Enterprise

These are the best cities for women entrepreneurs to thrive

Singapore ranks third in Asia Pacific, behind Sydney and Melbourne

Published

July 19, 2019

Chay Lazaro

At the 10th annual Dell Women Entrepreneur Network Summit in Singapore, Dell announced findings of the 2019 Women Entrepreneur Cities (WE Cities) Index, ranking 50 global cities on their ability to foster growth for women entrepreneurs. Dell ranks cities based on the impact of local policies, programs, and characteristics in addition to national laws and customs to help improve support for women entrepreneurs and the overall economy.

Building on 10 years of research on women entrepreneurs, Dell partnered with IHS Markit to research and rank 50 cities on five important characteristics, including access to Capital, Technology, Talent, Culture and Markets.

The San Francisco Bay Area outranked New York for the No. 1 spot this year, mostly due to the city being one of the best places for women to gain access to capital. It also moved from 6th place to 2nd place in Culture, showing that the number of role models and public dialogue around eliminating the “bro culture” is making an impact.

Lack of funding, high cost of living, low representation of women in leadership roles and the lack of government-led policies that support women entrepreneurs were among the barriers globally.

Cities in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region are improving alongside all other cities globally, but still have a long way to go. Singapore, one of the only three cities from Southeast Asia to make it to the top 50, saw the highest improvement in the Talent pillar, as it benefitted from increasing its top school and business school rankings, as well as its pool of professionals needed to help scale businesses.

APAC cities mainly fell behind in the pillars for Culture and Markets. Despite making the top 50, Singapore’s Culture score was relatively low due to fewer female role models or leaders, although it’s still more advanced than majority of its neighbors in addressing gender parity issues.

Singapore ranks only No. 47 globally for the Markets pillar, because of the high cost of living in the city despite the lack of accelerators and relatively few female board members.

The WE Cities Index serves as a diagnostic tool to advise policy-makers on how to better support women in business.

“By arming city leaders and policymakers with actionable, data-driven research on the landscape for women entrepreneurs, we can collectively accelerate the success of women-owned businesses by removing financial, cultural and political barriers,” says Karen Quintos, EVP and chief customer officer at Dell Technologies.

The same way US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued in her landmark cases that gender discrimination hurts men and women alike, Singapore Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu also emphasized at the summit that it’s not only women who want a better work life balance; men also want to be able to spend more time with their families.

This is where technology comes in. Technology, as a gender-neutral enabler, helps drive progress in gender equality by creating a level playing field, says Amit Midha, President of Asia Pacific & Japan, Global Digital Cities at Dell Technologies. It’s important to empower and invest in women not just because it’s been proven time and again that women help economies grow, but also because doing so benefits men and society as a whole.

Enterprise

NVIDIA briefly becomes a US$ 1 trillion company

Right in the middle of Computex 2023

Published

May 31, 2023

Luigi Leonardo

Arguably, NVIDIA is one of the top contenders for MVP during this year’s Computex 2023. Though the brand didn’t exactly add anything new to its iconic GeForce RTX lineup, it made a lot of significant strides in the technical and entrepreneurial aspects of technology. It’s a strategic lineup of announcements. For a brief moment, NVIDIA has briefly breached US$ 1 billion in valuation in the middle of Computex 2023.

Right as the annual trade show started, NVIDIA wasted no time in announcing a new partnership with MediaTek for an upcoming slate of automotive processors. Then, days later, the company unveiled a bombastic set of announcements during its own keynote presentation. One such example is an advanced AI engine which can generate fluid conversations as an NPC in a video game.

It went beyond artificial intelligence, too. The keynote saw the introduction of the NVIDIA GH200, a “superchip” that the company calls “Grace Hopper.” The unbelievable processor comes with 72 cores, 96GB of HBM3 memory, and 576GB of GPU memory.

Supercomputers and artificial intelligence are on page one of NVIDIA’s playbook this year. It looks like the strategy is working. On Tuesday, the company’s share price peaked at US$ 419.38 per share. As a result, the company’s value bumped up to US$ 1 trillion, placing it in an esteemed club with others like Apple.

It was a short-lived victory, though. The day ended with the share price settling back down to US$ 401.11. The valuation closed at around US$ 992 billion.

Besides the Computex keynote, NVIDIA has been on a roll over the past few years. The company’s GPUs skyrocketed in popularity during the pandemic, helping profits today.

SEE ALSO: NVIDIA develops an AI for NPCs

Enterprise

Meta faces record-breaking US$ 1.3 billion fine

Over cybersecurity concerns

Published

May 23, 2023

Luigi Leonardo

Lately, Chinese companies, such as TikTok, found themselves in a tizzy over alleged cybersecurity issues in the United States. Cybersecurity isn’t a localized concern, though. All over the world, tech companies are finding themselves under the microscope for the same issue. Recently, Meta was on the receiving end of such a policy in Europe.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has announced a record-breaking US$ 1.3 billion fine against Meta, via The Verge. The fine, which has been in the making for ten years, is in response to the company’s transferring of European data to its servers in the United States. Lawmakers are adamant that the handling of data opens up cybersecurity concerns in the European Union.

Meta alleges that its current method of handling data is within the legal framework agreed upon by both the European Union and United States. The former claims that the current framework does not handle the privacy of European citizens with care. Of note, the claims only affect Facebook, not Meta’s other companies.

As a result, the European Union is ordering Meta to stop the transfer of data and to delete data currently stored in the United States. This is, of course, in addition to the hefty fine, which is currently the largest one of its kind. Though the fine is record-breaking, it’s still an unknown whether it will lead to a change for Meta, which bags multiple billions on a regular basis.

To prevent future incidents, the European Union and the United States are working on a new framework for data transfers between the territories.

Enterprise

TikTok sues US over ‘unconstitutional’ ban

Allegedly against right to free speech

Published

May 23, 2023

Luigi Leonardo

Last week, the state of Montana executed the first official ban against TikTok in the United States. Of course, no one expected the popular app to just stay down. Today, the company is suing the state over the attempts to ban the app.

The already signed bill tackles the issues put forth by the government years prior. According to the bill, TikTok is too risky as a security threat to allow into the country’s digital space. Should the bill go unopposed, TikTok will be effectively forbidden in the state starting next year, taking it away from app stores.

Now, the opposition is pretty clear. Via CNN, TikTok’s case alleges that the ban is unconstitutional and violates the right to free speech. Likewise, the company claims that the state of Montana should not have the right to ban the app. Since the issue is about national security, only the federal government should have that right.

Notably, TikTok’s own case isn’t the only opposition against the ban. A few days after the ban was announced, creators on the platform also sued the state. Their specific case tackles the issue of free speech especially among those who use the app in the state.

Even without the state’s localized ban, TikTok is already busy fighting off a statewide ban from the federal government. The company’s CEO even issued a call to arms, asking users to tell the government how much the app is valued in the United States. In Montana, the company now has another battle to wage. And, as mentioned before, a lot of parties are certainly looking at the results of the legal battle.