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Doctor Anywhere, a startup that takes an “omnichannel” approach to healthcare

Doctor Anywhere’s omnichannel approach means that in addition to online consultations, it runs in-person clinics, provides home visits, medication deliveries and operates an in-app marketplace for health and wellness products. 

Founded in 2017 by Lim Wai Mun, Doctor Anywhere claims it now serves more than 1.5 million users. It is available in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, and recently established tech hubs in Bangalore and Ho Chi Minh City. 

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NASA taps Kyoto startup to make maps of the wind for drones

MetroWeather Co. makes compact, low-cost lidar sensors that can be used to detect hazards like wind shear, allowing unmanned aerial vehicles to operate in urban environments, Chief Executive Officer Junichi Furumoto said in an interview. The Kyoto-based company will work with TruWeather Solutions Inc. in the U.S. as part of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research grant program.

Marathon Education makes after-school learning more accessible in Vietnam

Marathon Education was created after its founders realized after-school education in Vietnam hadn’t evolved much since they were kids. Some of the most popular tuition centers in big cities teach hundreds of students at once. “They’re packed like sardines and that really has not changed in the past one or two decades when I went to these sorts of classes in Vietnam,” said co-founder Pham Duc.

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Hydroponic farming startup Just Vertical cultivates growth at home

Vertical hydroponic farming is often seen as a sustainable alternative to traditional growing. It uses 95% less water, has less impact on soil and the urban farms can be placed in food deserts or close to grocers to cut down on transportation costs. But the high-energy usage for lighting the indoor farms has often thwarted cutting down on carbon emissions from agriculture.  

MGA Thermal, an Innovative Solution to Energy Storage

MGA Thermal wants to help utility companies transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources with shoebox-sized thermal energy storage blocks. The company says a stack of 1,000 blocks is about the size of a small car and can store enough energy to power 27 homes for 24 hours. This gives utility providers the ability to store large amounts of energy and have it ready to dispatch even when weather conditions aren’t ideal for generating solar or wind power. The modular blocks also make it easier to convert infrastructure, like coal-fired power plants, into grid-scale energy storage.

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Indonesia begins work on Southeast Asia's largest floating solar plant

Date: August 03, 2021

Home | Reuters

AKARTA, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Indonesia will begin work on a 145 megawatt (MW) floating solar power project, the largest in Southeast Asia, after state power utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) and Masdar of United Arab Emirates agreed financing for the project on Tuesday.

Indonesia aims to have 23% of its energy from renewable sources by 2025 and the government has said the country will try to reach net zero emissions by 2060 by moving away from coal

Singapore-based shared mobility startup, Drive Lah, has raised US$3.2 million in a pre-series A round led by KFC Ventures.

HH VC Investments and Accelerating Asia also participated in the round, along with Robin Chase, co-founder and former CEO of car-sharing firm Zipcar.

Founded in 2019, Drive Lah aims to be an Airbnb for cars, allowing people to rent a vehicle from owners who want to make money from their cars when they are idle. The company believes the solution helps bring mobility to more people while reducing the number of cars on the road.

Now use your body's energy to charge smartphones and watches

A novel wearable device converts a finger's touch into a power source for small electronics and sensors.

Engineers from the University of California, San Diego, created a thin, flexible strip that can be worn on a fingertip and generate small amounts of energy when a person's finger sweats or presses against it. 

 

According to the researchers who took part in this study, wearing this strip for 10 hours while sleeping could help charge electronic equipment that could run a watch for 24 hours. 

Chinese smart van system provides seamless automated delivery service

Chinese e-commerce companies have been developing new technology to meet surging consumer demand for express delivery. The volume of packages processed in China jumped from 2.3 billion units in 2010 to 83.4 billion units in 2020, thanks to the exponential growth of  China’s e-commerce. At the same time, the country’s labour force shrank from nearly 922 million in 2011 to 897 million in 2018. To cope with rising orders, JD.com has developed one of the country’s most advanced smart delivery van systems.

A New Zero-Emission Hyperloop Port Offers Ground Transport at 'Airplane Speeds'

Date: July 08, 2021

Interesting Engineering

The much-hyped hyperloop is one step closer to becoming a reality with the announcement of HyperloopTT's HyperPort concept.

HyperloopTT (the letters stand for Transportation Technologies) announced this week that its HyperPort, developed in partnership with terminal operator Hamburg Hafen und Logistik AG, is going into certification design review.

Smart foam material gives robotic hand the ability to self-repair

Date: July 06, 2021

Home | Reuters

 Singapore researchers have developed a smart foam material that allows robots to sense nearby objects, and repairs itself when damaged, just like human skin.

Artificially innervated foam, or AiFoam, is a highly elastic polymer created by mixing fluoropolymer with a compound that lowers surface tension.

E-commerce platform Leflair set for Q3 comeback

Date: June 24, 2021

VnExpress International 

Leflair was established in 2015 by two French young entrepreneurs, Loic Gautier and Pierre-Antoine Brun. It acted as an e-commerce platform for branded goods and flash sales. It did not operate as an online marketplace, but worked directly with brands and official distributors in Vietnam and overseas.

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Most new wind and solar projects will be cheaper than coal, report finds

Almost two-thirds of wind and solar projects built globally last year will be able to generate cheaper electricity than even the world’s cheapest new coal plants, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).

The agency found that the falling cost of new windfarms and solar panels meant 62% of new renewable energy projects could undercut the cost of up to 800 gigawatts (GW) worth of coal plants, or almost enough to supply the UK’s electricity needs 10 times over.

Solar Powered Bioreactors Could Make Food Cheap and Sustainable

Date: June 22, 2021

Interesting Engineering

The protein is made by first capturing carbon dioxide from the air and then converting it into formate that bacteria can use to grow. At a certain stage, the organism is harvested and then processed into a protein powder that can be consumed, hence the name ‘Single Cell Protein (SCP)’. Since the bacteria grows in bioreactors, the process can be carried out in even the most barren lands. 

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Germany's First 3D-Printed Residential Building is Near Completion

Date: June 22, 2021

Interesting Engineering

Now, after 100 hours of 3D printing and ten months, the building is close to completion. With only five weeks left to the finish line, the house will begin to accept visitors from August on, and it already looks spectacular.

The house is built by PERI, a family-owned building company, who teamed up with the Danish manufacturer COBOD who supplied the printer. The building technology used in the making of this house, which was put into practice in Germany for the first time, has come through all of the regulatory approval processes

Proptech set for strong growth in Vietnam

Date: June 22, 2021

Vietnam+ (VietnamPlus)

HCM City (VNS/VNA) - As technology develops and demand keeps increasing in the property sector, proptech will develop in a similar way to fintech, experts have said.
Proptech, or property technology, has developed strongly in Vietnam with many start-ups being launched and attracting investment from major players and many services being developed to meet market demand.

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Cyber safety authentication ecosystem formally launched

The cyber safety authentication ecosystem at the address of https://tinnhiemmang.vn is a co-work between NCSC and Vietnam Information Security Association (VNISA).

This system is developed to answer the high demand of the community seeing that even though cyberspace has brought about convenience to the public, it also possesses a certain level of risk, leading to various scams lately.

This is because, with such a huge amount of information that is changing so rapidly in cyberspace, Internet users find it challenging to select correct products and services from prestigious organizations.

New digital primary care platform to launch in South Africa

Webrock, venture capital and private equity company headquartered in Stockholm, has partnered with Healthforce, a digital health company majority-owned by South Africa’s leading retail pharmacy chain Dis-Chem, to launch a Swedish healthcare app  Doktor.se in South Africa. Doktor.se enables users to find, book and access quality healthcare

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SiCepat-NFC Indonesia joint venture to ramp up the mass-market use of EVs in Indonesia

Date: June 10, 2021

VnExpress International 

NFC Indonesia, a subsidiary of digital distribution company M Cash Integrasi, has formed a joint venture with SiCepat, an Indonesian logistics company, to enter the Electric Vehicle (EV) sector. 

The joint venture will be called Energi Selalu Baru (ESB) and will focus on the distribution of electric motorcycles, battery exchange, and its supporting services. 

Vietnamese startup uses AI for surveillance cameras

AI Camera Home is a product line used to protect families and children from theft. AI Camera Shop is a product line for stores with features such as automatic customer counting, business analysis, and conventional anti-theft capabilities.

AI Camera Office is for corporate customers to install at headquarters and offices. Thanks to AI integration, this product line has the ability to perform automatic timekeeping. The AI camera is capable of counting people entering and leaving the store, and also recognizing people who wear masks.

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Ripe Robotics starts trials with fruit picking robot Eve

Date: June 04, 2021

https://www.futurefarming.com

Ripe Robotics was founded two years ago. “We were looking for problems that could be solved with new technology, but hadn’t been solved yet”, Hunter Jay says. “Fruit picking was among the clearest of those. Computer technology got to the point where it could recognise fruit and tell how ripe it is. Field robotics were getting cheaper. We thought we could combine this to develop a machine that could pick fruit fully automatically.”

Tracking wristbands for quarantine management to be tested

Date: June 04, 2021

VnExpress International 

Tracking wristbands for managing Covid-19 quarantine protocols will be trialed next week, the Authority of Information Technology Application has said.

The wristband, developed by tech firm Ginnovations, utilizes GPS technology and will send out an alert if the wearer exits a quarantine zone.

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Autonomous saildrones cruise the oceans to help combat climate change

Date: May 27, 2021

Designboom magazine 

California-based company saildrone has deployed over 100 AI-equipped drone sailboats to cruise the oceans and gather data that could potentially help in the fight against climate change. adopting a bright red futuristic kayak look, the saildrones are equipped with a number of data sensors, radar systems, and high-resolution cameras to map the ocean floor, and monitor information like ocean currents, wind speeds, and marine life populations, thus keeping track of the changes that are happening on our planet right now.

IFC funds two wind power projects in Vietnam

Date: May 27, 2021

VnExpress International 

The International Finance Corporation is set to provide a financing package of $57 million for two wind power projects in central Vietnam.

Industrial appliance maker Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) will build the two plants in the provinces of Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan with a total capacity of 54.2 megawatts.

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Philippine startup Fortuna Cools and its eco-friendly coolers made from coconut

The startup will soon launch its second product, the Nutshell Cooler, as an eco-conscious consumer product in key international markets. It seeks to fill a glaring gap in an eco-conscious market without any eco-friendly options.

“The Nutshell Cooler is built with our same natural fibre insulation that we’ve developed over the past few years. But there are various differences in the design to make it suitable for outdoor recreation and casual use (e.g. trip to the beach, weekend getaway, even grocery shopping)”

Snap's new Spectacles put augmented reality front and center

Snap's new Spectacles sound interesting, and they very well could be, but for now, you won’t be able to buy them. Instead, Snap is positioning the new glasses as a tool for AR creators to “reimagine the way we communicate, live, and explore the world together through AR experiences built in Lens Studio.” With any luck, perhaps some rogue developer will use the glasses to create the first truly must-have AR app that pushes the tech mainstream.

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Highly Sensitive LiDAR System Enhances Autonomous Driving Vision

Date: May 20, 2021

Interesting Engineering

A team of engineers from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia developed a first-of-its-kind light detecting device that rapidly amplifies weak signals bouncing off of faraway objects.

In doing so, it could massively improve the vision of self-driving cars, robots, and digital mapping technologies. The workings of their new device are outlined in the journal Nature Photonics.