A talk I delivered to MOE educators on 28 Mar 2014

1. ICT & its Impact on Education:
Union or Bifurcation?
by James Chan
Founder & CEO
28 Mar 2014

7. Technological
Singularity
“Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” by Bill Joy for Wired
“The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”, Ray Kurzweil
18221980s1990s2000200320062010
192 years85 million years

8. Digitization & Networking are contributing to economic
growth at a pace outstripping that of Industrial Revolution.
99% of things in physical world not linked to the Internet (yet)..
1%
Industrial Revolution
A.D. 1760 A.D. 1945 A.D. 1982
Internet
A.D. 2013
Atomic, Jet & Space Age
Source: “The Global Information Technology Report 2013 - growth & jobs in a Hyperconnected World” - INSEAD-WEF collaboration
30%.. ..of global Internet revenue 40%.. ..of global Internet net income
Source: “Internet matters: The Net’s sweeping impact on growth, jobs and prosperity” - McKinsey & Company
2.0b connected to Internet.. ..out of global population of 7b
>50% of world’s population live in cities.. ..out of global population of 7b

9. The Internet matters :: almost every vertical or industry is
either cannibalised by it, or scales with it.
At peak in 1996, 100,000+
staff, US$31B market value
wiped out, bankruptcy
13 staff & US$1B
exit to Facebook in
2012
from printed to
digital
from in-person
to online
from 1-way/
physical media
to 2-way/digital
from discrete/
in-person to on-
demand/online
At peak in 2004,
60,000+ staff, 9,000
stores, bankruptcy
from in-person/
physical to card-not-
present/digital/mobile
from insecure/
untraceable/upfront to
secure/traceable/escrow
from time-limited/
physical presence/
inventory cost to always-
on/digital/just-in-time
from large pallet
logistics to loose-item
forward-reverse logistics
Typewriter to Word Processor to Cloud
and many more, moving us from...
Fixed-line to Mobile Telephony to Mobile Data Mass production to mass customisation

10. The Internet is accelerating the obsolescence of Higher
Education as we know it.
in-person learning from
learned scholars
Printing Press
Teacher-student
classrooms
Internet
Tech-assisted
Formal Education
Tech-enabled
Informal Learning

11. Formal Education vs. Informal Learning: a Tale of 2 Persons
Born in Kyoto, Japan
A childhood across continents & cultures.
Moved to Canada after birth, and then again to
USA at 3 yrs, visiting Japan in summers.
Moved back to Japan at 14 yrs.
2-time college dropout.
Dropped out of CS program at Tufts University
Dropped out of Physics program at University of Chicago
Diverse experience outside of the classroom.
DJ at nightclubs in Chicago, ran nightclub in Tokyo; brought
industrial & rave music to Japan.
Co-founded Digital Garage, TYO-listed at US$800M market cap
Investor in Flickr, last.fm, Twitter, Kickstarter, etc.
Board member of Mozilla Foundation, Sony Corporation, NYT,
Knight Foundation, etc
Photographer, PADI IDC Staff Instructor, etc
Director, MIT Media Lab
Joichi Ito James Chan
Born in Singapore
A standard, almost placid childhood in multi-cultural Singapore.
Stayed and studied in Singapore until 21; 1st computer @ 12 yrs
Henry Park Primary School; amazing form teacher at P5/P6
Raffles Institution; skipped out of ECAs for PC gaming at friends’ houses
Raffles Junior College
In 2002, cracked CableVision cable modem, uncapped broadband speeds
48 years old 33 years old
Government-sponsored scholarship
B.Sc (Dbl Mj) in Electrical & Computer Engineering, Engineering & Public Policy
from Carnegie Mellon
M.Sc in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford
Bonded scholar == planned career.
Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
Infocomm Investments
Walden International (Singapore)
Through serendipity, met Joichi Ito in Dec 2008, broke bond.

12. “I’m thinking of starting something in Singapore.
Want to work with me?”
US$5M raised in 1 month from Apr 2010, 35 investors from US, Japan, HK, Singapore, Middle
East and Europe, with LPs investing between US$50K and US$1M.
James Chan Joichi Ito
2% fees while active, 1% after 3-yr investment period, 30% carried interest, no hurdle

13. 2009 - 2012: Thrown into the Deep End of the Pool
12/09
1st Fund appointed
as incubator partner
for NRF TIS
4/10
1st
fund
opens
5/10
1st
fund initial close.
7/10 9/10 10/10 2/11 3/11 4/11 5/11 6/11 7/11 8/111/11 10/11 11/11 12/11
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
2/12 5/1211/09
James starts
partnership with
Joi Ito for 1st
fund.

14. Silicon Straits is building a better platform for designers,
engineers & entrepreneurs to get together, be inspired,
make things and start/grow companies.
Venture Capital,
Incubation & Advisory
Product Foundry Hybrid Workspaces &
Community Events
Design + UI/UX
RoR, iOS, Android CO.LAB
2,000 sq ft
Blk 71@SingaporeSAIGON
We invest and incubate teams
and see them through seed and
early growth phases.
We build web and mobile products
for ourselves and others.
We build communities to
enrich the ecosystem that we
operate in.
US$5M seed fund;
24 investments from 2010 to
2012 in US & Asia Pacific
NRF TIS incubator; S$100K
investment matched with S
$500K for S$600K in total
Program partner & operator
to IdeaBox with Indosat and
Ooredoo Myanmar.
Operating
at the
intersection
of ideas,
talent &
capital
Investing
in the
convergence
of design,
hardware &
software.

15. Acquired by Eventbrite in Sep ‘2013
for 1.5X return.
Acquired by Apple in Aug ‘2013,
amt undiscl.
1st Fund returned 1.264x of capital raised from investors after
3.5 years, with unrealized AUM at 3.84X of investment cost.
Realized Exits Remaining Portfolio from 1st fund
Written Off
Acquired by Yelp in Jul ‘2013
for ~2.5X return.
Acquired by Rakuten in Sep ‘2013
for 13.3X return.
24 investments from 1st fund spread across US (11), HK (1), Singapore (11), UK (1) from 2010 - 2012
4 exits, 7 write-offs (13.7% of deployed capital),
13 remaining (59.5% of deployed capital) with unrealized AUM at 3.84X of investment cost.

16. Silicon Straits CO.LAB
A hybrid work space that blends co-working & rapid hardware prototyping in Singapore.
71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #06-11/12, Singapore 139951 Inspired design
Open concept, reconfigurable for multi-use
Hardware lab

17. Silicon Straits CO.LAB is a 2,000 sq ft hybrid work space that
blends co-working & rapid hardware prototyping in Singapore.
CO.LAB = CO-working, fab LAB, COLABoration
strives to bring together design, hardware & software community in Singapore

18. Silicon Straits SAIGON + Air Lounge
A hybrid cafe + office that blends F&B & tech events with the usual office & meeting
rooms in Saigon, Vietnam.
2nd floor - office, lounge areas, meeting rooms
147 Ton Dat Tien Street, Phu My Hung, Ho Chi Minh City Agile web & mobile product dev Open concept
1st floor - Events, F&B, Co-working

19. We can pick winners / Viki
Acquired by for US$200M on 1 Sep 2013
• Hulu-for-videos meets Wikipedia-for-subtitles
• >1.5+B videos served monthly
• 22+M monthly uniques
• 1st fund led investment alongside Greylock
Partners, Charles River Ventures and angels
Viki is a video-streaming website that offers on-demand streaming video of TV shows,
movies and music videos with crowdsourced fan-subbed subtitles.

20. We can pick winners / littleBits
buzz it
push it
flash it
slide it
pulse it
twist it
sense it
snap it
swing it
bend it
make it
flip it
Raised US$850K Seed, US$3.65M Series A & US$11M Series B
littleBits is the LEGO of electronics that puts the power of the Internet-of-Things in
everyone’s hands.

21. We can pick winners / Formlabs
• 25-micron feature resolution, laser-
resin SLA 3DP
• Based in Boston, graduates of MIT
Media Lab
• “Printer + ink” business model,
different resin types
Raised US$1.8M Seed, US$2.95M Kickstarter, US$19M Series A
Formlabs brings professional SL Printing Tech to the mainstream at affordable prices.

22. We can build & deliver / Product Dev. Track Record #1
• Completely new architecture, re-write and database
migration of vPost web app in 3 months.
• Custom CMS, banner management, messaging system
with multiple user access & management, CRM/eDM/
payment integration, e.t.c.
• 1 CTO, 1 PM, 1 UI/UX, 5 Web Dev, 1 Sys Admin on time-
materials basis, unclear project scope.
• Project was delivered to client on-time in agile manner
via RoR and on time-materials billing basis, at 1/6 price
of nearest fixed-price quotation.
• Client has retained team for ongoing maintenance and
new feature development.
• Proof of ability to develop & deliver enterprise-grade
multiply-redundant mission-critical web app from
scratch.
Marcelo Wesseler
SVP eCommerce, SingPost
www.vpost.com.sg

23. We can build & deliver / Product Dev. Track Record #2
• Research commercialization collaboration with MIT-SMART, deployable architecture for big data analytics &
predictive patrol route recommendation engine for taxis in Singapore.
• 1 PM, 1 UI/UX, 3 Web Dev on time-materials basis, evolving project scope.
• MVP was delivered to client on-time in agile manner via RoR in under 2 months.
• Proof of team’s ability to handle R&D commercialization and big data system architecture in a startup-friendly
way.
Afian Anwar
CSAIL, MIT-SMART
www.taxisg.io

24. Evolution of Education: competing forces at play in S’pore
Individualized online learning/Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC) +
in-person ‘classroom’ for reinforcement as hybrid mainstream?
Collision of Education Models & Approaches
Government-protected Higher Education
v.s.
Entrepreneurship-driven MOOC
Technological singularity
Internet-led literacy, always-connected,
always-on, mobile computing, internet-of-
things
Evolution of individual/societal dynamics
Employer-employee ‘traditional’ organizational behavior
v.s.
Bottoms-up (Burning Man, Anonymous, Arab Spring), cause-
driven, me-first Maslow’s self actualization on the back of
rapidly growing middle-class demographics, generation-Z life
Policy experimentation v.s. Parental intervention
Fragmentation of education models/approaches, rise of
home schooling, Singapore’s never-ending retooling of
education system

25. Technology and its impact on Education: Software
“Singapore plans to introduce programming lessons
in public schools to boost the economy”
IDA Singapore
T/F: Singapore has no resources, only people.
T/F: Cost of software/server infrastructure has fallen
dramatically.
T/F: SGX does not have any software companies.
T/F: Of Forbes’ most innovative companies list, 5 out of top 10
(Salesforce #1, VMware #3, Baidu #6, Amazon #7, Rakuten #9)
are software companies with high net margins
T/F: Singapore’s productivity is poor
T/F: Singapore does not really grok software.
Programming v.s. Computer Science v.s.
Software Engineering
Scratch, Java, Python/Ruby, JS, iOS/Android, C/
Assembly

26. Technology and its impact on Education: Maker Movement
Arduino littleBits Raspberry Pi

27. Technology and its impact on Education: 3D Printing

28. Technology and its impact on Education: A few more things...

29. Technology and its impact on Education: 9 Principles
Resilience
over strength
Systems
over objects
Disobedience
over compliance
Pull
over push
Compasses
over maps
Emergence
over authority
Risk
over safety
Practice
over theory
Learning
over education
Self-healing networks, self-
governance vs regulation,
compliance.
Search, p2p sharing, self-
paced learning vs lock-step
curriculum.
Life/experience-based
learning vs instutition-
guaranteed competency.
Self-healing networks, self-
governance vs regulation,
compliance.
Guidance, self-direction vs
teacher-led location.
Duh...
Question authority, what-
how-why vs yes sir, yes sir, 3
bags full sir.
Positive deviance vs top-
down
Toolkits, maxims, process vs
certifications, degrees

30. www.siliconstraits.com
@siliconstraits
james@siliconstraits.com
71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #06-11/12, Singapore 139951
147 Ton Dat Tien Street, Tan Phong Ward, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City
@m0t0chan
Thank You! Questions?
www.facebook.com/siliconstraits
ACRA UEN No. 201005970E