The Global Startup Movement - Startup Ecosystem Leaders, Global Entrepreneurship, and Emerging Market Innovation

Jez San is the CEO and Cofounder of Funfair, a developer of smart contract based real money games & the platform to run them. Funfair has developed technology to enable new classes of realtime games on top of the Ethereum network utilising smart contracts, state channels and advanced RNG's. The games that funfair are producing are some of the first that are fully realtime and are competitive with existing online games, yet are provably fair and lower cost to operate.

Oscar Chang is the co-founder and CEO of Alchema, a smart home connected fermenter to empower anyone to turn fruits into his or her favorite alcoholic beverage with ease. Oscar and his company have been featured in Forbes, Techcrunch, ELLE, Engadget, The Spoon, Mashable, and medias outside of the U.S. including UK, France, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea, etc. This past year he was selected by Forbes on 30 under 30 Asia lists for his work in the smart home fermentation space. On this episode you'll learn: What is the investor sentiment towards hardware startups in Taiwan? What's the typical international strategy for Taiwanese entrepreneurs? Is Oscar more excited about in store sales or the e-commerce opportunity? Should hardware startups elect to use Kickstarter to raise funds instead of venture capital?

Jeremy is responsible for the packing, presentation, and strategy of LBRY, as well as some design aspects. He is a longtime supporter of decentralized technology and freedom of information. Jeremy founded TopScore, a startup that processes millions of dollars monthly in event and activity registrations. On this episode you'll learn: Has a specific niche taken on the role of early adopter for the content platform? What's the difference between the LBRY protocol and application layer? What does Jeremy's 2018 roadmap look like?

Anne Driscoll is a seasoned Silicon Valley executive and a leading figure in the startup ecosystem space. She is currently the founder of The Ecosystem Summit, an annual gathering of startup ecosystem leaders from all over the world, as well as the COO for Launchpad, a network of co-working and incubator spaces across the US. On this episode you'll learn: What does Anne see as the biggest challenge startup ecosystems around the world face. What comprise a nascent startup scene vs. a more mature one? Who should take the leadership role in an ecosystem? What's the story and motivation behind the ecosystem summit's founding?

Kushal is the Chief Financial Officer at Aspada Investment Advisors. Kushal is passionate about working with organizations in their formative phase and is closely involved with portfolio companies in their strategic and financial planning, process implementation, performance management and risk management. He currently serves on the Boards of Schedulers Logistics and Allfresh Supply Management. On this episode you'll learn: From a venture capital perspective what kind of disparity is there in investment opportunity between rural india and middle and upper class regions of country? How realistic is it for companies building solutions for the rural parts of India to raise Venture Capital as opposed to more so capital impact investor and economic development grants? How has VC dogma from the US and China affected the innovation ecosystem in India? What are the sexy verticals in India right now that all the VC’s are talking about?

Rivers Corbett is an award winning serial entrepreneur, international speaker, and author. Rivers is a founding board member of StartUP Canada as well as the host of the StartUP Canada Podcast Show. He was recently named Entrepreneur in Residence, with Opportunities New Brunswick team, to significantly move the needle on the spirit and actions of entrepreneurship throughout the province. On this episode you'll learn: Where are the startup hubs in Canada concentrated? What verticals are Canada's VC's focused on? When Rivers says startups need to zag in order to succeed, what does he mean by that? What roles should an Entrepreneur in Residence take on with working with a city government?

Karen Contet Farzam is passionate about Technology and Startups, co-founder of WHub.io, Hong Kong biggest startup community. She is immersed in the Startup Scene as a Founding and Board member of the FinTech Association of Hong Kong, Community Leader for Techstars, a Front End Web Development instructor, a Mentor for several accelerator programs, speaker at International Conference like JS conference 2015 in Singapore, French Foreign Trade Advisor, FrenchTech Ambasador and Founder of WomenWhoCodeHK. Karen has been working in Asia for 13 years, starting in Tokyo as JP Morgan Exotic Equity Derivatives Trader to Software Engineer for an IoT Startup, teaching Front-End Web Development and co-founded and built WHub.io, HK biggest startup community. On this episode you'll learn: How homogeneous are the Hong Kong and China markets? Once a company captures the Hong Kong market can they easily expand to Shenzhen or is Hong Kong more so an entry point into SE Asia? Why are B2B Fintech companies, so much more prevalent in Hong Kong than B2C players? Why is the current environment for cryptocurrency and blockchain entrepreneurs in Hong Kong? Karen has helped numerous startups in Hong Kong get off the ground, what advice does she give founders when hiring their first few employees?

Jordan Clive is the Head of Experience Design at Daplie, a personal server that’s easy to use and completely secure. Daplie produces a fully automated server that lives at home or the office and allows you to take control of your digital life. Previously Jordan has founded and worked for startups in Santiago, Chile and Shenzhen, China. On this episode you'll learn: Why is Provo consistently a top 10 city in the US for VC deals? What startup verticals are thriving in the Utah startup ecosystem? Why is BYU such an important part of the startup ecosystem? How does Mormonism contribute to the Provo startup scene?

Dr. Kamau Gachigi is the Founding Executive Director of Gearbox, a non-profit organization that provides members with access to modern machines for prototyping and low volume manufacture. Gearbox also avails training, and incubation/acceleration services in order to broaden access to manufacturing in Kenya. Dr. Kamau was a key consultant in the creation of a science curriculum for the Faculty of Arts and Science at the planned Aga Khan University in Arusha, and the principal consultant in the creation of an engineering curriculum for the planned Kiambu University of Technology and Innovation. He also holds two government appointments, one as Chairman of the Board of the National Industrial Training Authority and another on the Board of the Numerical Machining Complex, a State Corporation. Dr. Kamau is also a member of the Consultative Advisory Group of the Partnership on Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (World Bank and select African Governments). He previously served as the Director of the University of Nairobi Science and Technology Park and founded the Fab Lab at the University of Nairobi, another in a low income area in Nairobi and is setting up a third in a Kisumu. On this episode you'll learn: What was it like for Dr. Kamau to meet Mark Zuckerberg and why was he interested in what Gearbox is doing? Why do a lot of companies looking to enter into Kenya have such a hard time and find that they need to partner with an organization like Gearbox to do so? How does Gearbox scale what they're doing? What's the funding environment for hardware startups in the incubator?

Justin Hall has been a Principal at Golden Gate Ventures since December 2014. In addition to his responsibilities at Golden Gate Ventures, Justin has organized a number of community building events in the Singapore startup scene, including SuperHappyDevHouse.sg, WalkAbout.sg, and FailCon.sg. As principal, he manages Golden Gate Ventures' existing portfolio while sourcing investments across APAC. In addition, he is director for Golden Gate Ventures Annex Fund, focused on follow-on funding for existing portfolio companies. Before Golden Gate Ventures, Justin was previously an Account Manager for Rakuten LinkShare Corporation, based in New York, and managed online e-commerce sales for prominent web-based retailers and service providers. Justin is a New York transplant and fitness fanatic, as well as a huge fan of Chicken Rice and kopi gau.