The venture fund 500 Startups has been making a splash in Southeast Asia, most recently with Khmerload, a Cambodian entertainment news website modeled after the American media giant Buzzfeed. Binh Tran, a venture partner with the firm, sat down with Sophat Soeung of VOA’s Khmer service to talk about how entrepreneurs in developing countries could attract such investors. Here’s some of his advice for them:

Remember, Silicon Valley investors are a click away

I think first is to understand the whole startup ecosystem. All this information is at your fingertips. The world’s shrunk, and for resourceful entrepreneurs, they have this incredible amount of knowledge that they can tap into, to get themselves familiarized with how to build a company, how to launch it, how to monetize, and also understand investment. All that is available.

Not everyone can be a tech entrepreneur. It’s incredibly hard, but for the ones that are resourceful … the tools are there. And we want to be the ones to provide that dry powder to help you grow. So once you have achieved some progress and some [traction], then come talk to us.

Don’t overthink — there is no ‘right’ sector

I’m pretty sector-agnostic. … If you’re building something that is obscure to me … the fact that you can make a business out of it, you’re making some money out of it, that’s great. And if it’s technology-enabled, it’s done through software, or done through some algorithm that you created, that’s where I think I can help. That’s where I think the opportunities are.

Look for a growing user base

All ecosystems around the world are somewhat new. Even China is a decade or two [old] for venture capital. … If these companies are making money and they’re growing, that’s great. You see companies who have been more focused on revenue early on. So I think Southeast Asia has a lot of opportunity, because you do have that 4 million-new-internet-users-a-month type of growth, but the business models are not quite as risky [as those seen in Silicon Valley].

Pay more attention to operational rather than business risk

I think there’s going to be a small percentage of my portfolio that’s always reserved for the crazy, one-in-a-million-chance ideas. But for the most part, these startups should be solving basic problems. Across many sectors in Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, businesses have barely adopted Web 1.0 technologies. There’s opportunities for entrepreneurs to solve basic problems such as helping business attract, serve and support customers more efficiently.

So instead of investing in a new, risky, innovative business model as you would in Silicon Valley, the innovation these companies we’re investing into is the way they’re hiring and training employees and how they’ve mastered how to operate within highly regulated environments. These companies also deeply understand their customers’ problems and have demonstrated their ability to market to and sell to locals.

So the innovation we’re seeing is less about business model or technology innovation, but I do hope that changes.

Build your reputation, and be patient

You’ve got to do what you say you’re going to do. This is one of those things where your reputation is so important. … [Also,] realize that it’s going to take a while. It’s not easy. Don’t be caught up in the buzz or the hype — just focus on the fact that this is going to be a long, hard journey. And hopefully that sets up the right expectations.

This report originated on the VOA Khmer service.
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Some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential leaders came to California this week for the Milken Institute Global Conference, a wide-ranging review of issues permeating economics and politics, with topics ranging from agriculture to mortgage markets to international trade and alliances, plus a long look at what the future will hold.

Of the 4,000 VIPs who attended — invitations are highly selective, and tickets topped out as high as $50,000 — one of the most intriguing questions under discussion was one that almost no one could readily answer: What effect will robotics and artificial intelligence have on our lives and on the world’s business, and how rapidly will this next technological revolution take place?

The Milken Institute Global Conference, an annual event for the past 20 years, has grown steadily into a unique gathering: individuals with the capital, power and influence to move the world forward meet face-to-face with those whose expertise and creativity are reinventing industry, philanthropy and media.

This year’s meeting in Beverly Hills, California, amounted to a peer review of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. Four members of Trump’s Cabinet took part.

Former U.S. leaders

Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Joe Biden also were on hand to give their perspectives on U.S. politics. They were interviewed by Mike Milken, the onetime omnipotent investor who almost single-handedly developed the high-yield debt market in the United States and piled up billions of dollars in profits during the 1980s, from leveraged buyouts, hostile takeovers and corporate raids.

Milken, now 70, was known as the “junk bond king,” and he ruled unchallenged until 1989, when he was indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. He served two years in prison and survived personal health crises, and has rebounded in the 21st century to his current status as a renowned philanthropist and public health advocate.

Interest rates and corporate balance sheets faded into the background when the business and policy leaders turned their attention to artificial intelligence, or AI, and robotics — key factors in massive changes looming over the U.S. economy.

Unemployment in the United States is currently at its lowest point in 10 years — 4.4 percent — but jobs in the retail sector are drying up, down more than 60,000 in the past two months. So-called bricks-and-mortar retail stores are closing down in the face of competitive prices and easy shop-at-home service provided by online retailers such as Amazon.com.

Robotics have transformed the auto industry and many other sectors of manufacturing, and the high-end analytics available through what is known as “big data” have streamlined the entire process, from raw materials to finished products. Both blue-collar and white-collar jobs are becoming harder to find; opportunities in the services industry keep overall employment levels high, but that also means a decline in average workers’ income.

Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. have been declining for decades, and that trend is having an effect on society as a whole, said Roy Bahat of Bloomberg Beta,  a venture capital firm that is part of the financial services company Bloomberg LP.

Rising costs

Costs are rising for health care, housing and education, and with fewer good-paying jobs available, Bahat says those who “play the game by the rules” — educating themselves adequately, buying a home and supporting families — “still struggle to provide for an ordinary life.”

Bloomberg Beta partnered with the think tank New America to look at the future of work during this week’s conference, with input from leaders in popular culture, technology, faith communities, government and business.

They are due to issue a joint report later this month, but for now they raised imponderable questions: innovations such as self-driving trucks promise to change the way that companies move their goods, but how soon will that happen, and what will happen to drivers and packers now involved in such work?

The first large-scale commercial delivery of this kind was handled by a startup company called Otto last year. One of Otto’s autonomous (driverless) trucks hauled 50,000 cans of beer for 200 kilometers along a highway in Colorado, in the American West.

Otto’s co-founder, Lior Ron, said self-driving trucks hold immediate promise for American business, but he also admitted it was a carefully prepared test: Highway traffic, especially in a state like Colorado, is less challenging than traffic in cities, where pedestrians and stoplights make driving unpredictable.

The ride-sharing service Uber, which already had been studying the possible use of driverless vehicles, acquired Otto last year.

Most Americans tend to believe their children will have a better life — or at least earn more money — than they do, but Bahat deflated that notion: “If you look at the economic data, it turns out we live in the first generation where kids are statistically likely to make less” than their parents.

Anne-Marie Slaughter of New America said projections about how many jobs will be automated in the future vary widely, from 10 percent to 50 percent, and “we have no idea which of those [proportions] is true.”

‘Civic enterprise’

New America, founded in 1999, describes itself as a “civic enterprise committed to renewing American politics, prosperity and purpose in the Digital Age.” It lists all of its funding sources, from “under $1,000” to more than $1 million; the biggest donors tend to be philanthropic groups and other foundations.

“We generate big ideas,” New America says in a capsule of its mission statement. “[We] bridge the gap between technology and policy and curate broad public conversation.”

To underscore the uncertainty cloaking analyses of technological change, Slaughter noted that drivers interviewed for her group’s joint study with Bloomberg Beta believe that self-driving trucks will not be in service for 20 to 25 years. By other estimates, she added, “It could be five. Who knows?”

Challenges in an era of artificial intelligence include the need to align technology with professional standards and social norms, Italian computer scientist Francesca Rossi said. In other words, human sensibilities must be integrated into machines’ decision-making process.

Brian Chin of the huge international banking firm Credit Suisse said his company has employed 20 robots to handle complicated tasks including answering bank employees’ questions about how best to comply with regulations on compliance and other banking procedures.

Bloomberg Beta’s Bahat forecasts self-auditing accountants and automated mortgage officers in the years ahead. Steering clear of explicit predictions, he said workers and consumers must prepare for “wildly unexpected” developments in the future.

New America’s Slaughter offers a wry comparison between the rapidly changing digital age and the Industrial Revolution. Harnessing the power of machines for manufacturing and transportation transformed the world and created lots of jobs, she said, but it also caused upheaval — Marxism, wars and revolutions.

For those gauging the impact of the current technological revolution, the New America analyst cautioned, “Do not think this is going to be a smooth ride.”
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Twitter and Bloomberg news are teaming up to launch a 24-hour streaming news channel.

In response to a story in the Wall Street Journal about the partnership, Bloomberg Media’s top executive tweeted confirmation of the news.

“We’ll have a lot more to say about this exciting new partnership at Bloomberg Media’s NewFronts on Monday,” tweeted Justin Smith, referring to a meeting the company is holding.

The Journal said Bloomberg would create exclusive content for the streaming channel, but that it would be separate from the company’s television channel.

Twitter did not provide any comment on the story due to an official announcement planned for later Monday.

For Twitter, the deal could help restore user growth which has been slow compared to other social media sites.

The 10-year-old Twitter has never made a profit, and despite tweaks to the format, has only seen modest growth in users. Twitter recently reduced staff and an attempt to sell the company failed. The partnership with Bloomberg could attract more users beyond the core of politicians, journalists and celebrities.

Last week the company gave its quarterly results, which saw another drop in revenue despite seeing a 14 percent spike in users to 328 million. The company said its loss of $62 million was better than last year, which saw the company lose $80 million.
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Facebook appears to have targeted vulnerable young people for advertising purposes, according to a report from Australia.

According to The Australian newspaper, which obtained documents about the targeting of young people from Facebook’s Australian office, the company was seeking ways to exploit the feelings of kids as young as 14 to serve up ads to them.

The documents, which were marked as confidential, show how the social media giant could monitor posts from youth to try to figure out how they were feeling. According to the newspaper, these included words like “defeated,” “overwhelmed,” “stressed,” “anxious,” “nervous,” “stupid,” “silly,” “useless” and “failure.”

The so-called sentiment analysis could then be used to target vulnerable kids with advertising based on their perceived mood. The idea was only to be used on young people in Australia and New Zealand.

For example, if a young person was feeling “defeated” because of being overweight, Facebook could show that person an advertisement for an exercise program or workout machine.

“The data on which this research is based was aggregated and presented consistent with applicable privacy and legal protections, including the removal of any personally identifiable information,” Facebook said in a statement to the newspaper.

This is not the first time Facebook has looked at sentiment analysis. The company was harshly criticized in 2012 when it conducted an experiment on nearly 700,000 users, without their knowledge, to see if the company could influence them through positive or negative posts in their newsfeeds.

Neither case appears to be in violation of the company’s Data Use Policy, which says the company “may use the information we receive about you … for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.”
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Despite lingering anxiety over their range, interest in electric cars is rising, especially in industrialized countries. Manufacturers say they are improving the mileage by building more charging stations, but the industry is still waiting for a major breakthrough in battery technology. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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During a recent visit to Wisconsin, President Donald Trump announced he was signing an Executive Order reviewing the visa program that brings many technical workers to the United States, known as the H1B visa. About 85,000 workers come to the United States annually using an H1B visa. More from VOA’s Kane Farabaugh
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Later this year, two pilots in a sailplane will try to break the world altitude record for a glider, soaring more than 27 kilometers above sea level. But their primary mission will be to explore the little-known phenomenon called “mountain waves” and to carry a number of experiments designed by school students. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Facebook is acknowledging that governments or other malicious non-state actors are using its social network to sway political sentiment, including elections.

That’s a long way from CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s assertion in November that the idea that bogus information on Facebook influenced the U.S. presidential election was “pretty crazy.” It also illustrates how the world’s biggest social network has been forced to grapple with its outsized role in how the world communicates, for better or for worse.

In an online posting Thursday, the company said that it would monitor efforts to disrupt “civic discourse” on Facebook. It is also looking to identify fake accounts, and says that it will warn people if their accounts have been targeted by cyber-attackers.
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Qualcomm slashed its profit expectations Friday by as much as a third after saying that Apple is refusing to pay royalties on technology used in the iPhone.

Its shares hit a low for 2017.

Apple Inc. sued Qualcomm earlier this year, saying that the San Diego chipmaker has abused its control over essential technology and charged excessive licensing fees. Qualcomm said Friday that Apple now says it won’t pay any fees until the dispute is resolved. Apple confirmed Friday that it has suspended payments until the court can determine what is owed.

“We’ve been trying to reach a licensing agreement with Qualcomm for more than five years but they have refused to negotiate fair terms,” Apple said. “As we’ve said before, Qualcomm’s demands are unreasonable and they have been charging higher rates based on our innovation, not their own.”

Qualcomm said it will continue to vigorously defend itself in order to “receive fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”

But the effect on Qualcomm, whose shares have already slid 15 percent since the lawsuit was filed by Apple in January, was immediate.

Qualcomm now expects earnings per share between 75 and 85 cents for the April to June quarter. Its previous forecast was for earnings per share between 90 cents and $1.15.

Revenue is now expected to be between $4.8 billion and $5.6 billion, down from its previous forecast between $5.3 billion and $6.1 billion.

Shares of Qualcomm Inc. tumbled almost 4 percent at the opening bell to $51.22.
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Just weeks after receiving official approval, an Apple self-driving car has been seen making its way through the streets of Silicon Valley.

The Lexus fitted with various sensors is the latest entrant in the quest to make driverless cars commercially viable. Apple, a late comer, likely will face fierce competition from Google’s Waymo, which has carried out millions of miles of road testing, and Uber, which has been testing autonomous cars for months.

Apple’s initiative, officially called Project Titan, is driven by hardware developed by Velodyne Lidar, while Apple is expected to develop the software.

Based on documents obtained by Business Insider, Apple’s cars sound very much like other self-driving cars. The cars are “capable of sending electronic commands for steering, accelerating, and decelerating and may carry out portions of the dynamic driving task,” according to the documents.

As with other driverless cars, humans are still present and can override the self-driving mode at any time.

Despite being somewhat late to the game, Apple may find an opening in the way of a potentially lengthy legal battle between Waymo and Uber, with Waymo alleging that Uber stole its trade secrets.

On Thursday, Uber executive Anthony Levandowski recused himself from work on driverless cars in the wake of the lawsuit, which alleges he stole intellectual property while employed at Google.
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“I would like for you to have a pencil out on your desk,” fifth-grade teacher Mary Fucella said to her reading class at Point Pleasant Elementary School in Glen Burnie, Maryland. A kilometer and a half away, in a pink bedroom, Cloe Gray pulled a pencil out, too, and listened.

Cloe, 11, is at home, recuperating from leg surgery. For the first month after the operation, a home tutor visited her. But the precocious child grew withdrawn and didn’t want to leave her bed. She missed routine. She missed her friends. She missed real school.

“You could tell she wasn’t happy,” said Rob Gray, Cloe’s dad.     

The Anne Arundel County school system in Maryland had a cure. Cloe now attends class virtually through a $3,000 robot. Hers, which she named Clo-Bot, was donated by the local Rotary Club. Since she began using it, the learning hasn’t stopped.

Clo-Bot is basically an iPad attached to a pole on wheels. Cloe uses the keyboard on her home computer to remotely control the device, rolling it into and out of the classroom. She speaks through a headset and is heard through the iPad. When the class breaks up into small groups, one classmate holds materials up to the iPad, and Cloe contributes to the project.

Fucella said Cloe was a little shy at first about “raising” Clo-Bot’s hand, “but now I feel like it’s just like having the normal Cloe in the classroom.”

To answer a question, Cloe clicks on a slider, and the iPad raises to the teacher’s eye level. Cloe said the robot had given her confidence to participate. “I’ll try it and I’ll get it right,” she said. “Woo-hoo! Personal victory!”

The Anne Arundel schools have six of the robots. Patrick Malone of the district’s Office of Instructional Technology said he and his colleagues had been stunned at their effectiveness.

“Every kid that uses this technology starts to smile again,” Malone said. “They start to feel like a regular kid again, and I cannot put a price on that.”

Devices like Clo-Bot are the brainchild of Double Robotics, a privately held technology company in Burlingame, California.

The telepresence robot can be used for business or education, anywhere people need a physical presence. Double Robotics co-founder and CEO David Cann said he understood the importance of school attendance, educationally and socially, and that it was humbling “to be able to provide a way for all students to attend school, no matter their situation.”

Double Robotics has 300 of its robots in the United States, with 25 others placed in education facilities in China, Japan, Australia and Canada.

When it’s lunchtime at Point Pleasant, Cloe’s best friend, Kyla Jones, walks with Clo-Bot to the lunchroom. The sight of a fifth-grader walking with an iPad rolling beside her seems like a scene from a science fiction movie.

“At first it was kind of weird because it was Cloe, but not really Cloe,” Kyla said. But now, it’s natural for the two to discuss, well, whatever fifth-graders discuss. On a recent day, the topic was flip-flops.

Cloe uses the device’s 150-degree wide-angle lens to look down as she maneuvers the robot beside the cafeteria table. Cloe’s dad delivers her lunch to her desk at home, and classmates start joining Clo-Bot at the lunch table.

Cloe said it’s sometimes nerve-racking to enter the lunchroom. “Everyone’s like, ‘Hi, Cloe!’ ‘Bye, Cloe!’ ” she said.

Clo-Bot waits until school is over to get its energy. Cloe maneuvers it to a charging station, where it sits until the bell rings the next morning. Then Cloe will happily drive her virtual self back to Ms. Fucella’s class.
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Think back to grade school. If you were sick, you stayed home. If you had a serious illness, you’d miss weeks, or even months of classes. Technology could change all this, with a robot attending school in place of the sick child. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti introduces us to a Baltimore girl who is homebound no more.
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