If topic of digitization arises, Silicon Valley usually first comes to mind. The tech giants from the Valley – Facebook, Google, Tesla, etc. – often cause one to forget that innovation is also being taking place in other parts of the world. For example, in Asia. China now has the most Internet users in the world and is a pioneer in the areas of e-commerce and mobile payment. China and Japan are also setting the standard now where the development of alternative drive systems. And cities like Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Singapore or Bangalore all count among the world’s most important startup hubs.

That’s reason enough for etventure to open up shop in Asia. From our offices in Hong Kong, we manage projects for our corporate customers and develop new digital products and business models for Asian customers.

Pro-bono project in Thailand

We provide support for a pro-bon project in Thailand for one of our customers. The objective is to de

velop new products with which the living conditions for the some 10 million people in rural areas can be improved. These include things such

as a “Solar Dryer,” which dries fruit using the power of the sun. This makes drying fruit significantly more energy efficient, less expensive and cleaner than before.

Because the corporate customer is located at the very start of the value-added chain as a producer of raw materials, the initial goal is to find partners through which the final consumers can be reached quickly. An additional aspect is collaboration with NGOs in order to train the end customers in the use of the products. In this context, etventure acts as partner and lends its support to the development of the go-to-market and partnership strategy in particular. This project is already demonstrating that social impact and project need not be mutually exclusive.

Go-live for the online channel in Asia, Europe and Middle East

Since August 2016, etventure has offered guidance and support to a German chemical group as part of a project in Asia – from conducting customer interviews to identifying “pain points,” developing initial prototypes and a specific MVP. Things were finally ready at the start of April: For the first time, plastic granules were sold to selected B2B customers via the newly-created online channel. The global test for the channel extended to several countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The online channel makes it possible to offer excess quantities of granules to different customers around the world quickly and on short notice. This provides customers more options for purchasing.

After a very successful start, validation will be continued with selected pilot customers over the course of the next several months. In addition, plans call for testing the channel in other segments.

Meetings in New Delhi and Mumbai

Recently, the etventure Startup Hub introduced itself at startup meetings in India. Senior Project Managers Heike Kraft and Taro Hildebrand provided an introduction to etventure’s work and the Berliner startup environment to meeting participants in New Delhi and Mumbai. “Many founders here have an idea of Berlin in any event,” explains Heike Kraft. “However, many of them don’t know have any specific points of contact Berlin’s digital economy.”

As part of this process, bridges weren’t only built from Asia to Berlin but vice versa as well. At the Asia-Pacific Weeks, held between May 15th and May 28th in Berlin, founder and CEO Christian Lüdtke will speak on a panel entitled “Asia meets Europe – The rise of startup ecosystems” and provide a keynote address on “Connecting the Dots – Startup trends across continents and how corporates can leverage them.”