Spotlight Asia – Pioneering tech innovators #3
In our Spotlight Asia series we’re celebrating some of the leading innovators and game-changers in the emerging tech sectors across Asian markets. It’s a guide to who-to-know and how they’ve shaped the industry for the future, an invaluable source focused on the up-and-coming and established minds in the emerging tech space.
As the rate of innovation increases exponentially through technologies such as blockchain, AI, and IoT, there’s a new breed of high-achievers entering the space. Others have further solidified their place in the sector with years of experience informing their ideas.
Kris Marszalek’s Crypto.com will be launching various new services in 2020
Kris Marszalek is a Polish entrepreneur based in Hong Kong who has enjoyed both founding and executive roles in a variety of endeavours ranging from e-commerce solution to mobile app development.
The crowning achievement that he is best known for is the founding of Crypto.com – a rebranding of crypto debit card and payments platform Monaco (founded in 2016). The company provides a wide range of financial services on its platform including a payments app, fiat/crypto Visa debit card, crypto lending and credit, and an exchange.
They recently launched Crypto.com Exchange, which provides liquidity, lower fees and a democratized quant trading system, and are also hoping to get Crypto.com Chain and Crypto.com Pay off the ground.
Marszalek believes that being able to control your own money, identity, and data should be considered a human right.
Jeffery Liu Xun founded startups even before he graduated university
Jeffery Liu Xun is a systems engineer and project manager by trade, and has worked with both multi-nationals and founded his own startups – two by his final year as an undergraduate student.
He actually ran a software development agency as a high school student where he hired a team of developers in the Philippines to make software. He also launched Panjury, a social network where the focus was on handling sentiments or opinions from its users.
He then went on to co-found Xarbon in 2018, which is a sustainability technology NGO that has created over 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide reductions through various projects around the world; and Antler in 2019, which is a global startup generator and early-stage VC that is building the next wave of tech.
Most recently, he co-founded Xanpool in 2019 with fellow entrepreneur Artem Ibragimov where they just introduced a fiat gateway platform that will support peer-to-peer transactions.
Dr Rosen Diankov co-founded an intelligent robot controller development company
Both Dr Rosen Diankov and Issei Takino are essential persons in the running of Robotics Company Mujin.
Diankov developed the very industrial motion planning AI technology that “MUJIN controller” is based on, a software that was applied to more than 1000 robots around the world. The “Mujin controller” essentially creates optimal programs for calculating reverse kinematic equations for every robot through MUJIN’s kinematics calculation library.
He was born in Bulgaria in 1983, then migrated to America with his family at the age of 10 and he studied computer science and artificial intelligence in high school. He then acquired his PhD with the thesis “Automated Construction of Robotic Manipulation Programs” from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.
After graduation, he co-founded Mujin with Issei Takino in Japan in 2011.
Issei Takino helped co-found the intelligent robot controller development company
Issei was born in 1984 in Osaka, Japan. In 2011, he established Mujin with the world-famous robot engineering expert Dr Rosen. Before establishing Mujin, he graduated from a U.S. university and worked for the famous Warren Buffet-owned ISCAR Co. Ltd, the world’s most profitable manufacturing company.
He has a shining record of achievements, including many awards for his technical solution sales activities proposing manufacturing processes.
WFP has been rolling out blockchain technology to expand refugee’s financial options
WFP has been rolling out blockchain technology as part of its “Building Blocks” pilot to expand refugees’ choices in how they access and spend their cash assistance.
WFP is also exploring whether Building Blocks can make cash transfers more efficient, secure and transparent. Most notably, WFP has been using blockchain to deliver food assistance more effectively to 106,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan.
Building Blocks facilitates cash transfers while protecting beneficiary data, controlling financial risks, and allowing for greater collaboration.
What do you think of our list? Do you agree with our choices? Tell us who you think should be featured in November for the European edition – or create a list of your own and share it with us!
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