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Professor Yi-Ren Wang, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior in ASB, recently received the 2022 S. Rains Wallace Dissertation Award, selected by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s (SIOP) Awards Committee.

In her dissertation – Precariousness, Anticipatory Justice, and Belief in Delayed Pay-Off Affect Workers’ Intertemporal Choice Orientation: Implications on Socioeconomic Mobility, Yi-Ren explored some of the psychological barriers that hinder upward mobility among workers who lack job stability.

Compared to workers in more secure work arrangements, workers in these situations are less likely to believe their efforts will be rewarded in the future and, as a result, tend to show less personal initiative, tend to hold lower career aspirations, and engage in less self-development.

By understanding these psychological factors, organizations can work to create a more equitable work environment, and as a society, we can become more understanding and inclusive instead of dubbing those less fortunate as “lazy”.

The SIOP gives this award to the person who completes the best doctoral dissertation research germane to the field of I-O psychology. The winning dissertation research demonstrates the use of research methods that are both rigorous and creative.

ASB congratulates Professor Yi-Ren for her extraordinary achievement and contributions to the field!
#ASBfaculty #smartXsharp #extraordinary #unconventional

How have you implemented the advice you give in your book “The Job is Easy, The People are Not – 10 Smart Skills to Become Better People” in your own life?

As a professor, I learn best when I teach, and that’s how this journey of writing this started. The book was actually inspired by two real life experience: one, my personal global leadership journey, a journey that challenged me to extreme heights, and two, seeing my MBA students struggle to work with their own peers and external stakeholders, especially in globally diverse settings.

Each of the 10 smart skills (I refuse to call these critically important skills soft, as there is nothing soft about dealing with people) presented in my book was inspired by the people I work with, by numerous conversations and realizations, and many moments of self-reflection. These 10 smart skills are: emotional maturity, managing up, validation, humility, followership, productive inclusion, multiple perspectives, adaptability, cognitive readiness, and listening.

I selected these smart skills by observing and thinking about what makes our Asia School of Business (ASB) students successful in working in dynamic and diverse Action Learning work environments. I spent a lot of time talking to leaders in ASB and MIT Sloan executive programs, conferences, events, and many other settings and learnt what skills the industry is looking for.

But by no means is this set of skills exhaustive or exclusive of numerous other skills. What I hope is for the list presented in my book to spark a conversation and reflections on becoming better people. In my own attempt to become among these “better people”, I learnt how my emotional immaturity can stress my team and organization. I tried and failed repeatedly to become more humble, to truly listen and follow up when it is time to do so.

I learnt that a strength, when not calibrated correctly, becomes a weakness: you probably like my energy, passion, fast mind, and gregarious personality, but you will find me uncomfortable. The next step was teaching these skills in my MBA and executive programs. The reactions were astounding. Everyone seemed to resonate to the skills and have a story on how hard is to work with others.

In May, I was teaching at MIT Sloan a different topic, but since my book was just released, I spent about an hour on this subject and the participants couldn’t get enough! Turns out working with other people is a universal challenge. So, more than advice for me, and I hope for many in my organization these skills are a daily reminder on how we can be better at working with people.

What “Smart Skill” do you find that most people struggle with and why?

We all struggle with some more than another, but the most surprising one was validation, a skill that I define as an evidence-based affirmation and recognition for someone’s work contribution, feelings, or efforts. Validation is different than feedback or compliments, because of its evidence-based nature and is a powerful tool when used well, because not only motivates you forward, but also is a training tool on how to continue to do better.

However, what I have learnt is that people who rely too much on external validation, can become validation addicts. These are the people that make everything about themselves, that want recognition for just simply doing their job, that steal the spotlight and don’t share the success with their teams. They can be energy vampires and are very difficult to work with.

The paradox is though that because they crave external validation, they work hard to get it so many of them become leaders, role which in itself is a validation fountain if you want. However, healthy validation is important and essential for a productive relationship, both personal and professional. Telling someone in a meeting or in private how specifically their effort and work added value, is free but priceless.

What were your sticking points in writing this book, where did you find you were having a hard time writing?

I actually never intended to write this book, but because I teach about this stuff, I got a lot of requests to do it. However, as good as I am, I cannot speak about these skills only from my perspective, because it would be terribly myopic, wouldn’t it? So, after a lot of thought, I realized that the only way I can write about people is to ask other people what they do to make it easier to work together.

And since I have 10 skills, I interviewed for each skill someone who I thought excelled in their smart skills and who would be able to teach me and the readers how to be better from that perspective. The interviews are going to be part of a podcast series as well as a video series to be released in August 2022 and each chapter of the book has a QR code that gives you access to all episodes. Or you can just visit www.smartXsharp.com and you can find all the interviews on my page.

Your novel is made up of a number of candid conversations, what conversation left a surprisingly lasting impression on you and why?

I chose to interview people I know really well, and I didn’t expect to be surprised to be honest. But I learnt so many new things about my colleagues and friends. My favorite MIT Sloan Prof. Roberto Fernandez who I interviewed for emotional maturity is one of the most charismatic, energetic and engaging speakers you will ever see, but he confessed to be a shy introvert just like me!

Prof. Charlie Fine, also from MIT Sloan, admitted that as a leader of Asia School of Business he had to practice a lot of paranoia to be more cognitively ready for whatever the job threw at him. And Emily Preiss taught me that one could be too adaptive which is actually quite taxing on our nervous system! Honestly, each interview taught me so much and left me humbled, which is a smart skill that I define as “the more I learn, the less I know”.

What message would you want people to take away after reading your book?

I end my book by wondering will the job still going to be easy and people still hard after reading this book? Of course. It’s part of the human experience to challenge ourselves, and others, and to keep growing from the process.

But what I hope that after reading the book we will realize that we are all difficult and we are responsible of making both the job and the experience of working together not just easier, but more positive, more productive, and most importantly, more meaningful. Because at the end of the day, the business of business is not business.

The business of business is people! As hard or easy as we might be.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by Women in Business Education (WiBE). WiBE is a global network that champions women’s leadership in business academia.

The Sarawak Centre of Performance Excellence (SCOPE) in collaboration with the Asia School of Business (ASB) and the Sarawak Biodiversity Centre organized an Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Awareness Workshop on Monday.

A report by Sarawak Public Communications Unit (Ukas) said the workshop, themed ‘Driving the Green Agenda’ at SCOPE Auditorium was held in conjunction with the coming International Digital Economy Conference Sarawak (IDECS) 2022 as part of its Digital Satellite Programme.

Deputy Minister of Energy and Environmental Sustainability Dr Hazland Abang Hipni said in the report that ESG refers to three main factors to measure the sustainability and ethical impact of investing in a business or company.

“Currently, there are certain financial institutions that will use ESG to evaluate a company and some large companies such as the oil and gas industry cannot get funding because they do not comply with ESG standards.

“So we want the big industries in Sarawak, especially the hydrocarbon industry, to be aware of this,” he said. Dr. Hazland also said the workshop was held as an initiative to encourage large industries in Sarawak in developing nature conservation mindset.

Originally published by The Borneo Post.

Asia Asset Management (AAM), Asia’s oldest journal for the buy-side industry, is pleased to announce that its academic adviser Joseph Cherian, practice professor of finance at Singapore’s NUS Business School, will be heading back to his alma maters, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University.

 

He has been appointed visiting practice professor of finance at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management  (Johnson) at Cornell, and practice professor of finance at the Asia School of Business (ASB), which is a collaboration between the MIT Sloan School of Management and Bank Negara Malaysia.

Both the appointments commence July 1, 2022 and will involve three locations: Kuala Lumpur, New York City (Cornell Tech campus), and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Cherian, who has been working with AAM on various portfolio management-related research projects, forums, panels and written commentaries since 2015, was appointed as the magazine’s academic adviser in October 2019.

His most recent essays for AAM are on the investability of cryptos as an institutional asset class (February 11, 2022), and the financial feasibility of achieving lofty climate science and net zero targets within a certain deadline by governments and firms around the world (June 1, 2022).

Professor Cherian will continue to serve in his faculty role as the bridge between the academic (theory) and financial industry (practice) at both his new affiliations. “We are very excited to have Professor Cherian returning to Johnson. His combination of academic rigour and extensive industry experience is exceptional, and we know he will inspire as well as educate the next generation of business leaders who are pursuing a Johnson MBA,” says Professor Mark Nelson, Johnson’s Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean.

At the ASB, Professor Cherian will offer executive education programmes, as well as courses for the MBA and Masters of Central Banking programmes, both delivered in collaboration with MIT Sloan School faculty.

“We have enthusiastically welcomed Joe to ASB and our growing institution. I and others look forward to working with him in Kuala Lumpur as well as on campus at MIT in Cambridge,” says Professor Charles Fine, CEO and Dean of the ASB, and Chrysler LGO professor of management at MIT Sloan School.

Tan Lee Hock, founder and publisher of AAM says: “We are delighted to learn of Joe’s latest appointments, and we very much look forward to working with him on the various programmes that he initiated while in Singapore; these programmes have been well-received by the investment and pensions community that AAM covers in Asia. ”

Prior to joining NUS in 2009, Professor Cherian was managing director, global head, and chief investment officer in the quantitative strategies group of Credit Suisse Alternative Investments in New York. In that role, he had direct responsibility for over US$67 billion of client assets.

Professor Cherian holds an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from MIT, and a masters and doctorate in finance from Cornell, where he is a member (emeritus) of the Johnson Dean’s Advisory Council.

Originally published by Asia Asset Management (AAM).

After an extraordinary series of global supply chain snags caused by the pandemic, the next generation of central bankers is taking a page from the business school play book, learning how the market reacts to bottlenecks and what monetary policy can do to help.

The educational shift, seen recently at a master’s programme in Malaysia for young policy makers, underscores how the flow of goods has become key to understanding the way two years of supply chain snarls helped drive up consumer prices the fastest in decades.

As part of the course, set up by the Asia School of Business with backing from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, students play the ‘Root Beer Game’, a version of the decades-old classic in MBA programmes that helps illustrate supply and demand signals and dynamics, from producers down to consumers.

Young officials played alongside students from the business school, allowing them an opportunity to simulate how the flow of goods impacts monetary policy decision making. “It corresponds to what happens in the real world,” says Vipichbolreach Long, of the National Bank of Cambodia, who played the role of a retailer. “We can see the chaos in the supply chain with manufacturers and wholesalers confused when the signal from downstream was unclear, and what that means for monetary policy transmission,” Long says.

There’s been no shortage of teachable moments on the course as the pandemic forced central banks to unleash trillions of dollars’ worth of unprecedented support for governments, households and companies as the world economy froze.

How that stimulus, which helped drive a surge in demand, collided with supply chain issues surprised policy makers globally, including at the Federal Reserve. Initial predictions by policy makers that price pressures caused by supply shortages would prove transitory have fallen flat.

Move earlier

Chair Jerome Powell, testifying before Congress recently acknowledged that, in hindsight, if the Fed understood how the pandemic-induced bottle-necks would collide with strong demand “it would have been appropriate to move earlier” in normalising policy.

That’s among lessons policy makers from Asia, as well as Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the Maldives, are learning in the full-time, one-year residential course for a Masters of Central Banking, which includes a six-week programme at MIT. The fee of 365,000 ringgit ($86,700) includes accommodation in Kuala Lumpur and travel to Washington, New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

While flooding their economies with money helped to drive a quick recovery, the monetary policy binge will leave a legacy that future central bankers will be dealing with for years to come. House prices and stock markets have soared through the pandemic, fuelling concerns over widening inequality, and leaving officials with the challenge of raising rates without crashing the recovery.

The exercise comes as policy makers the world over are scrambling to work out what, if anything, central banks can do in response to supply driven inflation. Eli Remolona, who runs the course, says the ‘root beer’ exercise offers lessons on how lag effects work and how hard it can be to predict the way policy impacts the economy.

“We leverage on the pandemic and how central banks have responded,” says Remolona, who formerly was chief Asia-Pacific representative at the Bank for International Settlements and also had a long career at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In another assignment away from their text books, the young officials are given the opportunity to critique press conferences given by the Fed’s Powell and his European Central Bank counterpart, Christine Lagarde, in order to hone their own communication skills.

It’s especially important to monitor the likes of the Fed and ECB given their policy moves eventually spill over to emerging market economies, says Arlene Aguinaldo of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. “It does make us appreciate how difficult it is to communicate well” on monetary policy, she says.

Better equipped

The curriculum covers topics that include crisis prevention, behavioural finance, cybersecurity, digital currencies and ethics. Advisers to the course span the world of central banking such as Zeti Aziz, former governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, Robert Merton, MIT academic and Nobel Laureate in economics.

Students interviewed for this article, who spoke in a personal capacity and were not representing their central banks, say the programme allows them to hear from world leading economists and former policy makers while at the same time networking with peers from emerging economy central banks. “We cannot give a guarantee we’ll prevent the next crisis,” says Yi Duan Ho, of Bank Negara Malaysia. “But we are better equipped to go through it.”

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by Gulf Business.

AS her family members faced issues in managing orders for their online business during the Covid-19 pandemic, Wooi Zhuang Ru came up with an automated management solution. That solution to simplify the work for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and live streamers was the inspiration behind her recent win at the regional finals of the ASB101K Entrepreneurship Competition (Student Track), which saw her three-member team bagging the first prize worth RM101,000.

Calling themselves the Ottermate Team, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) students Wooi and How Chao Xun – who study computer science and financial economics, respectively – together with Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TAR UC) graphic design student Tee Kuok Hin, emerged the grand prize winner after beating three other teams at the regional finals.

The competition, hosted by the Asia School of Business, had two tracks – namely, the Student Track and the Startup Track – which were open to students and aspiring entrepreneurs from South-East Asia (SEA). Tasked with addressing current market challenges and opportunities through innovative technology-driven solutions, the Ottermate Team came up with a social media business enabler – named Ottermate, an incubatee at UTAR Unovate Centre – which offers an all-in-one live commerce management solution for retail live streamers.

Its key purpose is to provide an accessible, user-friendly and hands-off approach to order management, built with social media sales in mind. Ottermate founder Wooi, who is also the team leader, said the original idea came from her family members who owned SMEs and ran them traditionally over the years but were forced to transition to online business due to the pandemic.

“Ottermate started as a simple solution to a personal problem but my team and I eventually found its potential for growth. And that is how we are here today,” she said in a recent press release. Speaking of their win, she attributed the team’s success to their advisors and mentors – UTAR alumnus Pang Chong Xian, UTAR lecturer Tan Chiang Kang and UTAR Unovate Centre Dr Lee Sheng Chyan.

“This was truly a team effort. Everyone in the team worked very hard to write a compelling business document and prepare for our question and answer session. “This applies to our mentors from UTAR and ASB101K, as well. We are really grateful they took time out to help us with our business idea and find answers to difficult questions,” she said, pointing out that her team “weren’t filled with seasoned entrepreneurs or competition-goers”.

She shared that she herself had felt “very inadequate” initially, especially in the first two rounds while creating the decks and documents, because of her non-business background. “We were very lucky to get Fabian Boegershausen as our mentor from ASB101K. He helped us with our business calculations and went above and beyond to bring his expertise to the table. I’d say we definitely could not have done it without him,” she added.

Through their participation in the competition, Wooi said they had picked up some valuable learning points. “We learnt how important it is to get advice and iterate over ideas; a sentence can be said in many different ways but getting the concept down can be a very tedious process. “I really value the input from external people, be they mentors or even my parents.

Putting ourselves out there, asking for feedback and listening to advice helped us a lot in understanding our product and how the public perceives our product. “We were also able to anticipate the potential questions we would get during the Q&A,” she added. Having won the substantial prize money, the team plans to launch the Ottermate after going for a Series A seed round.

“The prize money will allow us to scale up our team and speed up development, so the majority of it will go into that,” she said, adding that she is splitting a small portion of the money among the team. Team mentor Tan advised students to be proactive in order to get the most out of such competitions. “Students need to stay focused, do their groundwork, and be as prepared as they can be.

If they have done that, even if they don’t win anything, the experience will still be invaluable in their startup journey,” he said. In the press release, UTAR president Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat congratulated the Ottermate Team, Unovate Centre and UTAR Faculty of Information and Communication Technology for their combined efforts which resulted in the achievement.

Prior to the regional finals held on April 2, a total of 24 teams from universities across SEA – the Top 12 for each track – battled it out at the semifinals. Another team from UTAR named Quadrifoglio made it to the Top 50 of the competition in Round 1 .

Originally published by The Star.

MALAYSIA could experience more shortage of domestic helpers if there is no willpower to improve wages and job treatment of foreign workers in the country, experts said. “If wages and treatment do not change, I don’t see much changing in this sector aside from it experiencing more shortages and potentially pushing Malaysians into these jobs, which typically are lower-paying with not many amenities,” Asia School of Business assistant economics Prof Dr Melati Nungsari told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) in an email interview.

Radical shift, she said, does not only involve increasing wages, it also should look into improving the work package and mindset as a whole. “Our modus operandi of paying little and treating poorly will not work anymore. With higher wages and better policies surrounding the treatment of migrant workers, we could potentially lure them back into our country, but given the current trajectory, this would require a quite radical shift,” she explained.

Indonesia has recently announced that it is phasing out its domestic workers gradually, which experts said may result in households and the agencies scrambling to source from other countries. “As Indonesia, one of the biggest exporters of domestic worker labour to us, phases out domestic workers, we can expect shortages in this sector to continue as demand for such workers does not seem to be declining,” Melati explained.

As a result, the female workforce will be impacted the most and the cost of hiring would be higher, which could potentially see Malaysia losing its female labour. “Women were already disproportionately affected by the pandemic — in general, they occupy the lower-level jobs, which were the first to be laid off, and tend to be engaged in more precarious work.

“Now that the economy and social sector is starting to recover, these women may now be looking to return to the workforce. Question is, however, who will tend to their children? Domestic helpers could help fill in this gap,” she added. Malaysia seeks to expedite the hiring process of foreign workers to fill the vacancies in various sectors, from plantation to domestic work. Malaysia’s rubber industry has lost RM30 billion in the last three years due to the lack of workers.

TMR previously reported that despite the government’s green light, some businesses could not afford to operate fully as in pre-pandemic. Meanwhile, EMIR Research head of social, law and human rights Jason Loh Seong Wei said Malaysia would not be able to reduce heavy reliance on domestic helpers, thus, there is a need to source from other countries — beyond the traditional ones.

He expects severe short-term impact with needy households and the maid agencies looking to source from other countries in the Asean region which would include Timor Leste. “If things become even more desperate, we might even have to start sourcing from beyond such as looking to countries like India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and not least Papua New Guinea,” he told TMR.

“Unless there’s a culture shift whereas in Japan, children are taught to be independent and resourceful from young and robotics play an integral part of daily living, we would continue to be ‘beholden’ to the need for domestic helpers in the long-term and foreseeable future.” He recommended prospective local employers to have pre-employment counselling and briefing sessions for migrant worker treatment.

“We propose that the licensing regime and supervision of recruitment or placement agencies under the Private Employment Agencies Act (1981) be subject to stricter approval. In addition, there’s also a need to augment the digitalisation of the application process to cut out the use of these middle-men or brokers,” Loh said.

He added that the role of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Council established under Section 6 of Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007 in investigating and charging enforcement agencies for corruption relating to and collusion in facilitating trafficking activities should be reviewed and strengthened.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by The Malaysian Reserve.

The Ottermate Team won First Prize at the Regional Finals of the ASB101K Entrepreneurship Competition (Student Track), held on April 2. The team walked away with RM101,000 as the first prize win. The Ottermate Team consisted of two Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) students, namely, Faculty of Information and Communication Technology student (FICT) Wooi Zhuang Ru, Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) student How Chao Xun; and Tunku Abdul Rahman University College student Tee Kuok Hin.

They were aided by UTAR alumnus Pang Chong Xian and FICT lecturer-cum-mentor Mr Tan Chiang Kang. Dr Lee Sheng Chyan from the Unovate Centre was appointed as the business mentor of Ottermate. The Ottermate is an incubatee of UTAR’s Unovate Centre. The ASB101K is an entrepreneurial competition, hosted by the Asia School of Business.

It brought together, in two different tracks, talented students and aspiring entrepreneurs from Southeast Asia to address current market challenges and opportunities through innovative technology-driven solutions. The competition had two tracks, namely Student Track and Start-up Track and it was open to all student teams from any discipline, and at any level of studies from any tertiary level institutions in South East Asia.

The semi-finals of the ASB101K Entrepreneurship Competition (Student Track) saw the participation of various universities from Southeast Asia, namely, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Asia School of Business (ASB), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), The University of Nottingham, Universiti Malaya (UM), Xiamen University Malaysia (XMU), Monash University Malaysia, Bandung Institute of Technology, Gadjah Mada University, North Sumatera University, Mapúa University, Batangas State University, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Quest International University, Sunway University, Multimedia University Cyberjaya (MMU), Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), HELP University, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College and UTAR.

Prior to the final competition, Top 12 teams from Student Track and Top 12 teams from the Startup Track advanced to the semi-finals. From among the top 12 semi-finalists, four teams were selected to participate in the finals. The Ottermate team from UTAR was selected as one of the four finalist teams for the Student Track.

The Ottermate is an innovative social media business enabler that provides an all-in-one live commerce management solution for retail live streamers. It provides an accessible, user-friendly, and hands-off approach to order management, built with social media sales in mind. “The original idea came from my family members who owned Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and ran them traditionally over the years but were forced to transition to online business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ottermate started as a simple solution to a personal problem, but we eventually found its potential for growth. And that is how we are here today,” said Wooi, who is the Team Leader-cum-Founder of Ottermate. “We really learnt a lot of things along the way. In the beginning, we learnt that being genuine is the most valuable asset; any situation or status can be a strength.

Besides that, we also learnt about how important it is to get advice and iterate over ideas; a sentence can be said in many different ways but getting the concept down can be a very tedious process. I really value the input from external people, be it mentors or even my parents. Putting ourselves out there, asking for feedback, and listening to advice helped us a lot in understanding our product and how the public perceives our product.

We were also able to anticipate the potential questions we would get during the Q&A,” she added. Speaking of the challenges the team faced during the competition, she said, “I’d say our biggest challenge was that we went in blind. We weren’t a team filled with seasoned entrepreneurs or competition goers with the aim to win.

Personally, as the team leader, since I am not from a business background, I felt very inadequate initially, especially in the first two rounds while creating the decks and documents. But over the course of the competition, because of the overwhelming support from our team as well as our mentors from both UTAR and ASB101K, we eventually found our groove.”

Wooi enthused, “We feel great, but also very stunned at the same time, we are just so happy to be a part of this rather unique experience and inspiring event. We really owe a lot to our mentors, who guided us one step at a time. Our team really took their advice to heart, pulling long nights and drinking a lot of coffee while doing so. We are so glad that our work has been recognised and we were able to get so far.

I’m personally very grateful that I got to meet so many talented people and learn so much from both peers and judges. The whole experience was surreal and I’m very excited for the future.” “This was truly a team effort. Each one of our team members worked very hard to write a compelling business document and prepare for our Q&A. This applies to our mentors from ASB101K and UTAR Unovate Centre as well.

We are really grateful they took time out of their day and helped us talk through our business idea and find answers to difficult questions,” she said and added, “We were very lucky to get Mr Fabian Boegershausen as our mentor for ASB101K. He helped us with our business calculations and he went above and beyond to bring his expertise to the table. I’d say we definitely could not have done it without him.”

When asked about the team’s plans for the future, she replied, “Well, we are planning to launch Ottermate after going for a Series A seed round. This prize money that we won will allow us to scale our team and speed up development, so the majority of it will go into that. Besides that, I’m splitting a small portion of the money amongst the team since they have been pivotal in us winning. They deserve to see some prize money for bearing with me constantly on our way to the finals.”

UTAR President Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat sent his heartiest congratulations to the Ottermate Team, Unovate Centre and FICT for their combined efforts which resulted in this amazing achievement at the regional level for Ottermate. The team’s mentor Tan has some advice for other aspiring students, “To get the most out of such competition, they must be proactive.

We, as mentors, and the Unovate Centre can show them the door, link them up to opportunities, and help guide and prepare them, but ultimately they will be the ones doing the business pitching. The vibes of the competition can be intimidating, as there will be strong competition from others, with some even more experienced, or with better business ideas.

So, students need to stay focused, do their groundwork, and be as prepared as they can be. If they have done that, even if they don’t win anything, the experience will still be invaluable in their startup journey.” Another team from UTAR named Quadrifoglio also made it to the Top 50 of the competition in Round 1.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by Business Today.

PETALING JAYA: Maybank has endowed RM21 million to the Asia School of Business (ASB) to establish the Maybank Asean Research Centre with the aim of conducting research on topics related to emerging markets in the Southeast Asia region. The endowment is based on the understanding that social welfare can be a bridge towards improving policymaking.

ASB is a collaboration between the MIT Sloan School of Management and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM). Maybank Asean Research Centre’s co-chair, Datuk Nora Manaf, who officiated the launch, remarked that data and information are imperative to power insights which guide policymakers to respond swiftly to crises, improve economic growth, and enhance resilience to future shocks.

She said the bank aims to humanise financial services not only by providing sustainable financing solutions and supporting the underbanked. “We are now extending our reach to them by making available impactful research findings that can benefit society as a whole,” Nora said in a statement. “We believe that the real-world discoveries can better prepare us all to overcome existential challenges and seize opportunities in today’s volatile operating environment.”

To date, the centre has completed two studies related to the Covid-19 pandemic, the first of which explored the rationale behind vaccine hesitancy in Malaysia and whether social norms and government policies play roles in affecting one’s decision to register for vaccinations. The result from the study provided insights on how policymakers can help incentivise residents to register and receive the Covid-19 vaccine.

The school’s president and dean, professor Charles Fine believes academia plays a salient role in equipping leaders and policymakers with accurate and current information to make sound decisions. “With the generous support from Maybank, we will continue to gather more relevant data, contribute insightful research and spark intellectual dialogues that will create a better future for the next generations and the advancement of the emerging world,” he said.

Its second study explores the impact of the pandemic on Malaysia’s “hawker culture” utilising machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to generate a map of hawker and roadside operations in Malaysia, as well as deepen the understanding of how they access credit. Maybank Research Centre’s faculty director and ASB’s assistant professor of economics, Dr Melati Nungsar commented the pandemic has affected us all in various ways.

“We continued our mission by exploring the impact that pandemic has had on Malaysia’s hawkers, the roadside economy, and the changed dynamics of the labour market,” she said. “Through our partnership with Maybank, we intend to invigorate the region with more meaningful studies that will help policymakers in developing effective and favourable policies to support emerging markets and the livelihood of its citizens.”

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by The Sun.

The hybrid Digital Leadership Forum, organized last week by Sarawak Centre of Performance Excellence (SCOPE) in collaboration with Sarawak State Financial Secretary’s Office, and co-hosted by Asia School of Business (established by Bank Negara Malaysia in collaboration with MIT Sloan), served as a platform for knowledge exchange and ideation between the public and private sector, to drive greater economic progress for the state of Sarawak.

Hosted at the newly opened campus of Asia School of Business (ASB), the forum was held at a pivotal moment as the state approaches the tail end of its five-year Sarawak Digital Economy Strategy 2018-2022. This year marks the start of the state embarking on its eight-year Post-Covid-19 Development Strategy 2030 as a continuation of its digital economy strategy.

Addressing attendees which included board members, C-suite officers, general managers, and senior to middle managers, the Deputy Premier of Sarawak Amar Douglas Uggah Embas (pic), emphasised the importance for state leaders to continue to drive the digital agenda forward.

“We are delighted to work with Asia School of Business especially because of their strong ties with industry and the MIT connection which strongly emphasises a practical, action-based approach to development and transformation. Additionally, corporate leaders and management teams are to adopt innovative business process reengineering via the adoption of digital tools and technologies in order to be competitive and achieve sustainable growth,” he said.

Amar urged for the State Financial Secretary Office to spearhead the digital transformation initiatives for the GLCs and Statutory Bodies in collaboration with Scope as the secretariat to facilitate, collaborate and conduct more capacity building programs. “These forums and programs not only provide an excellent opportunity to identify best practices, create leads but – most importantly – create space for direct networking, knowledge transfer and matchmaking discussions,” he said.

The forum speakers, who touched on current and emerging market trends and issues from the context of a gig and digital economy, included: Azran Osman Rani, Founder of Naluri, Dzuleira Abu Bakar, Chief Executive Officer of Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation (MRANTI), Dr Inma Martinez, Expert Member of the Global Partnership on AI, a G7 / OECD Initiative, and Prof Charles Fine, President and Dean at Asia School of Business.

The Digital Leadership Forum marks the start of a longer-term research and education relationship between the State of Sarawak and ASB as its knowledge partner in supporting a strategy for transformation and human capital development for the State, working closely with Scope as a collaborative partnership, said Dr Asleena Dato Helmi, CEO of Scope.

“Especially during these volatile pandemic times and global instability, digital readiness and building resilience is more crucial than ever, not only to shield citizens from drastic shocks but also to build towards a better, more sustainable way forward.

At Asia School of Business, equipping leaders to drive positive, transformative impact is a key part of our mission and ethos, and we are extremely honoured to be able to host the Deputy Premier of Sarawak and delegates to the Digital Leadership Forum at our campus,” said Prof Fine.

Post the forum ASB hosted the Sarawak state delegates for a series of talks and discussions with ASB’s international resident faculty to learn about trends and new innovations in several key streams, and how these can be leveraged for the state’s sustainable economic development.

The streams include Digital Transformation, Oil & Gas & Resources, Forestry, Agriculture (including Oil Palm), Transportation, Logistics, Shipping, Financial Sector, Governance, Education and Human Capital, Industry and Manufacturing, Informal Sectors, and Services Sector.

Read the full article HERE.
Originally published by Digital News Asia.