Tag: Technology

Singapore – Video advertising solutions Aniview has partnered with global cybersecurity company White Ops to protect its client’s ad inventory through White Ops’ ad verification feature.

Through the partnership, Aniview will integrate the White Ops Advertising Integrity solution to help optimize protection and ensure its customers’ safety from malicious and sophisticated cybersecurity risks. As a result, publishers and advertising networks have another avenue by which they can access White Ops protection for their inventory. 

Furthermore, Aniview and its customers can leverage White Ops’ privacy-sensitive detection technology to identify threats and automated fraud attempts, ensuring their advertising inventory can be trusted and fraud-free. This then allows Aniview to provide its clients an effective solution to identify and prevent malicious video-bot traffic. The partnership represents the next step in Aniview’s mission to provide verified traffic and protection against video ad fraud. 

“The most common types of video fraud occur when malicious fraudsters misrepresent their display units as video inventory in programmatic exchanges. These sophisticated bots are deployed through malware embedded in software, essentially performing device-hijacking on a mass, organized scale. With the significant dangers ad fraud poses to the video supply chain, safety has become an increasingly critical issue and, as such, dangers are being met with innovative solutions,” White Ops said in a press statement.

White Ops operates two key features for video advertisers to use: White Ops Advertising Integrity, where platforms can tap into comprehensive pre-bid prevention and post-bid detection capabilities to verify the validity of advertising efforts across all channels, and the White Ops Fraud Mitigation Platform, which spots and stop sophisticated bots and fraud by using technical evidence, continuous adaptation, machine learning, and threat intelligence. 

“We’re excited to join together with Aniview in the optimization of fraud-free video advertising solutions. This partnership strengthens our presence in digital video while providing easier access to our platform for publishers and networks. The more partners that we have in this fight, the bigger our knowledge base grows and the better we can optimize our tactics against potential new threats from bad actors,” said Ellie Windle, vice president, global strategic partnerships and alliances at White Ops.

Meanwhile, Roy Cohen, CTO of Aniview commented that the recent partnership with White Ops responds to the greater need for protection against ad fraud as online video content is booming.

“Working with White Ops and our internal fraud detection tools, we will develop greater application integrity by identifying and blocking bot traffic with the highest degree of accuracy and speed to stay ahead of adversaries,” Cohen added.

Auckland, New Zealand – Global cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has partnered with global advertising agency BBDO in launching a live stream billboard in New Zealand as part of Kaspersky’s campaign ‘Safer Tomorrow’, aimed at trying to answer humankind’s questions about the foreseeable future.

The billboard, placed temporarily in Castlepoint Station on the Wairarapa coast of New Zealand, utilized BBDO’s developed foretelling neural network to answer to the most significant questions about ‘tomorrow’ – from “when will flying cars become ordinary vehicles?” to “what will 3D printing be capable of by 2050?” In addition, audiences are able to view the billboard live from New Zealand via the ‘Safer Tomorrow’ website.

“Kaspersky is committed to building a more protected and safer world. To achieve this, the global cybersecurity company closely follows technological trends and predictions to generate a picture of what we can expect in the future and to understand how to secure it in advance. Kaspersky also believes that the more people who consider the future and the likely trajectories of society and technology, the more they will be able to foresee and contribute to this better and safer tomorrow,” the company said in a press statement.

The deployed neural network uses the latest machine learning architecture and techniques and is trained to analyze requests and provide predictions based on data collected from hundreds of thousands of related sources, including science fiction books and magazines, selected media, and blogs.

Asked about the use of science fiction materials as a base for the ‘Safer Tomorrow’ predictions, the company stated that “boldest predictions were usually considered not just incredible but even whimsical at the time they were made.”

“Over the last few decades, as SciFi authors have got access to the latest progress in science, their ideas and predictions are treated with much more respect and seriousness even by scientists,” the company stated.

The company, however, clarified that the neural network itself will admit as to whether no answer can be provided, and will try its best to reformulate the question or prod for another one to be asked. 

“Some predictions are still to be made, and even the neural network’s knowledge has its limits. But not knowing everything about the future makes it even more amazing and thrilling. Generating a specific prediction as an answer to a question would take a few seconds,” the company added.

Furthermore, insights used in the ‘Safer Tomorrow’ platform will be also using Kaspersky’s former interactive project ‘Earth 2050’, a platform project providing a futuristic image of what the world will look like in 30 years’ time.

The creation of the ‘Safer Tomorrow’ platform, according to Andrew Winton, vice president for global marketing at Kaspersky, was to raise people’s awareness about what the future might look like and feel more certain about upcoming opportunities.

“Looking into and understanding the future is something that has occupied the minds of humankind throughout time. It is this knowledge that allows us to be secure, prepared and confident. Kaspersky believes in a bright future where, [the] as-of-yet unseen potential for humanity will be opened up by technology, which is why we secure it,” Winton stated.

The live stream billboard construction will be accessible to the public until February 25 and will be dismantled thereafter. 

Singapore – Businesses in Singapore have shown a greater interest in improving their customer experience (CX) through various strategies, despite 2020 being a disruptive year for far-reach transformation, new report from customer relationship management Zendesk shows.

According to the Zendesk Customer Experience (CX) Trends Report 2021, Singapore businesses have witnessed a 22% increase in average weekly support requests, and nearly half of customers or49%, in Singapore say that experience is more important to them now compared to a year ago. Meanwhile, 77% of local companies – the second highest in the APAC region – say their organization prioritizes CX more than they did a year ago.

“We’ve seen companies in APAC embrace digitalization at an incredible speed this year in response to the dramatic shifts in the operating landscape they’ve had to navigate. Customer experience has never been more important, and we think this accelerated adoption of technology is likely to continue in 2021,” said Wendy Johnstone, chief operating officer for APAC at Zendesk.

The study’s recent statistics support data from IT service management firm Gartner that 91% of organizations said that CX was one of the primary goals of their digital business transformation efforts.

“Organizations need to ensure they have the right strategies, processes, and technology in place to empower customer support teams and drive business success,” Johnstone added.

Additional findings among Singaporeans include half of customers preferring to use embedded messaging when they engage with businesses, such as on websites or mobile apps, while one out of five managers (21%) and one out of four (27%) of agents state that they don’t have the right analytics tools to measure success for remote teams and work with it. 

In addition, 81% of Singaporeans are willing to spend more with a company that offers a good customer experience, which is the highest in the region. The report also shows that 83% of Singaporeans will take their business elsewhere following bad experiences.

“Facing continued volatility, service, and support, organizations must find ways to keep up with their customers. Customer experience leaders cited the ability to quickly adapt to the evolving needs of customers as their biggest challenge in 2020 and the highest priority going forward,” said Zendesk. 

Hong Kong – Media investment company GroupM is continuing its expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, this time launching INCA, an influencer marketing company, to the Hong Kong market.

With this regional expansion, INCA will then allow brand-influencer partnerships to leverage content-driven campaigns. Furthermore, as more brands are reallocating their influencer marketing budget to social media brand engagement, INCA upholds brand safety across using AI technology leverages.

As a study from data company Nielsen shows that economic and social uncertainties have affected brand advertising by means of audience impact, brands have since then ventured out into strategies that are efficient and will have return of investment in no time. Hence, INCA in Hong Kong aims to provide influencer marketing to the local brands by allowing them to collaborate with genuine influencers in spreading the brand, benefiting Hong Kong-based brands from the leveraging strategies from INCA.

“We are committed to helping brands in Hong Kong create the best possible outcomes through our data-driven and brand-safe approach to influencer marketing. Our AI-powered solutions and thorough influencer and content approval processes ensure their investments in influencer marketing inspire their customers, protect their brands, and achieve results that are directly tied to business results,” said Michael Woo (right of banner picture), associate director for Product & Operations at INCA Hong Kong.

INCA is also allowing brands to check the authenticity of their influential marketing strategies through INCATech, a platform that allows brands to check unique creator and audience insights, workflow tools, content amplification, and detailed campaign reporting dashboards which includes Genuity Score.

Screengrab of INCATech Platform
A screen grab featuring the dashboard of INCA’S INCATech platform that monitors partner influencers (Photo Courtesy of INCA)

“Advertisers are faced with the challenge of finding authentic and relevant content creators while ensuring cost-efficiency in their marketing campaigns. Our technology will help equip advertisers, not only in Hong Kong but globally, with data-driven tools that will connect them to genuine influencers and leading publishers in order to achieve their marketing objectives,” said Andy Chung (left of banner picture), head of programmatic at GroupM. 

Shenzhen, China – Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme has recently crossed the 50 million smartphone units sales, report from market research company Counterpoint said.

According to the report, the brand grew by 132% quarter on quarter (QoQ) and has also recorded a high level of quarterly shipments of 14.8 million units. 

Abhilash Kumar, research analyst at Counterpoint stated, “Realme grew to become one of the top 5, or even top 3, brands in its key markets, including India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Philippines and some other Southeast Asian countries.

With its efforts to bring the affordable yet premium-like products to consumers, as well as its ability to offer smooth digital shopping and after-sales services in different countries, Realme has emerged as the most resilient brand during and after the pandemic crisis,” Kumar also added, commenting on the brand’s trendsetting image that ‘clicks’ with the younger generation through design and affordable prices.

Expanding to 61 markets globally, Realme has since then been a popular brand choice, such as in India that saw 1 million smart individual audio devices purchases.

Sky Li, Realme’s CEO commented, “At Realme, we live out our philosophy, which is to dare to leap into the forefront of innovation, design and product value, which is something young people can identify with.” 

The brand, founded in 2018, has since then diversified to other products including smart audio, visual, and lifestyle products. 

Singapore – Software development and technology services firm RADX has launched its first-ever licensed virtual reality (VR) expo platform, and is first used in Smart ConnecTech Asia 2020 in Singapore.

The recent platform launch is in response to offering flexibility and scalability in launching trade shows, conventions, or conferences for exhibitors and attendees, especially with social distancing restrictions brought by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Users may set first their own avatar in the virtual platform, just as role-playing games (RPG) do. Within the virtual environment, users can enjoy interaction with other users and exchange name cards, chat or call via voice or video call. Furthermore, attendees may also attend live webinars and their respective open forum parts.

On the other hand, conference exhibitors can also launch virtual trade shows within the virtual platform, with integrated company branding. Exhibitors can also experience integrated lead generation for their exhibits, both on email and social media marketing strategy. The platform is also licensed under a service type platform (SaaS), which means organizers can set up their conferences efficiently and can run up for weeks.


“While the global events and exhibition industry has taken a hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by the closure of borders and restrictions in travelling, as well as social distancing requirements, the use of virtual reality in such events can help businesses in ensuring the continuity of their operations. This makes RADX 3D VR conference an innovative tool for collaboration with every customer and partner, without sacrificing the visitor experience,” Rob Chong, founder and CEO of RADX said.

Manila, Philippines – The Philippines arm of technology and commerce platform Zilingo has announced home-grown executive Shiela Mauricio as its new country manager.

In her new role, she will be spearheading Zilingo’s business operations, strategy execution while driving profitability and growth for the Philippines. 

Mauricio boasts 25 years of experience in business development and sales. Joining in 2018, She was one of the very first employees at Zilingo Philippines. Mauricio was previously the head of commercial in the company, where she led to the execution of sales strategy in the Philippines, and on-boarded numerous big clients like Silver Kingdom, Havaianas, Plains and Prints, and designer Avel Bacudio’s exclusive athleisure line

Mauricio shared her excitement for her new role, “I’m happy and thrilled to be working with the young and diverse minds of ZilingoPhilippines. I believe that the company has a lot of potential in the country, especially in the B2B sector. I take this huge opportunity as a means to contribute my experience and add value to Zilingo’s impressive growth trajectory and grow alongside in the Process.”

“I would like to sincerely thank our CEO, Ankiti Bose (Zilingo) for entrusting me with this immense responsibility and encouraging the way for women in leadership positions,” she added.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – AirAsia Digital has partnered with Google to launch the Redbeat Academy, a move to upskill and cross-train individuals to adapt to digital transformation.

Initially set up forAir Asia employees through a series of tech workshops, Redbeat Academy has now opened its doors to the public.

This move comes as part of the Academy’s objective and direction to build a future-ready next generation by providing a one-stop service in tech, leadership and innovation that is expected to be a vital catalyst for the digital economy in Malaysia and the wider ASEAN.

Redbeat Academy will focus on serving five segments which are employees, corporate and SMEs, government agencies, universities, and public individuals. With at least 100,000 talents to be tapped every year, they will provide solutions in three main areas: skills development program,betabuild labs – a program offered by AirAsia with support of Google to help enterprises incubate new digital businesses with employees – as well as  career coaching and hiring service. 

In addition, the Academy signed a partnership with Malaysian Industry-Government Group of High Technology (MIGHT) to reskill a pool of talent in software engineering and high technology projects such as blockchain and data. It has also joined hands with universities Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Malaya and Asia School of Business in collaboration with MIT Sloan Management, to award a micro-credential to Redbeat Academy courses and acknowledge it as part of the Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL).

YB Khairy Jamaluddin, minister of science, technology, and innovation (MOSTI) said, “I would like to congratulate AirAsia Digital and Google on this meaningful partnership and the launch of Redbeat Academy. The concept of the Academy itself signifies a vital global trend in today’s digital world, which reshapes how businesses are run, workplaces are restructured and product marketing is shifted from a more traditional way to digital and consumer-centric. These efforts are in line with the government’s key initiative, the National Technology and Innovation Sandbox (NTIS), aimed to accelerate Malaysia’s ascent in becoming a high-tech and high-income nation while generating greater social impact and strengthening the social innovation ecosystem structure.”

“MOSTI is proud to play our role in encouraging innovation from the grassroots with prominent industry players such as AirAsia, as it is evident that innovation will be the key driver of economies and markets worldwide. We look forward to seeing Malaysians from all walks of life and industries sign up for the courses offered at Redbeat Academy.”

Meanwhile, Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, chief executive officer of AirAsia Group said, “AirAsia has always embraced digitalization and today is another milestone for us as we launch our premier tech academy. We are proud to work hand-in-hand and cross-share our resources and knowledge with Google.”

“With the mission to empower, connect and develop a sustainable tech talent pipeline, we are also proud to open the academy to the public now to provide opportunities for everyone, with the focus on mentoring the best in breed industry-ready professionals and producing problem-solvers using technology. Everyone needs to keep learning, growing, and embracing the ever-changing tech landscape to ensure that we can stay relevant in this digital economy. I hope everyone will take this opportunity to learn new skill sets in tech so we can together strive for greater heights as a nation,” added Fernandes.

Director of Google Cloud Learning Services Rochana Golani also commented, “Cloud technology can enable sustainable growth and innovation for businesses both large and small, and the Redbeat Academy will help grow cloud skills and talent across Malaysia. As a Google Cloud Authorised Training Partner we also look forward to working with the team to deliver advanced curriculum and learning pathways to future cloud technology professionals.”

The Academy has recently celebrated the graduation of its first batch, comprising 135 employees who finished their digital fundamentals from the internal reskilling & upskilling program.

Hong Kong – Hong Kong’s data centers have been highly sought by investors and owner-operators in 2020 with majority, 54%, of the total investment volume into data centers in the Asia Pacific coming from the city, according to data by Cushman & Wakefield.

Data center investment in the region has been on the rise with total transaction volume between 2018 and 2020 totaling USD 5.7 billion, over seven times that between 2015 and 2017.

Despite the pandemic outbreak, investment activity in the sector remains relatively robust with the total transaction volume in the region over the first eight months of 2020 reaching USD 1.43 billion, about 56% of the 2019 level.

Among the most notable transactions in Hong Kong is China Mobile’s securement of an industrial government site for HKD 5.60 billion in July. The record-high asset value of HKD 5,967 per sq. ft was 56% higher than the closest bid; demonstrating the eagerness of the buyer to secure a data center site amidst limited supply.

Hong Kong has long been eyed as an ideal data center location. The latest research by Cushman & Wakefield identifies the city as the fourth most attractive data center location in APAC, trailing Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo. The city ranked highest in terms of low tax rate and low climate risks and ranked in the middle in categories of fiber connectivity, market maturity, and electricity costs. Meanwhile, it scored poorly on its high real estate costs.

At the end of the second quarter of the year, total data center stock in Hong Kong amounted to 7.9 million sq. ft, of which 80% was dominated by 10 operators including the two largest local operators – SUNeVision and PCCW Solutions, with the latter making up 31% of the market area.

Cushman & Wakefield forecasts that over the next four years, a combined 4.2 million sq. ft of supply will enter the data center market.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Associate Director for Research in Hong Kong, Eric Chong said that existing data center demand is supported by banking & finance, insurance, and telecom operators, and that in the future, such demand is expected to be largely driven by leading global cloud service providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud as well as Tencent Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud. 

Chong said, “The growing importance of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, the impending 5G network, and fast adoption rates of cloud computing as well as the post-COVID-19 ‘new’ normal are the four major factors driving the surge in demand for cloud storage”.

Sydney, Australia – International professional services Cognizant has announced that it has appointed former managing partner of PwC, Jane Livesey as its newest CEO for Cognizant Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). She starts assuming the role on Aug. 31, 2020. 

At PwC, Livesey led over 800 IT professionals for the company’s technology consulting practice team in Australia. 

Livesey’s professional credentials also trail back to being a tech managing director for Accenture ANZ with a lengthy service of 12 years. 

“We are delighted to welcome Jane to Cognizant. We are confident that her extensive technology consulting experience, client centricity, [and] leadership qualities and personal brand will help us grow our business exponentially in Australia-New Zealand,” Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries said. 

As a recognized advocate for women in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics), Livesay said that in line with Cognizant’s commitment to society, one of her priorities is to leverage the company’s collective passion, experience, and skills to support community programs as everyone continues to navigate the impacts of the pandemic.” 

“I am delighted to be a part of Cognizant and look forward to enabling businesses and institutions in ANZ to keep on top of era-defining innovations and drive growth in the face of continuous technological and market changes,” said Livesey. 

“My priority is to provide ANZ enterprises and governments with high-quality, market-leading digital transformation capabilities that enhance the lives of people,” she added.