How Technology Has Advanced Since The Start Of The Pandemic

While Covid-19 kept people in their homes, time and technology marched on. This year, as the world emerges from the pandemic, it’s entering a new era of the internet.

Web 3.0, or Web3, is the decentralised internet owned by its users and builders—enabling the development of virtual worlds—instead of big corporations collecting user data. For Web1, think of static web pages for viewing and reading only. And for Web2, think of social media, where people can do more than view and read; they can interact, share and contribute to web content.

Web3 is supported by blockchain, the technology behind cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or unique digital assets. NFTs entered mainstream consciousness last year, when the market for them ranged from US$17 billion to US$41 billion, depending on the report, compared to less than US$100 million the year before.

Read more: What Exactly Is Web3 And Why Should We Care?

The obvious beneficiaries of the NFT boom are artists, who now have more avenues to monetise their creations beyond the initial sale of the work.

Says Kuala Lumpur-based street artist Katun, “NFTs and Web3 have given artists, small and big, opportunities to diversify from tangible artworks to digital artworks with perpetual royalties.” NFTs can be coded so that a small percentage of every secondary sale goes back to a designated account, a function that has also been tapped for philanthropy.

Hong Kong’s Nick Lau, the founder of luxury NFT platform Wear, sees more high-end brands entering Web3 to develop new businesses and nurture future clients. Louis Vuitton and Burberry launched NFTs within online games last year.

Read more: “NFTs Can Help Us Save The World”: Carbonbase’s Max Song On NFTs For Good

This May, Gucci expanded its presence in the virtual world, or metaverse, by opening a permanent piazza on the gaming platform Roblox. Here, users can shop for digital Gucci products, with the possibility of accessing their physical counterparts in the future. They can also create art and interact with each other.

Says Lau, “The metaverse will be a new layer for consumers to interact, engage and socialise. I see it as the evolution from 2D to 3D. It’s a space where we can all build together.”

Keith Rumjahn, co-founder and CEO of Hong Kong-based digital health and fitness company OliveX, notes that more people are developing a digital identity with their NFTs. “The mindset shift is here,” he says. “The moment people value virtual assets more than physical assets, that’s the tipping point. Instead of wearing a crossfit T-shirt to flex your fitness level, you’d want to own a fitness profile picture that shows you are fit.”

Web3 has its downsides. Critics point to the speculation driving NFT prices, market manipulation, the cost of blockchain transactions—which, due to the complex coding involved, are inefficient—and environmental harm due to blockchain’s high energy use and excessive electronic waste.

Gregory Van, who helms Singapore-based financial services company Endowus, believes that investing according to Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) principles is a choice people can make to move the sustainability needle. He cautions that as ESG investing in Asia-Pacific picks up, greenwashing or misleading marketing is a danger. “To give investors greater confidence, this challenge needs to be adequately addressed,” says Van. “Regulators around the world are already working to build clear sustainability definitions and standardised data.”

Certainly, the services provided by Singapore-based ESGnie will be useful. The company helps firms generate data-driven analytics for their sustainability strategies. Its chief executive Jiale Tan names science-guided AI as a gamechanger in evaluating environmental impact. “It has the potential to enable machines to do scientifically sound analyses,” she says. “If we can do that, we can unlock more insights from unstructured data, which forms 90 percent of data on sustainability.”

Read more: ESG Disclosure: From Risk Management Necessity to Ethical Imperative

Meanwhile, Nikhilesh Goel, co-founder and group CEO of Singapore-based Validus, looks to unlock the potential of small and medium enterprises by facilitating their digital operations and financing needs. Developments in technology and data application mean that firms can be assessed for loans based on non-financial information.

Says Goel, “Every business owns their data and now they should be able to monetise it by using it to establish their credentials with fintechs and obtain working capital finance.”

In healthcare, while a true cure for cancer remains elusive, scientists are exploring mRNA vaccines as part of immunotherapy to treat certain types of cancer. MRNA is a type of RNA, a large molecule made from a single strand of DNA.

What’s more, the technology to detect the disease early has also advanced, allowing for early intervention and thus increased chance of survival. The research into the vaccines and the adoption of new cancer diagnostics technology have been helped by the outbreak of Covid-19 and the infrastructure it created.

Says Lihan Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based medical diagnostics firm Mirxes: “Covid-19 has educated the world on the importance of RNA and PCR (polymerase chain reaction, which mass copies a DNA sample) technologies, and resulted in an unprecedented build-up in PCR testing capabilities globally. These silver linings will enable accelerated adoption of other genomic technologies, including multi-cancer early detection—the next big challenge in healthcare.”

See the honourees on the Gen.T List 2022.