Solaria Labs Singapore New Year Update 2018
Although many of us celebrated the beginning of 2018 more than 2 months ago, for a large number of Singaporeans, the new year only started on February 16th as they celebrated Chinese New Year. As we turn a new chapter, I wanted to reflect on the prior year and my past five months in Singapore.
Being half way around the world, life is a little different in Singapore. I’ve gone from being in a country which has four seasons, to a country which has no seasons. I’ve gone from being in our huge space at 31 Saint James with 30+ people, to the corner office with only three people. I’ve gone from being in a role that focuses more on broader strategy and operations for Innovation, to a role that focuses on building a new team and products from scratch.
At the end of 2017, Stefan and I attended Singapore’s 2nd FinTech Festival, a four-day event which brought over 25,000+ FinTech enthusiasts from around the world to connect, learn from each other, and co-create new solutions in a market ripe for disruption. It was only over a year ago when Chris, Chema, Kelsie, and I made the trip out to Singapore to attend the inaugural FinTech Festival. We were just attendees, exploring what other Labs were doing and figuring out our place in the whole ecosystem — at the time, the Singapore Lab was just another concept in the pipeline.
Fast forward a year later, it was Solaria Labs hosting an event as a part of the FinTech Festival’s Lab Crawl. Over 120 people attended to learn more about Solaria’s mission, its approach, and our perspectives on the future of insurance. With the help of the Impact Hub and the Japan External Trade Organization, we also brought in 9 FinTech startups to pitch their companies, giving our guests a flavor of the disruption happening across Asia. What a difference a year can make!
During the event, I heard a lot of dialogue around Solaria Labs’ mission and our accomplishments to date. Many people were refreshed and intrigued to hear that we are actually building new products and thinking beyond insurance. Although it’s great to hear the positive, what has me really pumped are the eyebrows we raised. Although we may be the 11th insurance lab to launch in Singapore, we brought with us a unique mission of creating safer and more secure lives for our customers. Knowing this, I am very excited about Solaria Labs’ continued journey and what will come out of the remainder of 2018, both in the US and Singapore.
Originally published at www.solarialabs.com on February 20, 2018.
