In a recent article by the New York Times titled “As Apple and Samsung dominate, Japan’s tech giants are in a free fall”, journalist Chico Harlan makes the argument that although Sony, Panasonic and Sharp were once seen as titans of the tech industry, their products have been quickly falling down the hierarchy of companies with the most coveted consumer electronics. They name the top reasons to be:

Business school is supposed to be a time when it’s acceptable to start over. Being at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, I was pleasantly surprised to see how many of my fellow classmates were from abroad. Among the Brazilians, Chileans, Bulgarians, Israelis and Russians, I found a fair share of Asian students too—hailing from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and mainland China. However, the conversations with my fellow Asian classmates reflected slightly more than just the desire for a good education. Particularly those who were looking to business school with a more entrepreneurial eye, Booth meant more… Read More

Not long ago, many publicity brochures of India’s information technology firms described the country as an ‘Information Technology superpower’, an idea that even IT tsar Narayana Murthy scoffed at.  How can India live up to this clichéd expression, unless the country that produces millions of engineering graduates develops its own culture of startups and tech entrepreneurship?Why is India not producing enough startups despite having so many IT engineers? To find answer to this question, Nirmalya Kumar and Phanish Puranam from London Business School went to Silicon Valley. They found that the oft-repeated complaint about Indian lack… Read More

While Southeast Asia continues to rapidly embrace technology, particularly in terms of smartphones and the mobile industry in general, other countries that don’t seem at first to be joining the boom are now rising up to the occasion. Myanmar, also known as Burma, is one of those countries that are stepping up in the world of technology and could become a breakthrough ground for firms, startups, and other companies. Myanmar, govern by a military dictatorship, recently went through some political liberalization and with it now comes economic growth.  Confidence in the economy has grown by both the people… Read More

Suit up, ladies. China has sent its first female astronaut into space, paving the way for many Chinese women to join the ranks of the intergalactic elite in the future.

Liu Yang, the country’s first female astronaut, blasted into space last Saturday on the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft, the New York Times reported. A resident of Beijing, Yang is originally from the Henan Province. At 33, she is a former air force pilot. Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, reported that “the selection process determined that China’s first women in space should be married, preferably with a child.” She is… Read More

There is no doubt Kickstarter, the crowdfunding pioneer, has over the last several years changed the way creative ideas get off the ground. Kickstarter, founded by Perry Chen, enables projects that are struggling financially to get some seed money from strangers - in some cases very successfully -  as well as marketing exposure by successfully raising money on the crowdfunding platform. The wide variety of projects range from games, innovative technology, movies, and more. Its recent success has come to a point that it becomes one of the more recommended ways for projects by startups to get crowdfunded in… Read More

It is no shock that Kickstarter, the premier crowdfunding website co-founded by CEO Perry Chen, has been one of the best things for startups, inventions, and creative ideas to get going so far this year. While it is a good idea to start something on the platform in hopes of getting enough money to get the project going, there is no guarantee these guys will get it by the date they assigned themselves. Here are some of my picks of projects by Asian American folks that impressed, me and I hope they reach their designated goal from Kickstarter.

In a plush, modern office on Varick Street, 50 of New York City’s most talented entrepreneurs sit in black swivel chairs, perched and hard at work to produce the next big idea in tech. They come from all backgrounds—tech, PR, marketing and editorial—and they seek to break down barriers between their industries to foster innovation and collaboration.

The shared office space, complete with open floor plan to facilitate the free flow of conversation, is part of WeWork Labs, a startup incubator founded by Matt Shampine, Jesse Middleton and Adam Neumann. WeWork Labs launched in April 2011,… Read More

Advertised as “The people’s website builder,” Lifeyo is a browser-based website creation platform and host designed to make building a beautiful and professional website easy.

In line with its philosophy of championing democracy, Lifeyo lets anyone make his or her voice heard with easy-to-use web creation tools. Lifeyo simplifies the experience of designing your business or personal website, blog or portfolio with plenty of drag and drop features. The experience is completely visual and users don’t have to have any pre-existing knowledge of coding. Users can seamlessly choose an existing theme, add headlines, photos, and text… Read More