Episodes
Sunday Feb 25, 2018
Ziyang Fan: Digital Trade and Cross Border Data Flows
Sunday Feb 25, 2018
Sunday Feb 25, 2018
Cross Border digital trade is one of the fastest growing aspects of commerce today. We’re talking something in the realm of 2-3 trillion dollars B2C and 17 trillion in B2B transactions.
It’s an issue that’s starting to raise eyebrows in countries around the world who worry that the big digital players might be taking revenue away from their markets and not paying their fair share of tax.
Most listeners will be familiar with our probing for that place where tech, policy and society comingle, and, more often than not, clash. It probably won’t come as a surprise to learn that the world over, policy is having a hard time keeping pace with technology.
My guest this episode is Ziyang Fang, a San Francisco-based tech lawyer and policy advocate with the World Economic Forum. He’s point man on a project to determine the economic impact of Digital Trade and Cross Border Data Flows. Having worked in both public and private sector, Ziyang is uniquely qualified to comment on digital trade and just why governments around the world are up in arms.
Ziyang reminds us that we can only keep this ground of innovation in tact through increasingly sophisticated forms of public-private initiatives. Only together can the critical issues be brought to light where ordinary people can see them clearly and understand all that’s at stake.
Monday Feb 12, 2018
Toby Ouvry: Center Yourself
Monday Feb 12, 2018
Monday Feb 12, 2018
This is our “Center Yourself” episode.
I know what you’re thinking. You didn’t come here for meditation. You came for fresh perspectives on the region. You came for the stories and conversation.
You did not come here to meditate.
But if you’re like millions of others out there—stressed out from keeping dozens of balls in the air, from never having enough time, haunted by the feeling you’re always coming up short—you’re not at your best. Whether you’re an executive, a digital nomad, or a entrepreneur looking to get a startup off the ground, you know how difficult it is to shut down at midnight and pick it back up again at 6:00 the next morning.
Or do you shut down at all. We’re willing to bet most of you check your phone over 500 times a day. It’s hard to keep up and keep it together. It’s not just one of those days, it’s one of those lives.
Meditation, maybe, can help bring it all into perspective. And as CEOs around the globe are finding, it’s a practice that produces results. That’s why we wanted to make sure it was part of Inside Asia.
My guest this episode is Toby Ouvry, one of the best in the business when it comes to guiding people through and toward meditation and mindfulness. He spent five years as a Buddhist monk within the Tibetan order —a journey that brought him to Singapore. He left life as a monk, but didn’t leave meditation. Instead, he established a practice for layman looking for relief.
Today, he runs mindfulness programs for MBAs at the INSEAD School of Business, and helps a wide range of clients that hail from corporations, government and NGOs. In recent years, meditation has become quite trendy, but Toby was on the path well long before this, advocating the benefits and guiding people through it.
As always, thanks for listening and please join the conversation. Leave us a review on iTunes and tell us your story. How’s meditation changed your life? How do you work it into your schedule? What tips can you share with our listeners?
Tuesday Jan 23, 2018
Nelson Cunningham: Trump, Asia, and Trade
Tuesday Jan 23, 2018
Tuesday Jan 23, 2018
Near the end of 2017 President Trump took a historic eleven-day trip to Asia. He visited five key countries, made headlines around the world, and raised a number of questions along the way. Chief among them perhaps: what is Trump’s strategy on trade with Asia. What is Trump thinking?
My guest this episode—Nelson Cunningham—happened to be in the region at the same time. Co-Founder of the international advisory firm McLarty Associates and former Special Advisor to President Clinton for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Nelson had a unique vantage point on how Trump’s visit played out. In addition to being able to gauge the Asian reaction to the visit, Cunningham has a powerful purchase on the American perspective and the way in which the visit was being viewed from within the proverbial beltway.
With the trip in the rearview mirror, we need to ask if Trump has anything to show for it—any new initiatives, policy decisions, trade agreements, diplomatic breakthroughs?
As always, thanks for listening.
Monday Jan 15, 2018
Jeremy Wagstaff: Tech in Asia, Indonesia, the Alipay Question
Monday Jan 15, 2018
Monday Jan 15, 2018
It is hard to overstate the massive resources Asia-born businesses have thrown at the technology revolution, the huge amounts brain power and capital committed to developing new products and services in this part of the world.
We’ve all heard the stories of how China’s Huawei Corporation has enlisted armies of engineers, packing them into football field-sized warehouses, shoulder-to-shoulder, breaking code and coding new software.
My guest this episode gives us some perspective on how we arrived at this moment. Asia tech guru Jeremy Wagstaff is a Chief Technology Correspondent in Asia, a keen observer with a thirty-year history of reporting in the region.
It’s also a discussion that looks to the future, one that as much about where Asia tech is today and where it’s going as where it’s been. Ten to twenty years ago, it was Asia’s lower labor costs that drew investors and manufacturers to the region. These days, its brain-power, innovation, and an unbridled hunger to win that for some—including President Trump—makes Asia look more like a threat than a trading partner.
One note. Be sure to listen to the end of the episode when we arrive at the question of why Alipay is such a priority for the Alibaba group. Taking Alipay global is clearly one of Jack Ma’s leading commercial initiatives. His reasons for doing so, however, are somewhat mysterious. As Jeremy points out, a mobile payments gateway is a pretty thin margin business laden with hefty infrastructure and security costs.
What else is at stake? I hazard a guess, but I’m interested in knowing what you think. You can reach me here: stine@insideasiapodcast.com. Looking forward to hearing from you and, as always, thanks for listening.
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Jing Bing Zhang: The Rise of the Robots
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Some of you will have heard the term “4th Industrial Revolution.” If you haven’t…well…don’t look now, but you’re living though the midst of it.
So what is the 4th Industrial Revolution: it’s an era defined by a mashup of new technological advances; big data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and yes, advanced robotics. And it’s robotics that lies at the center of it, where innovation meets human substitution.
Here’s the billion dollar question: What happens next? What do you and your business need to do to survive this revolution? And why is now the time to get smart on the subject?
To help us grapple with these questions and more, my guest is Dr. Jing Bing Zhang, Research Director at IDC Asia Pacific Group, a global market research and strategic advisory firm.
He’s a man in high demand these days. Our conversation took place right after he had finished lecturing to a group of senior foreign and Chinese executives representing the automotive, consumer electronics, food, insurance and banking industries. It was an astounding display of how rapidly robotics is rising and displacing tasks once reserved for humans.
Here’s just one of the takeaways from our conversation: By the year 2020 Asia-Pacific will represent more than 70% of worldwide spend on robotic technologies, with China emerging as the global leader in both industrial and commercial applications.
The implications are global. If China is hellbent in driving greater productivity and efficiencies while lowering costs by using robots over humans, the rest of the world will need to do the same. The robots, in short, are on your doorstep.
To help you get ready, here a refresher on Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, a timely reminder of what it felt like for Garry Kasparov to lose to Big Blue, for the nay-sayers out there here’s a list of the seven worst tech predictions of all time, and, finally, my DHR White Paper: “The Rise of Robotics and Its Collision with the Workforce” which I co-authored with Dr. Zhang.
Thursday Dec 21, 2017
Jeremy Wagstaff: New Kids on the Block Chain
Thursday Dec 21, 2017
Thursday Dec 21, 2017
You’ve probably heard of Block Chain. But what is it? How does it work?
Those are just two of the questions we put to my guest this episode, Jeremy Wagstaff, a Chief Technology correspondent in Asia. It’s a complex situation, one that’s important now and that is going to be more important in the future.
This is the New Kids on the Block Chain episode.
What does the future hold? Are we on the cusp of a Utopian existence where virtual reality and the Internet of Things blend seamlessly with our higher selves? A moment where every thought and desire can be instantaneously translated into action to generate an evolved state of being?
Or are we staring down the barrel of a dystopian future, where the least of our decisions is carefully monitored by governments and corporate security units who profess good intentions while unleashing A.I. bots to decipher and predict your every move.
It’s not that you’ll be powerless to change the mind of the machine that decides your future, or control the companies that right now are mining your data, it’s that you won’t know those verdicts are happening in the first place. You may never know they’re happening at all. Your insurance rates will rise magically, inexplicably. You will be denied a loan for no discernable reason.
When things get bad enough, the people will revolt. They will take back their data. And if that happens, the block chain is going to be at the center of everything.
Thanks, as always for listening.
Sunday Dec 10, 2017
Entrepreneurship in North Korea: The Choson Exchange
Sunday Dec 10, 2017
Sunday Dec 10, 2017
This is not the North Korea discussion you’re expecting. There’s no escalating saber-rattling and not a single mention of nuclear warheads. We know your newsfeed is filled with rumors of a US-North Korean nuke-fest and we thought we’d do something a little different.
This episode I sit down with the Founder and Program Director of Choson Exchange, a Singapore-based NGO with a mission to bring small business training and development to average North Koreans.
That’s right: Choson teaches entrepreneurship to North Koreans.
If you’ve not heard of Choson it’s not surprising. They keep a low profile and tend to slip under the radar. But what they’ve accomplished is nothing short of remarkable. For seven years now, the group has sponsored more than fifty exchange programs, sending hundreds of business savvy volunteers to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, to train and guide burgeoning ranks of North Korean entrepreneurs.
North Korea ranks as one of the poorest, least open countries in the world. Yet, there’s a booming appetite from its citizens who want to know what it takes to start a business, create a product, introduce a new service, and ultimately, make money.
Here’s a question to ponder—are economic sanctions imposed by the US and UN an effective means of bringing Kim Jung-un’s government to its knees or do they end up punishing ordinary people who are simply trying to survive? The effectiveness of sanctions is an age-old debate.
Maybe we need to find ways of changing the conversation. By bringing to North Korea the tools it needs to enter the global economy, there’s the hope of removing – or at least diminishing - the need to take up hostilities or throw up blockades.
Thanks, as always, for listening. If you’d like to volunteer for one of Choson’s programs, please visit the groups website at www.chosonexchange.org.
Sunday Nov 26, 2017
Alibaba’s HeMa Department Store: data, eCommerce, Chinese Retail
Sunday Nov 26, 2017
Sunday Nov 26, 2017
To celebrate the retail craziness that arrives in each November in North America, we bring you an episode focused on the most overtly commercial day of the year in China – Singles Day!
Singles Day started in the 1990s as a quirky “why buy for others when you can buy for yourself” online sales phenomena. In 2005, the Chinese eCommerce giant, Alibaba, picked up on the idea. Other eCommerce players soon jumped onboard and the results are hard to believe: $25.3 billion in online sales in one 24-hour period—a 40% increase over last year. To put these numbers in perspective: Singles Day grosses five times more spending than US’ biggest retail events, Black Friday and CyberMonday combined.
To get a handle on what’s going on in Chinese retail, we paid a visit to Alibaba’s HeMa Department story, a high-tech, cashless, and mobile-enabled store that might just revolutionize the shopping experience.
It was an eye-opening, hilarious experience. The place is not quite fully deployed, but it’s getting there.
In ways once thought unimaginable, the Chinese customer has become the most digitally astute in the world. Sleek mobile apps, elegant micropayment services and service ubiquity are all day-to-day enablers tailored for Chinese buyers. QR codes are as familiar to an 80-year old woman selling vegetables from a street stall as they are to social media savvy millennials.
At the heart of it all, of course, is data. As is the case with online shopping, every touch of the mobile phone keypad is captured by Alibaba. Shopping patterns, habits, purchasing decisions, even product rejections are analyzed.
Too Big Brother for you? Not so sure you like the idea of drones and robots entering your home and restocking your fridge Will consumers in North America and Europe embrace this new mode of shopping and transaction with gusto the way the Chinese have?
Hard to say. Jack Ma is betting on it.
Thanks for listening, as always. This is a great episode, and I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did making it.
Tuesday Nov 14, 2017
David Goldstein: Disruption of Media Delivery in Asia
Tuesday Nov 14, 2017
Tuesday Nov 14, 2017
This episode tells the story of yet another major disruption in the making. This time it’s the telecommunications and media sectors and it’s the result of a complicated confluence of events—a sort of perfect storm.
Here’s the rundown. There are three moving parts. It’s tricky.
First there are the telecommunications companies, or telcos. Long dependent on charging for voice calls to generate revenue, they are in the process of shifting their business models to bill instead for high-speed data. No longer is the price of a phone call determined by the distance the voice travels or the length of the call. In a world where consumers have been moving to no or low-cost voice over IP, or VOIP services, telcos are changing up their game.
Second, there’s the mobile phone operators. At one time, they made a killing on SMS or text messaging. Now, they’re losing revenue hand over fist to a new generation of messaging services such as WhatsApp or WeChat. These smartphone apps allow for dynamic communications, group chats, even free voice communications.
Third, there’s the pay TV operators. For decades, they’ve paid big licensing fees for Hollywood content and make a profit by offering entertainment “bundles” to customers at standard monthly subscription rates. Today, subscribers in Asia and elsewhere are cutting cables and cancelling subscriptions, opting instead lower-cost on-demand over-the-top or streaming video on demand services like Netflix, Hulu, iflix or HBONow.
All three have one big thing in common and that’s massive underlying infrastructure and network costs. From the fiber optic cables that run the length of the ocean bed carrying voice and data internationally, to the constellation of satellites that relay signals, to the set-top boxes that sit in every cable-TV household, total investment for telco, mobile and pay-TV companies extends well into the trillions of dollars.
To help navigate through all of this I spoke with David Goldstein, a long time player in the Asia market, cutting his teeth in the telco business during its heydays in the 1990s, and most recently, serving as the Head of Asia, for a streaming video on demand, or SVOD service, called iflix.
He’s an insider, in other words, with deep knowledge of where the industry has been.
And where it’s going.
Thanks, all of you, always, for listening.
Friday Nov 03, 2017
Mack Banner: Digital Remedies for the Consumerization of Healthcare in Asia
Friday Nov 03, 2017
Friday Nov 03, 2017
A vast transformation is taking place. Those of us who live in Asia are watching in happen. Here are some numbers. From 2000 to 2010, 200 million people moved into urban areas throughout Asia. This is expected to continue at a rate of 3-5% annually for the foreseeable future. East Asia one now has more than 800 urban areas, including eight megacities with populations of over 10 million people.
It is one of the greatest—if not the greatest—migration in human history. And for most it’s been a good thing: higher income, better education levels, cell phones, you name it.
It’s also brought an unprecedented level of burden on public healthcare systems. A lot of stats could be quoted, but here are two that tell the tale. According to the World Health Organization a staggering 10% of adults in China, or 100 million people, live with diabetes. Another 230 million suffer from at least one type of cardiovascular condition, with another 120 million heart patients entering the system between now and 2030.
The health care industry needs to find ways to adapt—but how.
To get perspective on the issue, we brought to the table healthcare executive Mack Banner who was in the process of winding down a career that spanned three decades in healthcare in various parts of Asia. Among other things, Mack and I discuss how certain Asian heath care markets have a distinct advantage over providers in places like the United States because of the way they are able to leap frog over more conventional and expensive delivery mechanisms that have been in place for years and are slow to change.
We also talked about the current situation. Could it be digital that comes to the rescue? As Mack Banner points out, the possibilities offered by technology for the improved management of patient care are almost endless. But still there’s resistance.
For an in-depth look at the issue, take a look at a recent white paper I've written on the subject, HERE.
As always, thanks for listening!