Ray Refundo at the ASEAN Connect 2018 in Singapore
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Connecting individuals to like-minded communities through dynamic conversations. That is the true essence of the Connect Series.
Celebrating its second year, Asean Connect 2018 was one of the most anticipated events entepreneurs, investors, and innovators had been eyeing on since the beginning of the year.
This year’s event was held last March 1, 2018, at MAX Atria @ Singapore EXPO, dubbed as ASEAN 4.0: The future of Business. A line of hand-picked speakers made Asean connect 2018 all the more exciting and very much worth attending.
Ray Refundo, Qwikwire CEO, was humbled to be invited as one of the speakers to sit along side reputable and great-minded people.
Speakers were grouped into several panels, revolving around certain topics. Ray Refundo was in the Service panel with the topic Everything As a Service — Business in the new age of disruption, together with Noni Purnomo, President-director, Blue Bird Group, Anna Gong, CEO, Perx Technologies and Vivek Kumar, Assistant Director-General, NTUC.
The topic addresses how the rise of exponential technologies have disrupted traditional ways of doing businesses, specifically in the service sector, and in some cases obliterated existing business eco-systems.
Event Moderator, Mohit Mehrotra of Monitor Deloitte, took the lead by throwing out questions, revelant to what’s currently happening in the technology and business scene.
In one statement, when asked how Philippine companies are shifting their gears to digitalize, Ray said that the Government plays a pivotal role in this. Philippines has a government similar to the US. Taxes and Restriction hinder companies to grow exponentially. Some companies even lose more than what they are supposed to earn. This might just be the reason why only few Philippine companies have expanded internationally.
The statement was then followed by Anna Gong, saying, “The more money you lose, the higher the valuation.” in a jesty tone.
Although it is delighting to witness how businesses progressively migrate to a more developed stage, according to Mohit Mehrotra, there is no denying that there is an adverse effect to this.
Ray’s take is that, as the community grows more and more advanced, the demand for labor workers and other manned jobs diminishes. The efficiency of modern technology prohibits workers from certain industuries to prove that their skills are more valuable than what digital services have to offer. This results to less opportunities and consequently, higher unemployment rate.
The discussion lasted for more than an hour, enlighting the audience with valuable insights from founders in different industries.
Ray and the rest of the team proceeded to their meet up in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur the following days, as part of their Asia tour. The aim is to explain how blockchain revolutionizes the Real Estate industry and how it will benefit its key players. The AQWIRE Asia tour also acts as a promotional campaign for the project to engage with potential partners and users. The team is bound to fly to Vietnam and Thailand later this March and to Japan in April for the same campaign.
