The Good Technologist

As one of the leaders in the Southeast Asian startup scene, Grab definitely has a lot of eyes on it. Operating in nearly every major Southeast Asian market, Grab supports a growing number of drivers, merchants and consumers on its platform, facilitating all kinds of services including on-demand ride hailing, food, parcel and grocery deliveries as well as e-payments. With such a massive presence and influence, Grab launched its GrabforGood social impact program in 2019 to give back to the communities it's a part of. Covering three main goals: improving digital literacy and inclusion, empowering micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses as well as building future-ready workforces, Grab has committed to “leav(ing) no man behind”

Today we have Chay Pui San, Head of Public Affairs, Grab Singapore to share with us some of the details of the GrabforGood program, how Grab adds to the TechforGood ecosystem and her views on the future for the TechforGood scene in Singapore.

It’s likely that one of the apps you have running in the background relies on Google Cloud. With such a ubiquitous presence, it’s natural to ask how an organization like Google can make sure that its making an impact where its needed the most? COVID-19, in particular, brought to light some of these gaps and Google stepped up, providing Enterprise features for G Suite customers covering SMEs and educators. They’ve also supported a large amount of the information facilitation efforts, whether its sharing data on COVID-19 in an understandable way or creating APIs for contact tracing programs.

Today we have Prem Chandiramani, from the Google Cloud team, to share with us some of the behind-the-scenes thinking behind the efforts, his thoughts on the TechforGood scene in Singapore and Asia, as well as his views on the future of the scene.

Digital communities are not easy to build, but that doesn’t stop Kai from believing in the ability for people to get together. Kai Sotto focuses on how true communities fuel growth for companies. He helped catalyze Facebook’s growth discipline as employee #1 in Canada and launched Instagram’s business internationally. Together with partners, Bailey and Kevin, Kai now helps organizations create authentic communities as part of his group, People & Company. They also co-authored an Amazon best-selling book, Get Together, which is a hands on guide on community building.

In this interview, we talk about the  basics of community building in a digital space, Kai’s experience working in the digital giants,, and now his work building communities. 

Learn more about Better.sg here!

Soft launched on March 22 2020, by tech entrepreneur Nigel Teo and a team of 3 others,  GoodHood now has more than 6000 users. Called the “Neighborhood Everyday App”, about 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the posts on the app are from people offering help, ranging from buying groceries and dog walking, to offering cooked meals, he says. The rest are from people seeking help.

In this interview, we talk about the inspiration behind the app, its impact especially during the COVID-19 crisis and Nigel’s view on TechforGood.

We’re lucky to have two guests today who are both working on bridging the communication gap with the migrant worker community in Singapore, primarily those affected by the COVID-19 crisis. They may be addressing the same issue but they are also working on distinct projects, with each driving a different part of the solution. Our guests are:

Sudesna Roy Chowdhury who created a Bengali translation portal on a free Wix site which subsequently inspired other tools such as Translatefor.sg created by a team led by Aniruddha. This is a free translation resource tailored for all medical practitioners in Singapore in light of the recent COVID-19 outbreak in migrant worker dormitories. Languages currently include Bengali, Burmese, Telugu and Tagalog.

Shaina Tan from Visualaid.sg. Visualaid is an effort led by Jason Leow and Shaina, to build a resource site of illustrated translations that can be used as flashcards to help healthcare workers communicate better with migrant workers affected by COVID-19.

In this interview, we talk about the stories behind the ideas, the crowd-sourcing effort that drove both resources, and how it was like serving the migrant worker community. Jump in!

If you're listening to this during the COVID-19 crisis while in Singapore, you've probably heard of ChopeandSave.com,  a directory of small businesses around Singapore that offer online gift cards for purchase. We get to talk to two members of the founding team - Tammie and Agrim, as they share some of the juicy details behind developing and managing the app. 

In this interview, we talk about what inspired this web app, what it’s like building a tech solution during the COVID-19 crisis, and how the community has rallied around this movement. Join us for this episode recorded over Zoom!

You're at the first official episode of The Good Technologist - good on you! We're lucky to have gotten Kwok Jia Chuan as our first guest, co-founder of Conjunct Consulting, a non-profit providing consulting services for other non-profits and social enterprises. In this episode, we get to hear from Jia Chuan's eight years leading the organisation covering topics such as 1) what Conjunct Consulting does, 2) how Technology has become an area of focus and 3) what the future looks like. 

Let us know if you have suggestions for future guests of the show!

Welcome to Episode 0 of The Good Technologist - yes, it's our pilot episode where we wanted to test out how the format would work! Nikhil is a member of better.sg and a big contributor to the TechforGood scene in Singapore, working at GovTech in Open Government Products but also spending his time educating others on technology. Hear about why he's committed to the work he does and some of his views on convincing organizational stakeholders to start small and build products that address issues. I couldn't have asked for a better first interviewee!