We started off Day 3 with Investor & Embassy Day today with embassy representatives from several countries! A lovely welcome by Swantje Gies, Managing Director at Asia Berlin Forum e.V.
The India delegation was introduced by Amrita Gandikota, Founder, PrimedinFabrik and the welcome keynote was presented by Mr Gaurav Sharma, First Secretary, Embassy of India, Berlin.
The Fireside Chat on AI-based Indian startups with Julian Zix, GINSEP and Mr Muthukrishnan Chinnasamy – SFAL CoE covered digital payments and challenges that firms in India face. We also got to hear from several Indian founders on the kind of products they’re building.
The Vietnam Embassy focused on Green Transition in Vietnam: The role of Start-Ups and Technologies. It started with Dr Manh Hai Nguyen, Counsellor – Head of Investment Sector at Vietnam Embassy, and Dr.Ing. Thanh Trung Do, Expert Grid Integration Renewable Energy Systems, Founder & CEO of morEngery.
The following panel on green innovations also had Dr.-Ing. Thanh Trung Do |Expert Grid Integration Renewable Energy Systems, Founder & CEO of morEngery; Mr. Tarek Hassan |Head of GIZ Digital Transformation Center Vietnam, AsiaBerlin Ambassador für Vietnam and Ms. Chau Nguyen |Leader of Community Development at Viet StartUp, Certified ESG Analyst. The exchange was focused on net-zero targets and the most practical and sustainable solutions.
The opening of Investor Day was done by Chika Yamamoto, CEO & Bridgebuilder at Crossbie and Siddharth Bhasin , Investor and Senior Program Manager at enpact e.V. They spoke about the various initiatives ABS makes to bring investors together and help startups get connected with them.
In the Fireside chat with Ikuo C. Hiraishi, Managing Director, Infarm Japan and Moderator Rina Obi, Investment Director, Global Brain Corporation, Mr Hiraishi shared his journey and his method to penetrate the Japanese market.
Speaker Toshi Wani, Director General, JETRO Berlin, talked about the Future of Japanese startups and the building a bridge between Berlin and Japanese startup ecosystems to overcome regional challenges.
The second half of the day started with a Panel called ‘Decarbonized Investments in Europe and Asia’ with Tone A Verb, Founding Partner, Carbonless Asia, Vivek Kumar, Funding Manager, India at Entrepreneur First and Marie Cheong, Founding Partner, Wavemaker Impact where they discussed the technology to bring net-zero achievable by 2050 and how to make products and services more sustainable and efficient.
After that, a stimulating panel discussion on Web3 and emerging markets! Our Panel: Songyi Lee, Co-Founder, Impact Collective; Donatus zu Schaumburg-Lippe, Co-Founder, 3.0 Labs and Pon Bruce, Founder, Ocean Protocol
The areas they addressed:
- Scandals and why trade volumes are down by 90%
- Big Positive: It’s now the bottom and startups in crypto have stabilized
- Use cases for Web3 that can be extremely impactful for financial inclusion
- The uncertainty of Web3 and protecting vulnerable investors
- Lack of awareness on Web3
- The incredible opportunity to offer access to talented individuals from Web3
Next we heard from Nihal Choudyal, Program Manager, NSRCEL on the work IIM Bengaluru, one of the top B-Schools in India is doing at their incubator. Corporates in India, such as Maruti are doing a lot of heavy lifting and looking at innovation strategically.
At the end of the day we heard from the Embassy Delegations from Thailand and Nepal While the former was on Foodtech and repositioning Thailand as an innovative country, the latter was on labour reform, tax reform and how the government is facilitating the growth of the startup ecosystem.
The day ended with a cultural event by the Indian Embassy!
