TECHSAUCE GLOBAL SUMMIT

Biography

David is a serial entrepreneur who has founded three startups and been involved with two others. He is one of the original founders of Pinpoint Technologies, Inc. which is now part of ZOLL Medical Corporation and provides solutions to the emergency medical services market. He was President of the company from founding through over $50M per year in revenue and over 250 people.

David later co-founded Techstars along with David Cohen, Brad Feld, and Jared Polis. He has been an investor and advisor to Techstars since inception. In 2013, he joined Techstars in a more active role, overseeing global operations.

David has a B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. As a ski instructor in the past, David still enjoys hitting the slopes on a good powder day.

Biography

Kamran also serves as Global Innovation Advisor, 500 Startups; Founding Mentor, Unreasonable Group, and Unchartered; Advisory Member, UNICEF Innovation Fund; Advisory Member, Seedstars World; Founding Board Advisor, Harbour. Space University; Chairman, Advisory Board, Global Venture Alliance.

As an Innovation Catalyst, Kamran advises various governments on the needed transition from fossil-based economies to sustainable innovation economies. As a global high-tech entrepreneur, he co-founded ten companies, three of them failed (e.g. Momenta), six of them produced a total market cap of over $8B (e.g. Cirrus Logic). As a VC, Kamran co-founded Global Catalyst Partners with investments in the U.S., Japan, China, India, Israel, and Singapore. Underlying his vision for global philanthropy is the conviction that modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can be instrumental in dissolving barriers between nations and bridging the social and political differences among people. This vision was reflected in Schools-Online, a nonprofit he co-founded in 1996 to connect the world, one school at a time (6400 schools in 36 countries were provided with computers and access to the Internet) and merged with Relief International in 2003; Global Catalyst Foundation, co-founded in 2000 to improve lives through the effective application of ICT, and UN-GAID, a United Nations global forum that promotes ICT in developing countries where he served as Co-Chairman (2009-2011).

Biography

Joseph Lubin is a co-founder of blockchain computing platform Ethereum and the founder of Consensus Systems, a blockchain venture studio.

ConsenSys is one of the largest and fastest-growing companies in the blockchain technology space, building developer tools, decentralized applications, and solutions for enterprises and governments that harness the power of Ethereum. Headquartered in New York, ConsenSys also has a global presence, employing top entrepreneurs, computer scientists, software developers, and experts in enterprise delivery worldwide.

Lubin graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He worked in the Princeton Robotics Lab, at Tomandandy music developing an autonomous music composition tool, and at private research firm Vision Applications Inc. building autonomous mobile robots.

As a software engineer and consultant, Lubin worked with eMagine on the Identrus project and was involved in the founding and operation of a hedge fund with a partner. He held positions as Director of the New York office of Blacksmith Software Consulting, and VP of Technology in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs. Through these posts, Lubin focused on the intersection of cryptography, engineering, and finance.

Switching gears, Lubin moved to Kingston, Jamaica to work on projects in the music industry. Two years into his musical endeavors, Lubin co-founded the Ethereum Project and has been working on Ethereum and ConsenSys since January, 2014.

Biography

Grace’s has over a decade of experience in investment, corporate strategy and business development across early-stage startups and Fortune 500 companies in both Silicon Valley and emerging markets in Asia. At Jungle Ventures she focuses on identifying innovative startups in Asia and cross-border investment opportunities.

Prior to joining Jungle Ventures, she was Senior Director of Corporate Strategy and Investment at Tencent. In this role, she focused on identifying strategic opportunities in emerging markets, building Tencent’s overseas product ecosystem through investments and collaborations with local partners; and overseeing the implementation of deals and capital deployment.

A Kauffman Fellow, Grace started her career as a management consultant where she advised clients in financial sectors. Grace has an MBA in strategy and decision science from Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

Biography

Neal Cross is Managing Director and Chief Innovation Officer of DBS Bank and a strong advocate for innovative thinking and culture.

Cross is driving the bank’s innovation agenda regionally, as DBS moves to shape the future of banking, to enhance customer experience and better engage customers in the digital landscape. Cross has more than 20 years’ experience in technology, innovation, and financial services.

Working with internal stakeholders and external collaborators, he charts the innovation roadmap for DBS to enhance customer experience and better engages the bank’s customers in the digital landscape. On the back of our recent “World’s Best Digital Bank” accolade, Neal won the “Most Disruptive” CIO global award by impressing judges Steve Wozniak and Sir Richard Branson at the finals of the Talent Unleashed Awards 2016.

Previous to DBS, Cross was at MasterCard, where he was responsible for driving innovation as Vice President of MasterCard Labs in the company’s Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa regions.  Cross started working in the Asia time zone at Microsoft in Australia and later in Singapore as the financial services industry director.

On his weekends Neal lives in the Sumatran jungle where he has founded Hotel Orangutan, a social enterprise to help save the critically endangered Sumatran Orangutan and to give local villagers employment and education.

Biography

Nok Maneerut Anulomsombut joined our company in March 2014 and has served as our chief executive officer of Thailand since March 2016. Nok previously served as our chief operating officer of Thailand. Prior to joining our company, Nok was a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group in Bangkok from March 2009 to February 2014.

Prior to joining The Boston Consulting Group, Nok worked at financial and fashion companies in Thailand. Nok holds an M.B.A. degree from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.

Biography

Pieter Kemps serves as an Investment Advisor at Sequoia Capital India. He is the Principal at Sequoia Capital. He was a Vice President at the firm in 2014 and focuses on investments in internet, mobile, software, and infrastructure across South East Asia. He works closely with Kfit, Sirion Labs, Gojek, Tokopedia, Zilingo and other portfolio companies. Prior to joining Sequoia, Pieter was at Amazon Web Services, where he was responsible for Amazon’s business with the leading VC’s, Accelerators, and the startup ecosystem across Asia.

Biography

Anix Lynch is Partner of Expara –Government Saving Bank’s fund of funds running an early stage VC investment in SEA. She is a director of Peakengine (Fintech), a senior advisor of Crypto startup, a guest lecturer at Sasin MBA, an active speaker at Slush/Rise SCG/PTT/Disrupt University/Spark and a judge at TV reality shows Star 4.0 LINE TV/True channel.

Anix was a Vice President of MQDC, Chearavanont Family Office, where she focused on investment in AgriFood Tech, Real Estate Tech and impact investment. In 2014, she originated the concept of True Digital Park (Launched 2018) and the early draft of the innovative policy for Thai government (Launched 2015)

Before returning to Thailand, Anix previously worked as an investment professional in Tokyo for 10 years at the world’s largest PE fund MGPA-BlackRock(M&A), NCC -CBRE Investor (M&A). Apple International (Tokyo Stock Exchange IPO). As a native Japanese speaker, she received BA from Kyoto Ritsumeikan University and MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Biography

Peng is an entrepreneur who invests in entrepreneurs. He does so primarily through his role as Managing Partner at Monk&’s Hill Ventures — a technology venture fund based in Southeast Asia that he co-founded.

Peng was the co-founder and CTO of Match.com (acquired by IAC). After Match.com, he was the founder and CEO of Interwoven, which went public on NASDAQ and grew to a $10B market cap, before being acquired and is now part of HP.

After Interwoven, Peng founded Encentuate (acquired by IBM). Most recently, Peng was a Partner at GSR Ventures, a leading VC in China. Peng has also served on many boards, including SingTel and YY.com. He is currently the Chairman of SolveEducation!. Peng earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois.

Biography

Khailee Ng is a managing partner of 500 Startups, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm. Beyond investing in Silicon Valley, 500 has set up more than a dozen funds in emerging markets, providing seed capital and growth programs to countries in the Middle East, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Since 2010, the firm has invested in over 1,800 startups in 60 countries, in line with its goal of developing an inclusive and globally connected innovation economy.

With the firm, Khailee has led 180+  investments in Southeast Asian tech startups, including Grab, Carousell, and other regional champions. Prior to this, he was the founder of Groupsmore (acquired by Groupon) and Malaysia’s largest online media company, Says.com (acquired by Media Prima).

As every industry continues to be disrupted by new technology and evolving consumer landscapes, Khailee and 500 Startups specialize in discovering patterns of economic opportunity and investing in the entrepreneurs who will realize them. His investment activity and industry opinions are featured by Bloomberg, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, and Fortune, and the 500 Startups portfolio of companies have collectively raised over $10Billion USD.

Biography

Ajey Gore is Group CTO at GoJek, with 18 years of experience in building core technology strategy across diverse domains, Ajey is helping GoJek deliver a transport, logistics, lifestyle, and payments platform – offering 18 products, owned and operated by GoJek. Ajey’s interests include machine learning, networking and scaling products. Ajey founded CodeIgnition, which was acquired by GoJek, before that Ajey served ThoughtWorks as Head of Technology. Ajey is an active influencer in the technology community, organizes not-for-profit conferences such as RubyConf, GopherCon, and DevOpsDays through his, not for profit organization

Biography

Daniela Kandel is the Director of the Global Finder Network at Start-Up Nation Central. Ms. Kandel focuses mainly on building the network around the Global Finder Platform, creating a global web of ecosystem development organizations that utilize the same infrastructure, share best practices and work together to strengthen each other. The Global Finder Platform is an original project, managed and facilitated by Start-Up Nation Central, which provides partner organizations with a proven platform, enhanced know-how, best practices, and membership in what is fast becoming a global network. Prior to this, Ms. Kandel led efforts by the organization to strengthen Israel’s innovation relations with Poland and the Netherlands, building an “innovation highway” between the countries.

Ms. Kandel was formerly Director of Strategic Programs at Start-Up Nation Central, focusing on the shortage of human capital in the Israeli ecosystem, organizational strategy, and academic relations.

Before joining Start-Up Nation Central, Ms. Kandel was a Milken Institute Fellow; stationed at the Accountant General’s Office at the Ministry of Finance. She was involved in developing the first social impact bond for the prevention of diabetes, and creating a Social Initiative Fund for the investment in social enterprises, as well as promoting the inclusion of disadvantaged populations in the workforce. Ms. Kandel holds a Masters’ degree in Financial Economics and a Bachelors in Economics and Statistics, both from the Hebrew University.

Biography

Tan Yinglan founded Insignia Venture Partners in 2017, an early stage technology venture fund focusing on Southeast Asia. Prior to founding Insignia Venture Partners, Yinglan was Sequoia Capital’s first hire and Venture Partner in Southeast Asia. He sourced multiple investment opportunities for Sequoia including Tokopedia, Go-jek, Traveloka, Carousell, Appier (where he represented Sequoia on the board), Dailyhotel (where he represented Sequoia on the board), Pinkoi and 99.co.

Yinglan had also been a member of the elite Singapore Administrative Service, where he served in a variety of positions in the Prime Minister’s Office (where he was part of a team that managed a $360 million fund for innovation and enterprise), Ministry of Trade and Industry and Ministry of Defence. Yinglan was also the founding Director of 3i Venturelab China, a joint venture between private equity firm 3i (LSE: III) and INSEAD.

Yinglan has been named as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2012 – 2017), a WEF Technology Pioneer Selection Committee Panel (2015-2017), Top “40 leaders under 40” by Prestige Magazine (2015), Milken Institute Young Leaders Circle (2016), one of 100 Leaders of Tomorrow by the St Gallen Symposium (2010), 100 Global Thinkers (2011) by think-tank Lo Spazio della Politica, a World Cities Summit Young Leader (2014), a WEF Global Agenda Council member on Fostering Entrepreneurship (2011-2013) and a Kauffman Fellow.

He also serves on the Singapore Government’s Pro Enterprise Panel and the Committee on the Future Economy’s Sub-Committee on Future Corporate Capabilities and Innovation. Yinglan is an Adjunct Associate Professor at National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. He is also a Strategic Research Innovation Fund Investment Committee Member at Nanyang Technology University, author of 3 books – The Way Of the VC (Wiley, 2009), Chinnovation (Wiley 2010) and textbook New Venture Creation – An Asian Perspective (Mcgraw Hill 2011). Yinglan was educated at Harvard, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon.

Biography

Michael Lints graduated from The Hague University of Applied Science in Management and Information Science and worked briefly as a project manager in NN Group, Netherlands largest insurance, and asset management company. His entrepreneurial spirit kicked in right after and he went on to start his own IT business specializing in Microsoft environments and IT project management.

He was the former vice chairman of the Economic Development Board Rotterdam which helped him built an extensive international network. In 2007, Michael founded his own venture fund focused on Dutch’s small and medium-sized enterprise to help them with capital financing, development and relevant support and strategy.

Through his earlier Venture in the Netherlands, Michael got acquainted with Golden Gate Ventures and moved his family to Singapore to join Golden Gate Ventures, as Venture Partner in 2013 to help with fundraising, strategic partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions. Michael has helped raised over $60M USD for Golden Gate Ventures and its portfolio companies and is now a Partner at Golden Gate Ventures since 2017.

Michael graduated from Financial Analysis for Business Valuation, and Private Equity and Venture Capital Executive course in Harvard Business School in Cambridge in 2011. He is a true believer in a work-life balance lifestyle and has completed marathons, cycling and Ironman races all over the world in his spare time and was recently appointed the Singapore ambassador for the top cycling brand distributor, Treknology3

Biography

Mike Peng is a Partner, co-managing director and co-founder of IDEO Tokyo. In his role, Mike works with colleagues to set the strategic direction of the business in Japan, mentor designers, create new offerings, and lead client relationships and projects in Asia. Prior to Tokyo, Mike helped start-up IDEO’s New York office and lead its design research discipline. Mike has taught at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID). He’s also a visiting lecturer at University of Tokyo, Keio University, and Kyushu University. Mike graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in cognitive science and an emphasis in neuroscience.

Biography

Nichapat Ark is an advisor to Openspace Ventures (previously NSI Ventures), an angel investor, a startup mentor and Seedstars World Bangkok Ambassador. She has more than 20 years of experience in financial markets in Thailand. Her most recent post before she left her banking career was Executive Committee and Managing Director, Financial Markets for Standard Chartered Bank Thailand where she took part in driving the bank’s strategic planning and execution functions. Additionally, she was responsible for financial markets sales & trading, capital markets as well as asset & liability management for the bank. During her 10 years with Standard Chartered Bank, she spent 2 years in China as Managing Director of Financial Markets Sales based in Shanghai.

Nichapat obtained her Master of Business Administration degree, majoring in Finance from Sasin Graduate School of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, and spent a term on exchange at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She received a Bachelor of Business Administration at Assumption University, Thailand.