Asian Deep Tech: A Map for Spinout Founders

South Korea, Japan, China, and Singapore as commercial launchpads Early in my career I advised KEPCO, Korea’s giant state energy monopoly, on its expansion into China to secure energy investments and partnerships. Having lived and worked in both countries, I ended up working both sides of the engagement: helping a Korean state institution navigate a […]

Deep Tech Angels: The Most Important Investors You’re Not Talking To

What a Swiss energy venture tells us the gap between great science and early-stage capital I’ve been working recently with a deep tech energy venture: Swiss-based, US entity, world-class science, provisionally protected IP, and a founding team with credentials that would stop any technical investor in their tracks. And yet the funding conversation is harder […]

Talent, Training and AI: How Asia is (Again) Emerging as the World’s Laboratory

There are three key variables that businesses, investors and educators must understand with respect to Asia’s future rise and its impact on the world’s industries and workers. One, the trajectory of Asia’s educational achievement from K12 through post-graduate education, including English language, STEM and other skills capabilities. As I have noted previously in this blog, […]

India’s Race Against Time

To the naked eye, India looks like an oasis in the middle of a wrenching emerging market economic downturn. In 2015 Indian GDP grew by 7.2% with the IMF projecting 7.6% growth over the 2016-17 period. FDI reached a record US$63 billion in 2015, exceeding China for the first time. And despite more recent concerns […]

Central Asia’s New Silk Road: Game Changers

“No need to listen for the fall. This is the World’s end.” — Rudyard Kipling, Kim During a long, cold flight to Almaty in the late 1990s I sat sleepless reading Peter Hopkirk’s landmark history of the region, “The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia.” My colleagues and I were about to spend the […]

Edunomics Focus: Pushing into Asia's Education Frontier

With so many emerging market economies and currencies on the boil, it might be counter-intuitive to explore investing in markets that are even less developed. But in the realm of education, there are increasingly compelling reasons to do so. Within Asia, so-called Frontier Markets began as a classification for financial portfolio investors and the indices that […]

Edunomics Focus: Pushing into Asia’s Education Frontier

M&A in Asia's Education Sector: Flies and Elephants

“A fly before his own eye is bigger than an elephant in the next field.” Anon. (Chinese) It is tempting to watch the merry-go-round of dealmaking among education entrepreneurs and venture geeks and settle into the idea that one can just can invest into something quickly, build scale and dominate a particular corner of the education market–or, if that […]

“Letting Girls Learn” in Asia

When Michelle Obama visits Cambodia next week as part of a White House and US Peace Corp initiative to help the world get the estimated 62 million girls back in school (see Let Girls Learn initiative), she might want to congratulate the Cambodian government for not only enrolling girls in school but making sure they complete their studies. At the primary […]

How Asia is Emerging as the World's EdTech Laboratory

Editor’s note: a more concise article on this theme was initially published by EdSurge If the US is the world’s education technology leader, Asia is fast becoming its most critical testing ground. The reasons for this are unambiguous: Asia is home to the world’s largest pool of K12 and college enrollments, has acute needs for educational access coupled deep internet […]