Category Archives: Asia

6th EBAC Meeting and 10th annual APBF 2013 in Bangkok

UNESCAP EBAC APBF

The 6th and my first EBAC meeting took place on Monday followed by the one and half day 10th annual Asia Pacific Business Forum. The great event got kickstarted on Sunday at the British Club in Bangkok, where we gathered together with the Connectivity Task Force lead by Barbara Meynert. It was also the first time for the whole team to meet together in person. We had had fractal meetings with parts of the team in Bangkok and Hong Kong, but this was the first time the full team was present. It’s just amazing how important meeting in person is, and how much more effective it is compared to exchanging emails and speaking over phone/Skype. The working team consists of 10 people with all very unique skills, and is set to deliver an online SME platform to connect and support the SMEs in the Asian region.

First of all, it’s a fun project to work with, but it is also a very important for the regions growth, which has been now stressed in many occasions. Over the EBAC welcome dinner, hosted generously by Barbara, the UN ESCAP Executive Secretary Ms. Noeleen Heyzer accented the importance of SMEs and the sustainable connectivity between them.

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Hong Kong Trip

I just returned from Hong Kong today. It was a great trip and very positive in many ways. Maybe I should go there more often… There were two main reasons for the trip this time: to finalize the incorporation for a new start up company, and to speak at the Hong Kong University MBA Business Lab program. On top of that I managed to squeeze in some business meetings as well, just to make sure that there would not be any laziness involved. After all it’s Hong Kong – one of Asia’s most hectic business centres!

Hong_Kong_Skyline

Yesterday morning two of my business associates and I met with our trusted accounting partner, who handles Hong Kong company incorporations. I have to confess that I was expecting quite a signature marathon and was prepared defend my existence at the bank ‘interrogation’, same as last time. To my major surprise things just went incredibly smoothly. After less than 10 signatures, we were done with the accountant, and headed to HSBC’s business banking center. The previous time we had to go to a personal banking branch’s sleazy business service section, where a guy who looked like a high school sophomore, was asking questions like “what happens to your job in the company, when you find someone who knows your job better?”

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Inside 3D Printing Singapore Event

Inside 3D Printing Singapore took place last week in Marina Bay Sands Hotel Conference facilities. Inside 3D Printing is a global 3D printing event series organized by US-based MediaBistro. The inaugural event was held in New York April this year and we were excited to attend it.

Marina Bay Sands

Obviously being a media partner for the events, we have been following every one of them closely, but we were really looking forward to this one. Partly as it was the first trade show for 3D printing in this region, but also because Ari Honka, my business partner from 3D Printing Industry, Ian Gibson from National University of Singapore and myself put the speaker program together for the conference and co-chaired the event.

The conference ran in two tracks, one larger room where the keynotes were also held. I was MC’ing track 2 in the smaller room, while Ari and Ian took care of the track 1. It was pleasing to see that everything we had planned program wise worked fantastically, all the speakers were on time, none of them failed to show up, and they delivered exactly what we hoped.

My personal highlight of the show was to see Phil Reeves from UK-based Econolyst lay out his incredibly high level of knowledge on 3D printing and this time focusing on medical and healthcare sector.

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Myanmar Trip

Myanmar Development week

I visited Myanmar recently. The main purpose was to meet some local business people but also to attend few presentation sessions at the Myanmar Development week held in Yangon and mainly organized by UN ESCAP and UMFCCI. My last trip to Myanmar was in 2005 and many things had naturally changed quite a bit since.

The Airport was functioning smoothly and I got through the immigration with no issues. Although I heard that one of the speakers at the development week had had some problems due to visa issues. A word of advice here, the tourist visa is easiest to apply, if you are visiting for a short time. (Also as a bonus you get much nicer treatment in the embassy than business visa applicants.)

We stayed at PARKROYAL Hotel Yangon, which exceeded my expectations. It was like a decent 4-5 star hotel in any Asian city. Everything worked perfectly. We booked a private city tour, which was really good. Of course we had to ask the tour guide to skip the pagodas and tourist attractions and to show us real Yangon life. Was really nice to have our own Wikipedia on Yangon for couple hours. Poor guy probably expected to do his usual routine tour.

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Getting a Myanmar Visa in Bangkok

getting a visa

I have plans to travel to Myanmar end of this month representing Sancus Group, and to attend the Myanmar Business and Development Week, therefore needed to apply for a Visa (the stamp, not the credit card…). Obtaining Visa’s can be tricky, especially in Asia. Although the situation is improving certain countries still require a visa prior to entry, including Myanmar.

So, I headed to Myanmar Embassy near Surasak BTS station this morning. I have to say that it was a surprisingly pleasant experience. I got a heads up from a friend not to go there when it opens as the queue starts to pile up little after 8AM (the embassy opens for visa applications at 9AM), but to wait around 10AM when the queue has mostly cleared out and the process is faster. It certainly was, maybe 5 people in front of me in the queue. Of course I had the wrong form (downloaded cleverly and filled up in advance), so I filled up the updated form and stood in line. Finally reached the counter. “We only accept color photos”, said the clerk. Great. I still couldn’t get rid of my black and white passport photos. Luckily near every embassy, some business minded person has started up a photo shop.

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