on the big screen from the comfort of their cars. That’s what M-Junction Drive-In Cinema is bringing to the Malaysian market. With everything prepped and ready to go, we speak to founders Arvin Randahwa and Jack Gill about modernizing this retro concept for an audience that needs it now more than ever. 

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Failing Forward features real-life stories from entrepreneurs who have failed and are stronger for it. On this episode, “Forklift-preneur”Nicholas Gan talks to us about his 10-year long battle to take over the reins at his family business EGAN. We also discuss the broad challenges in the changings of guards, how to step into the shoes of giants, and the importance of data in making these top-level transitions successful.

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Failing Forward features real-life stories from entrepreneurs who have failed and are stronger for it. On this episode, “Forklift-preneur”Nicholas Gan talks to us about his 10-year long battle to take over the reins at his family business EGAN. We also discuss the broad challenges in the changings of guards, how to step into the shoes of giants, and the importance of data in making these top-level transitions successful.

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Flexiroam, a provider of global data roaming, has shifted gears to look into other ways to serve customers with their superconnector platform. One of the opportunities is the rise in the number of virtual conferences, now that social distancing measures are in place.

For the first time, the International AIDS Conference was held virtually and Flexiroam was selected to be the connector of choice by the organisers, linking 800 delegates across Africa to the online international gathering of AIDS activists and researchers. Whilst this may be a great success for the company, it came at a cost - having to let go of 80% of the staff.

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Imagine that you’re a startup during a pandemic. Now imagine that you’re a startup that focuses on co-living and property management during a pandemic. It’s almost enough to make you think about whether you’re going to have any business left at all. At a time when they were due to scale up, LiveIn (formerly known as Hostel Hunting) were forced to make some tough decisions, we talk to them about those decisions, and how it’s affected business in the lodging/hospitality industry.

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