Huawei invites deep tech companies to join new accelerator programme

Source: Huawei. Key visual for Huawei Spark.

At the virtual HUAWEI CLOUD Summit 2020 Singapore, global ICT provider Huawei called on deep tech companies in Asia Pacific to participate in the Huawei Spark accelerator programme. Based in Singapore, the hybrid global startup accelerator programme aims to incubate and accelerate startup growth and build an ecosystem for startups in the region.

Organised by HUAWEI CLOUD in partnership with Enterprise Singapore and Startup SG, Huawei Spark will be kicked off in Singapore as a startup competition. Huawei will invest millions of dollars to support deep tech startups, and will focus on firms with the use of 5G, artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning & analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile edge computing, as well as mobile and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

Eligible startups will receive Huawei mentorship, go-to-market and ecosystem support, and will also gain access to Huawei’s ecosystem of resources through a three-tiered ‘sell-to, sell-with, and sell-through’ model named Spark Fire.

Through this model, Huawei could be the first potential client for these startups, and will engage with them as business partners, so the startups receive access to Huawei's global enterprise client portfolio.  On top of this, startups will be able to reach over 600 million Huawei mobile users through the Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) system and Huawei App Gallery, and millions of enterprise users across the globe through Huawei’s cloud marketplace.

Subject to a startup’s maturity, Huawei will offer startups that are accepted into Huawei Spark multi-tier support from the seed stage to the late stage. This includes financial support in terms of cloud credits of up to US$125,000, AI development funds of up to US$100,000, technical support and training as well as go-to-market support.

The startups will also receive free cloud resources from Huawei, including hardware support such as AI modules and AI-based intelligent industry solutions, and open-source software support such as an AI framework, a database and an operating system to develop their own applications, services and hardware appliances.

“Innovation is borderless, and flourishes through collaboration. Huawei will always focus on infrastructure as well as enabling our ecosystem partners with cloud and AI capabilities,” said Leo Jiang, Chief Digital Officer of Huawei Cloud & AI Business Group, Asia Pacific Region.

“We fully believe that startups could grow faster and healthier with proper mentoring and support through the Huawei Spark programme, and create more job opportunities to support the recovery of economies, not just regionally, but also globally.”

Huawei has received more than 200 applications from Singapore startups since applications opened on 10 August. The top 15 startups will be shortlisted to proceed to the next round where Huawei experts will mentor the companies and finetune their business proposals, before the top five will be selected to pitch virtually to a panel of judges in November.

The top two winners will be fast-tracked to compete as two of the top 100 global startups at SLINGSHOT 2020, which is an international startup pitching competition held during the Singapore Fintech Festival x Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SFF x SWITCH 2020) event. The 2020 final for Huawei Spark will be held online as part of SLINGSHOT. These two winners will also be awarded US$125,000 in cloud credits, a S$30,000 Startup SG Grant, and admission to the Accelerator tier.

Source: Huawei. Wei. In his welcome speech, he highlighted that HUAWEI CLOUD has 200+ cloud services, 190+ products and 3 million users. "I am optimistic that with the support of our customers and partners, we can overcome all obstacles," he told viewers in reference to Huawei's challenges in the US and with COVID-19.

It should be no surprise that Huawei Spark will be part of SFF. Raphael Cohen, a tech entrepreneur, provided an overview of Singapore industry trends at the summit, during which he highlighted the importance of startups in fintech. He noted that the startup scene in Singapore is particularly vibrant, with venture capitalism moving from mostly international funding in 2012 to mostly local funding as of 2019. The numbers also speak for themselves, he said, with 1H19 seeing 297 deals worth US$5.3 billion, as opposed to 383 deals worth US$3.1 billion for the whole of 2016.

According to Cohen, high-profile exits in Singapore have included Citigroup, Lazada, Razer and Carousell. "We expect to see more exits which will benefit the whole ecosystem," he said.

Additionally, he observed that the startups with the most funding in Singapore are either regional or global players now. For example, Grab received almost US$7 billion in funding, while Lazada - now part of the Alibaba Group - was awarded US$4.2 billion.

The startup segment to watch in Singapore is fintech, he added. "Singapore has a rule of law, it has a very talented pool of people here who are actually very knowledgeable (about) the finance economy and the technology," he explained.

Another plus point for fintech in Singapore is its potential in Southeast Asia, Cohen said, pointing out that Singapore is the hub for the region. "The next thing coming up is probably digital banking...

Grab, Singtel and Shopee are applying for licences," he shared.

Andy Wei, MD, Singapore HUAWEI CLOUD said, “HUAWEI CLOUD is committed to building a robust ecosystem for shared success. In Singapore, we will continue to support and enable our partners as well as invest in talent cultivation and joint solution innovation through programmes like Huawei Spark and the AI Lab.

"By leveraging our collaborative Connectivity + Computing + Cloud synergy, we are able to provide an intelligent, automated, information-driven platform for partners’ content, applications, and algorithms. Together, we will build a thriving ecosystem and usher in a fully connected, intelligent world moving forward.”

The summit also showcased HUAWEI CLOUD’s partnership with Singapore’s Nestia, a one-stop lifestyle app and platform designed to help people search for local information easily. Working with HUAWEI CLOUD allowed the company to expand their range of services including Cocos Game Integration, Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) image processing, and content moderation. The Nestia app now offers a more enhanced experience across its service offerings for its 200,000 daily active users as a result.

Explore:

View the top 100 global startups of 2019

Submit an application. The deadline is 4 October.

Global Esports Federation welcomes new members

The Global Esports Federation (GEF) has welcomed new international federation members in its continued efforts to secure greater global collaborations between e-sports and sport. International Surfing Association and World Archery are now part of the GEF.

“The interest and development of e-sports continues its rapid rise worldwide with greater convergence between e-sports and sport,” said Chris Chan, President, Global Esports Federation.

“We welcome the interest and support from the international federations to join the e-sports community and work on evolving physical sport experiences in the digital age. There are powerful opportunities to collaborate with our technology partners through the Global Esports Federation’s #worldconnected platform and connect with the world’s youth.”

The GEF is ramping up the development of digital assets that showcase its ability to connect youth to sport through e-sports and virtual sport together with its global partner for interactive technology, Refract.

“We live in times where virtual gaming and e-sports are taking on a whole new relevance. The rapid growth of e-sports also represents an opportunity for surfing and the ISA to access and engage new audiences. We are optimistic the partnership with the GEF will help position us on the wave of virtual sport, fulfilling the ISA’s mission to drive accessibility and universal participation,” said Fernando Aguerre, President, International Surfing Association (ISA).

Professor Dr Ugur Erdener, President,World Archery, said, “World Archery sees great potential in appealing to a younger audience and better engaging sport fans in the e-sports space. Archery is already prevalent in video gaming and we see this collaboration with the Global Esports Federation as a groundbreaking opportunity to bring the virtual and physical activities together. It has the potential to be an exciting and innovative next chapter for the sport.”

The GEF's founding global partner is Tencent Global, and strategic partners include The Commonwealth Games Federation, the Olympic Council of Asia, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the Global Sports Innovation Center Powered by Microsoft (GSIC).

Content delivery business models continue evolving in Thailand

The Asia Video Industry Association (AVIA) held its first country-focused seminar of the year with Thailand in View, a deep dive into the media and video industry in Thailand, and the pursuit of growth in the market across both traditional and online platforms.

Thailand's media industry is undergoing seismic transformation driven by technological and commercial change. With the first commercial 5G networks becoming available to consumers as early as next year, speakers had no doubt that the market will see continued acceleration in the content consumption across multiple devices and platforms.

For True, parent company of True Visions, a major cable and satellite TV operator in Thailand, 99% of revenue used to come from pay TV subscriptions when True Visions first launched in Thailand in 1989. Now pay TV contributes 60% now, with 30% from advertising across TV and digital, and the remaining 10% coming from a growing events arm which also includes licensing of True's original content.

Ongard Prapakamol, Chief Media Officer of True Corporation commented, "This is a time where we need to reinvent our pay TV to see a new S-curve." Prapakamol shared that their strategy is to have different platforms serving different consumer needs, offering multiple services as a "super-app", across free-to-air, pay TV as well as streaming via their digital service, TrueID.

This growth in multiplatform consumption has also led to regional and international over-the-top (OTT) services launching in the Thai market, with iQiyi, China's largest streaming video service, launching earlier this year. Kelvin Yau, VP of International Business Department and GM Thailand, iQIYI International, discussed their strategy for growth in Thailand.

"It's AVOD plus SVOD plus more... for iQiyi, SVOD is more than just a streaming service," commented Yau. iQiyi will continue to focus on content and the technology they have, "but there is still so much more we haven't shown to... users about what the app can do." AVOD stands for advertising-based video on demand, while SVOD refers to subscription-based video on demand.

With the growth of OTT comes greater diversification of ad spend in video, and greater importance of the AVOD model. However, not all video is created equally, and there needs to be a better understanding of why OTT warrants the premium that is charged, when media planners look for the best platform that advertisers should invest in.

"OTT is the perfect love child between TV and programmatic," added Nigel Kwan, VP of Marketing, APAC, SpotX. "You've got the impact and quality of the TV ad... [with] all the measurement capabilities and data capabilities of programmatic."

However, challenges still remain and there is much work to be done in the area of measurement.  Greg Armshaw, Head of Media, Brightcove, ended the day on a positive note: "There's definitely opportunities for growth... clearly we are not at the reach situation yet... but it is growing very quickly."

To sum it up in the words of AVIA's Chief Policy Officer, John Medeiros, who, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, reversed the words of economist John Maynard Keynes: "In the long run there is a lot of life to live, but we must get there first."

Singtel introduces rewards programme for Dash e-wallet

Singtel has introduced a loyalty programme for its Dash customers. The all-new Dash Rewards programme enables Dash users to earn points on all payments and overseas remittances that can be exchanged for rewards including Singtel mobile services, grocery, dining, retail and lifestyle vouchers.

Source: Singtel website. Dash Rewards is a new
rewards programme which will reward Dash
users for transactions.

Dash Rewards is designed to add more value by allowing points to be earned with every dollar spent¹ in-store at Dash’s 60,000 merchants islandwide, online with the Dash Visa Virtual Account at millions of global merchants, as well as with each remittance² sent overseas.

Gilbert Chuah, Head of Mobile Financial Services, International Group said, “Following the recent launch of Dash financial services, we’re excited to introduce Dash Rewards to further engage and delight our growing base of customers. Dash Rewards is our way of thanking our customers for their loyalty, and offering an even more integrated experience that gives them more bang for their buck through useful, everyday rewards.

"As we continue to enhance Dash as an all-in-one mobile wallet, we will be rolling out even more reward options in the months ahead, giving customers more to enjoy.”

The Dash Rewards catalogue features over 50 vouchers from some of Dash customers' most popular and frequently-patronised merchants. On top of Singtel mobile services such as its hi! SIM Card and 1 GB data vouchers, customers can look forward to vouchers from:

- Supermarkets and convenience stores such as Giant, Cold Storage and 7-Eleven

- Transport providers like Grab and Gojek;

- Food delivery services GrabFood and FoodPanda;

- Retailers like Sephora, Zalora, and Adidas; as well as

- Lifestyle and entertainment partners such as Steam and Razer.

The programme features three tiers—Silver, Gold and Platinum. As users move up the tiers, they can accumulate points at an accelerated rate.

Details:

As part of the launch, Dash is also offering double the Dash reward points from now until end December for payments³ with Dash.

1 Excluding transactions for Singtel bill payment, donations to charity organisations, topups to Dash accounts, payments to another Dash account, payments to Etiqa Insurance, payments to Great Eastern General Insurance, cashout and adjustments made for refunded transactions.

2 Each remittance earns 100 points, regardless of value.

3 Double Dash Rewards does not apply to remittances.

SAP: APAC SMEs adapting well to remote-first business environments

SAP has unveiled findings for Digital Resilient, and Experience-driven: How Small and Midsize Organisations Can Prepare for the New Economy, a study* that highlights how small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Asia-Pacific (APAC) are uniquely positioned to adapt and thrive in the dynamic and distributed post-COVID-19 business environment.

Conducted in collaboration with Oxford Economics, the study also delved into the priorities, challenges, and digital maturity of SMEs in the Americas, Europe, and APAC. A section detailing answers from 240 respondents on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was also added to the survey mid-fieldwork.

According to the 240 that responded to the series of COVID-19 questions, APAC SMEs are well-positioned to adapt to a remote working environment. They have taken swift actions to implement and adjust remote work arrangements for employees in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seventy-seven percent reported that they adjusted remote work arrangements for employees in response to COVID-19, as compared to lower numbers from Europe (75% of respondents) and the Americas (71%).

Additionally, 61% of APAC SMEs surveyed created remote work setups for employees during this period, while 69% invested in IT and collaboration solutions to support remote access and/or online learning. Interestingly, 10% of APAC SMEs reported that the pandemic has no impact on their ability to accommodate remote work and maintain employee productivity.

In Singapore, SMEs said they adjusted remote work arrangements for employees (73%) and invested in IT and collaboration solutions for remote access or/and online learning (73%) as one of the top reactions to COVID-19. They also said the ability to accommodate remote work and maintain employee productivity (55%) had a 'minimal effect' or 'moderate effect' on them. COVID-19 did not affect the remote working abilities of 14% of SMEs in Singapore.

“SMEs across the region—like their counterparts around the world—have certain advantages over larger competitors in terms of agility and closeness to the customer,” said Edward Cone, Editorial Director of Thought Leadership and Technology Practice Lead at Oxford Economics.

“Yet even before the pandemic, SMEs in APAC also faced meaningful challenges in keeping up the pace of digital transformation.”

Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, SMEs in the region reported being optimistic about their long-term prospects. Looking ahead to the next three years, APAC SMEs are prioritising improving the customer experience (40%), growth (38%) and attracting new customers (28%). APAC SMEs believe that the key to providing high-quality customer experience lies in high-quality products and/or services (70%), fast and convenient delivery (64%) and competitive pricing (62%), with the customer-service business function bearing the most responsibility for delivering those experiences (cited by 70% of APAC respondents).

Upgrading analytics on customer data is viewed as a go-to strategy to improving customer experience: 28% already have done this across the organisation, and 52% have started to.

With technology set to play an increasingly critical role in helping APAC SMEs achieve business success in the new digital environment, the study also took a closer look at digital maturity levels of these businesses across the region.

APAC SMEs say they have made moderate progress toward digital transformation (39%), and 21% have made substantial progress or completely transformed; within three years, 19% expect to have completely transformed. Their biggest IT functions challenges as the organisation grows are 24x7 service availability (55%) and cybersecurity (51%).

In terms of technological adoption, HR/talent management software is furthest along (66%), followed by governance and cybersecurity software (63%), then finance and risk management software (59%). Respondents reported that these technologies are either in use in some applications/projects or are already in use at scale.

Mobile devices and mobile business process enablement, and business management solutions (enterprise resource planning or ERP software) share the top spot in terms of pilot implementation, and APAC SMEs are actively considering emerging technologies, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and the Internet of Things (IoT) as their main investment priorities. 

When it comes to automation investment, the majority of SMEs are already using automation in some applications/projects (36%). The top business functions that see major or substantial investment in terms of automation and digital processes in APAC are:

- Customer service (56%)

- Enterprise management/operations (48%)

APAC SMEs further consider the top benefits of automation and digital technologies to be:

- Increasing process efficiency by reducing error, risk and cost (44%)

- Increasing productivity through transformation and intelligence process automation (43%)

However, APAC SMEs consider the inability to gain insights from data (28%) as a key internal challenge.

Source: SAP. Andresen.

“Today’s new normal requires businesses to pivot and adapt with speed. SMEs in the region seem to understand that the sense of urgency to digitally transform their businesses will give them an advantage through the pandemic and beyond,” said Claus Andresen, SVP & Head of General Business (SME) and Emerging Markets Growth, Asia Pacific & Japan.

“With the adoption of an intelligent enterprise strategy, SMEs can establish a digital core that will power the entire organisation, embedding data-driven insights and decision-making processes across the business. This is crucial in enabling business agility, further strengthening the ability of SMEs to adapt to dynamic market conditions.”

“I am confident SMEs in the region will be able to emerge stronger, having forged closer bonds with customers and employees while developing innovative services and products that will put them on a strong growth trajectory as the world economy recovers,” he concluded.

Three tips from SAP to help SMEs thrive in the new normal are:

Organise for agility

Coordination across the business—facilitated by rapid communication and information-sharing—can help SMEs respond to challenges quickly and effectively.

Put people at the centre

Business processes, organisational structures, and digital investments should all support customer and employee engagement, whether through real-time insight into wants and needs, or innovations that improve convenience and quality.

Become data-driven

Analytics for decision-making can transform every aspect of operations, from insights that affect supply-chain sourcing to alerts that support predictive maintenance after sales.

SAP aims to help every business run as an intelligent enterprise with its enterprise application software leveraging machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies. Seventy-seven percent of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system.

*Oxford Economics and SAP surveyed 2,000 senior executives from small and midsize organisations across 19 countries and industries. Each respondent organisation in our survey reported annual revenues or budgets ranging from under US$10 million to US$1 billion, as well as employee headcounts below 1,000. In India, some respondents employ more than 2,000 employees. 

Of the 2,000 respondents, 832 respondents were from APAC, in the following markets: Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, and South Korea. 

The survey was administered via a mix of computer-assisted telephone interviewing and online links between February 27 and April 30, 2020.

Tata Communications' new services help companies rebuild and adapt post-lockdowns

Tata Communications, a global digital ecosystem enabler, has launched the Secure Connected Digital Experience (SCDx), a new proposition to meet growing, worldwide demand for new ways of operating, which includes far higher levels of working from home, rising security risks, a shift to digital commerce and more contactless experiences for employees, customers and supply chain partners.

AS Lakshminarayanan, MD and CEO, Tata Communications said, “COVID-19 is acting as a catalyst and accelerator of business transformation. In recent months, millions of employees have experienced working from home, consumers have embraced digital shopping and delivery, and businesses have adapted to doing more, virtually. These changes have created a new reality and we are not going back to how things were done before.

"As enterprises shift from focusing on business continuity to business recovery and growth, they urgently need to rethink their digital strategies and transform themselves to prosper in this digital-first ecosystem. With Secure Connected Digital Experience, our goal is to enable enterprises to adopt new digital working models, accelerate their time to market and drive agility and resilience, giving them the tools to innovate, invent, and redefine their employee, customer and supply chain experience.”

Tata Communications’ Secure Connected Digital Experience is designed to help companies currently relying on short-term fixes, such as consumer-grade applications or employees’ home broadband connections, by providing holistic, secure enterprise-level digital solutions. It consists of three offerings:

- Tata Communications Secure Connected Digital Workplace enables enterprise employees (those typically working from the office as well as those working in the field), to work seamlessly and securely from anywhere through industrialised, scalable and high-performance remote workplace solutions.

- Tata Communications Digital Customer Experience Platform recreates the in-store experience online for B2C companies, with the next generation of enterprise commerce and video collaboration solutions for superior digital customer engagement.

- SCDx will also enable the supply chain ecosystem with secure access to enterprise core applications and significantly improved performance for third parties.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Tata Communications has been supporting customers to deploy relevant solutions in record time; in many cases, delivering changes and upgrades in less than six hours. Tata Communications has enabled tens of thousands of employees globally for remote working across more than 150 organisations including Tata Consultancy Services, with more under deployment.

Shippit partners SingPost to provide Singapore fulfilment services

• Shippit has added SingPost’s delivery services on their platform, plus exclusively-negotiated delivery rates
  
  
• Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can leverage on the partnership to deliver parcels to all addresses in Singapore

Logistics technology company Shippit has partnered with Singapore Post (SingPost), Singapore’s homegrown e-commerce courier, providing SMEs with delivery options that used to be reserved for larger companies.

SMEs on the Shippit platform will now be able to offer their customers parcel collection at any time by tapping into the island-wide POPStation self-collection network that SingPost currently operates. As part of the deal, Shippit will also offer SingPost’s Speedpost Express Service to SMEs, alongside discounted, pre-negotiated rates for next day and economy delivery services.

The SingPost services are integrated directly into Shippit’s existing online platform, which offers proactive delay avoidance technology and accurate delivery estimates. The platform also enables SMEs to access data-driven delivery insights.

Lavneesh Arora, Director of Market Development at Shippit said: “Shippit aims to disrupt the way legacy logistics firms operate. We are always looking for great partnerships to expand our capabilities and give clients a competitive edge. Through the latest partnership with Singapore’s largest and most prominent logistics company, SMEs can use Shippit to get direct access to SingPost’s premium, enterprise-grade delivery services at a fraction of the cost.”

Sara Kalle, Senior VP of Group Sales at SingPost, said: “Customers can look forward to a hassle-free shipping experience from the moment they confirm their order on Shippit’s award-winning platform, to collecting their shipments from us at their doors or at a nearby POPStation.”

Australia-founded Shippit officially launched its regional headquarters in Singapore in mid-July. It plans to expand into Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia in the near future. The company's client base includes Sephora, UNIQLO, CottonOn, and Harvey Norman.

Tata Communications secures local telecom license for KSA

Tata Communications, a digital ecosystem enabler, secured a Type B telecom license for KSA last month. The license entitles Tata Communications to provide Internet service provider (ISP) and related telecom services to enterprises in a defined capacity, along with local currency billing for end-customers in KSA. This will enable the company to make the shift from offering services as a foreign carrier in the Middle East to a local licensed service provider.

Through this licence, Tata Communications will now become a carrier-neutral service provider to the OTTs*, large enterprises and multinational corporations (MNCs) in the region. The company will be able to offer network transformation services in KSA and address Internet, network security, private cloud and softwarea-defined wide area network (SDWAN) requirements across the region.

“A strong digital backbone has become essential for businesses to address the changes in the industry landscape,” said Vaneet Mehta, Associate VP and Region Head, Middle East, Central Asia & Africa, Tata Communications.

“By securing this telecom license in KSA, we will be able to seamlessly bring carrier-neutral services like Internet connectivity, public/private cloud, cyber security, borderless mobility and more such services to the region. This will help simplify the digital experience for our customers and aid them in transforming their businesses in the new normal.”

The evolving business regulations in KSA are increasingly making it an epicentre for businesses globally to invest in the region. The Type B license enables Tata Communications to expand its reach in the Middle East, leveraging its global expertise and capabilities coupled with regional knowledge and experience to cater to the new customer requirements.

Tata Communications has been working with global enterprises to provide a secure connected digital experience through industrialised, scalable and secure workplace solutions as well as next generation enterprise commerce tools to deliver a seamless digital, omnichannel experience to enterprises and end customers.

Today, around 30% of the world’s Internet routes travel over Tata Communications’ network. The company owns and operates the world’s only wholly owned subsea network that encircles the globe. This network enables businesses to reach more than 200 countries and territories.

*OTT stands for 'over the top' and refers to vendors offering services directly over the Internet as opposed to the traditional method of paying a middleman to distribute the service. Such middlemen include broadcast or telecommunications providers.

Epson Singapore expands digital footprint

Epson Singapore is increasing its digital presence to cater to changes in consumer shopping habits. The company has officially opened a flagship store on Shopee, one of the leading e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia. This follows the opening of its flagship Lazada store in 2018.

According to Epson Singapore, 37% of Singaporean consumers have increased their online shopping activities as a result of staying home to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infections. The same data also revealed that over 76% of those surveyed intend to continue this trend even after the global health crisis stabilises*.

At the same time, Epson Singapore has seen a 16.4% increase in online sales in Q120 compared to the previous year - confirming the need to expand its online footprint and offerings, according to a GfK report done in Q120. The company also reported an increase in total online printer brand share by 4% Q119 and Q120**, indicating that consumers have seen value in Epson’s product offerings for remote working.

Tan May Lin, Director – Sales, Marketing and Customer Service of Epson Sales division, Epson Singapore said, “While brick-and-mortar stores continue to be important to our customers, shifts in consumer behaviour are driving further demand for an omnichannel digital presence.

"As a customer-centric brand, we want to be where our customers are, and we believe that with the Shopee flagship store, Epson will continue to grow our brand presence, improve the consumer experience for our customers, while also making good on our commitment to sustainable business operations.”

To celebrate Epson’s official store launch on Shopee, exclusive promotions with up to S$100 in NTUC e-vouchers, as well as free gifts will be available till 16 August 2020. Visit the official Epson store on Shopee to find out more.

*Nielsen, April 2020: IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

**GfK, Q1 2020: Inkjet & Laser Printing report

Huawei builds National Day campaign around the P40 smartphones

To celebrate Singapore’s 55th birthday, Huawei has brought the national colours to the public through five local photographers – Bryan van der Beek, Don Lee, Junaidi Lim, Zipeng Lee and Jovanne Amolat. From behind the lens of their HUAWEI P40 Series smartphones, these photographers have captured everyday sights in celebration of the local spirit, and shed light on new ways to view the things all around us.

A new perspective on the everyday

Using the HUAWEI P40 Series smartphones to play on the depth of field and angles, these shots draw your eye to interesting and fresh takes on everyday subjects all around us.

Source: Huawei. Photo courtesy of Bryan van der Beek (@bryanvanderbeek). Looking down a corridor.

Go wide for the best view

While shooting tall buildings and vast open areas, the wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle modes of shooting will capture more of the peripherals. Powered with the Ultra Vision Leica camera system, the HUAWEI P40 Series lets users achieve sweeping landscapes and wide panoramas with ease.

Source: Huawei. Photo courtesy of Jun (@joonbond). A night view of the helix bridge and Marina Bay Sands (MBS). MBS has been lit up in red and white, displaying the iconic stars and crescent moon of the Singapore flag.

Zoom into the details

Get up close with your subject with the zoom function of the smartphone camera. With the HUAWEI P40 Pro’s 50x SuperSensing Zoom or P40 Pro+ 10x true optical zoom and 100x maximum digital zoom, it's possible to see further and also catch all the fine details clearly.

Source: Huawei. Photo courtesy of Jovanne Amolat (@photogioraphy). A taxi passes by at night against a motion-blurred background.

The HUAWEI P40 Series is available islandwide at local telecommunications operators M1, Singtel and StarHub; Huawei Concept Stores and Huawei official online stores in Lazada and Shopee, as well as authorised retailers Best Denki, Challenger, COURTS and Harvey Norman.

Receive a free HUAWEI Band 4 Pro fitness tracker with every purchase of any HUAWEI P40 Series smartphone, while stocks last.

Model	Colour	Configuration	Price	Limited time offer
HUAWEI P40 Pro+	White Ceramic	8 GB RAM + 512 GB ROM	S$1,898	Free HUAWEI Band 4 Pro with every purchase
HUAWEI P40 Pro	Silver Frost Blush Gold Deep Sea Blue	8 GB RAM + 256 GB ROM	S$1,448
HUAWEI P40		8 GB RAM + 128 GB ROM	S$1,048

Huawei’s value smartphone range which includes the HUAWEI nova 7i, HUAWEI Y6p and HUAWEI Y9s will also be having a special promotion from 3 to 23 August 2020.

Customers can enjoy these special deals at all Huawei Concept Stores, Huawei official online stores in Lazada and Shopee, as well as authorised retailers Best Denki, Challenger, COURTS and Harvey Norman.

Model	Usual Price	Special offer (3–23 August)
HUAWEI Y9s	S$348	S$298
HUAWEI Nova 7i	S$388	S$348
HUAWEI Y6p	S$218	S$188

While stocks last.

Huawei is also running a National Day special in Singapore. In celebration of National Day, the AppGallery is releasing new vouchers weekly in the month of August for popular local apps including exclusive discount codes from Golden Village, Shopee and more. The vouchers can be redeemed in AppGallery under ‘Me’ and ‘Rewards’, and applied within the app installed. 

Source: Huawei. This National Day promotion is on till 23 August 2020.

Users stand a chance to win a mystery gift when they download apps listed on the AppGallery Singapore National Day Reminisce: Download & Win campaign page.

Huawei will also be giving away the latest Huawei P40 Pro worth S$1,448 to one lucky winner. Users will be eligible for a Reminisce and Share lucky draw by sharing the campaign Facebook post with their favourite Singaporean moment. Terms and conditions apply.

Hashtag: #dontsaybojio

Google claims world's fastest training supercomputer title

The latest results from the MLPerf Benchmark competition demonstrate that Google has built the world’s fastest machine-learning (ML) training supercomputer, said the company in a blog post. Google set performance records in six out of eight MLPerf benchmarks, said Naveen Kumar a Test Engineer at Google.

Source: Google blog post. Google sets six large-scale training performance records in MLPerf v0.7. Speed comparisons for Google’s best MLPerf Training v0.7 research submission over the fastest non-Google submission in any availability category. Comparisons are normalised by overall training time regardless of system size, which ranges from eight to 4,096 chips. Taller bars are better*. 

DLRM represents ranking and recommendation models that are core to online businesses from media to travel to e-commerce. BERT enabled Google Search’s “biggest leap forward in the past five years”. Transformer is the foundation of a wave of recent advances in natural language processing, including BERT. ResNet-50 is a widely-used model for image classification. SSD is an object detection model that’s lightweight enough to run on mobile devices. Mask R-CNN is a widely-used image segmentation model that can be used in autonomous navigation, medical imaging, and other domains.

"We achieved these results with ML model implementations in TensorFlow, JAX, and Lingvo. Four of the eight models were trained from scratch in under 30 seconds. To put that in perspective, consider that in 2015, it took more than three weeks to train one of these models on the most advanced hardware accelerator available. Google’s latest TPU supercomputer can train the same model almost five orders of magnitude faster just five years later," noted Kumar.

TensorFlow is Google’s end-to-end open-source machine learning framework, Lingvo is a high-level framework for sequence models built using TensorFlow, and JAX is a new research-focused framework based on composable function transformations, he explained. TPU stands for Tensor processing unit.

The supercomputer Google used for this MLPerf Training round is four times larger than the Cloud TPU v3 Pod that set three records in the previous competition, Kumar noted. The system includes 4,096 TPU v3 chips and hundreds of CPU host machines, all connected via an ultra-fast, ultra-large-scale custom interconnect. In total, this system delivers over 430 PFLOPs** of peak performance.

"Google’s MLPerf Training v0.7 submissions demonstrate our commitment to advancing machine learning research and engineering at scale and delivering those advances to users through open-source software, Google’s products, and Google Cloud," Kumar said.

Google’s second-generation and third-generation TPU supercomputers can be leveraged via Google Cloud today. The cloud TPUs support TensorFlow and PyTorch.

*FLOPS stands for floating point operations per second. One quadrillion (10¹⁵) FLOPS equal 1 petaFLOPS. 

**All results retrieved from www.mlperf.org on July 29, 2020. Chart compares results: 0.7-70 v. 0.7-17, 0.7-66 v. 0.7-31, 0.7-68 v. 0.7-39, 0.7-68 v. 0.7-34, 0.7-66 v. 0.7-38, 0.7-67 v. 0.7-29.

Singtel salutes the Majulah spirit with National Day film

Singtel has launched its annual National Day film tribute, celebrating the Singapore spirit of tenacity and perseverance as the country navigates its way through the challenges of COVID-19. This is the year is currently airing on Singtel TV and various social media channels.

This is the year acknowledges the pressures and strains that the pandemic has placed on Singapore society, and pays tribute to the Majulah (onward) spirit that is propelling Singaporeans through the storm to emerge stronger.

Source: Singtel video. This is the year we will not have the F1 race. But this is also the year we emerge stronger.

“The way Singaporeans have responded to this crisis is something we can all be proud of,” said Chua Sock Koong, Singtel’s Group CEO.

“Our coming together as a community, our discipline as a nation, our fortitude and quiet determination to get through this and get on with life has become even more pronounced as National Day approaches. We may be celebrating in a more muted way this year without the usual fanfare, but our national pride and core values are still the same, the Singapore spirit is stronger than ever,and we want to celebrate that.”

The two-minute photo montage begins as a tender survey of the Singapore landscape when the new normal kicked in, moving from one empty public space to another, from playgrounds to hawker centres to void decks and the prospect of having to forego annual staple events such as the F1 and the National Day Parade.

“It’s been a difficult time for everyone, and the film captures this dislocation and sense of displacement, ” says Lian Pek, VP, Group Strategic Communications and Brand at Singtel.

“But what starts off as a reflection on the things we are having to give up this year becomes an invitation to see the good that has come out of the crisis. Despite the restrictions on movement, disruptions to daily life, and cancelled events, the closing photos in the film show that Singaporeans have gained even more important things in return.”

The film features photos by well-known photographers Chia Aik Beng, Nicky Loh and Tay Kay Chin as well as from members of the public.

Conceptualised in-house and produced in collaboration with Akanga Film Asia, the film is narrated by veteran actor Lim Kay Tong. the video will air on Singtel TV and hosted on various social media channelsfrom 29July 2020.

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