Running the digital transformation processes of over 300 factories worldwide with great success, Chicago-based ProManage Smart Manufacturing Solutions Corp. recently partnered with ITO Corp. as the company’s Asia Pacific business partner.

Listed among research and development partners of the DMDII-MxD (The Digital Manufacturing Design and Innovation Institute), which aims to develop digital manufacturing concepts and technologies in the United States under the main body of the University of Illinois Labs, ProManage aims to manage all manufacturing- related operations in factories via digital tools.

Aylin Tulay Ozden, Managing Director of ProManage and Hiroshi Ito, Executive Vice President of ITO Corp.  |  © Synergy Media Specialists

For 101 years after its beginning as Yasui Sewing Machine Co., Brother Industries Ltd. has been continuously delivering product innovations and customer satisfaction.

Active in printing and imaging, labeling and sewing markets, Brother Industries offers laser printers, multifunction centers, fax machines, labelers and label printers, as well as domestic and industrial sewing machines.

In 1997, Brother Commercial (Thailand) Ltd. was established. With the slogan At Your Side, the company impresses Thai customers consider Brother a reliable family brand and welcome Brother’s business products such as printers to their offices and personal use products such as sewing machines to their home.

“Customer service is at the heart of what we do,” said Teerawut Supapunpinyo (Woody), managing director of Brother Commercial (Thailand) Ltd. “We were the first Japanese printing company to establish authorized service and call centers in each of Thailand’s provinces and have won numerous awards for our service-focused approach. We intend to increase our product range to meet customer requirements and deliver an even higher level of customer satisfaction.”

Teerawut Supapunpinyo (Woody), Managing Director of Brother Commercial (Thailand) Ltd.  |  © Brother Commercial (Thailand)

Brother Run & Share for Cancer Patient  |  © Brother Commercial (Thailand)

Tsukiden Global Solutions Inc. has been a pioneer within the Philippines’ information technology sector since 1989.

Tsukiden delivers solutions relating to business applications, telecommunications, embedded systems and quality assurance. At present, it is expanding to artificial intelligence, automotive driving systems and network security systems. The company has plans to grow its business by 10 to 15 percent annually.

As the only Tsukiden subsidiary outside Japan, Tsukiden in the Philippines is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and is strengthening its partnerships worldwide.

Jiro Hanzawa, Chairman and Maria Cecilia Anson, President of Tsukiden  |  © Synergy Media Specialists

“People interact with an IAR Systems programmed product around 30 times every day of their lives,” said Stefan Skarin, chief executive officer of IAR Systems AB.

“Our software is used to program small processors found in embedded systems that control coffee machines, cars, elevators, printers, alarm bells, sports watches, cameras, washing machines and virtually all digital products.”

Swedish engineer Anders Rundgren established IAR Systems in 1983 to support programmers and enable them to program the full range of available 8-, 16- and 32-bit microprocessors. The company’s main product has over 150,000 users, allowing customers to build the products of today and the technology for the future.

Stefan Skarin, Chief Executive Officer of IAR Systems AB

Photo provided by: IAR Systems

“The Swedish gaming industry is huge,” says David Polfeldt, managing director of Massive Entertainment. “We are part of a movement driven by world-class developers.”

Swedish game development has become an export-oriented business and is leading the way in an increasingly globalized industry.

According to the Swedish Games Industry organization, the industry’s revenue reached 1.32 billion Euros in 2016; double that of just three years prior.

Polfeldt joined Massive Entertainment in 2004 and became managing director in 2009 when the company was acquired by Ubisoft.

David Polfeldt, Managing Director of Massive Entertainment

The company started as a passion-driven business which has grown from thirty people to a multi-cultural workforce of 550 challenge-driven employees working on some of the largest projects in the industry.

“Every year our job demands more from us as the stakes get higher,” says Polfeldt. “We work with hundreds of people located in different countries and recently opened another studio in Stockholm. As our business has grown, we ensure Massive Entertainment continues to deliver.”

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 will be launched on the 15th of March, 2019

Photos provided by: Massive Entertainment

As a global technology leader, Toshiba is driving industry solutions in data security and automation.
Headquartered in Breda, the Netherlands, Toshiba Information Systems (TIS) Benelux (PC division) operates as aregional sales and marketing office for Toshiba Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

“Last year we launched the Toshiba mobile-zero-client; TMZC, an innovative and fully mobile personal notebook computer (PC) devoid of storage capabilities or indeed an operating system”, says Ronal Ravel, Business Unit Director of TIS Benelux.

“This allows users to work on sensitive projects without storing information on the device and ensures data cannot be stolen or lost”.

Toshiba’s ‘dynaEdge’ mobile computing device, launched earlier this year, is the world’s first ‘Windows 10’ based mobile device. The ‘phone’ sized PC is designed to bring hands-free capabilities to enterprises through assisted-reality ‘smart-glasses’ or a ‘smart-helmet’.

Mr Ronald Ravel Business Unit Director of Toshiba Information Systems (TIS) Benelux

In only five years, Traveloka has grown into Indonesia’s number one flight and hotel booking service provider with 30million apps download. As one of the country’s ‘Unicorns’ (the term used to describe a privately held company with a market capitalization over USD 1Billion) the company is continuing its expansion across the ASEAN region.

While studying at Harvard University, Traveloka founder Ferry Unardi, found it difficult to secure plane tickets from the United States to his home town of Padang, Indonesia.

By recruitingfellow Indonesians who were working as software engineers at well-respected technology companies in the United States, Traveloka began to take flight.

Traveloka’s headquarters were established in Jakarta in 2012. The company quickly evolved in 2013 from offering ‘meta-search’ solutions enabling customers to find flights to providing a platform which customers were able to book flights directly through Traveloka’s website.

‘Back in 2013, there was no reliable digital platform for consumers in Indonesia to purchase travel products online. We decided to tackle this challenge. It was not easy because the ecosystem was and still is relatively undeveloped. For example, majority of consumers in Indonesia do not have credit cards so we have to integrate many payment channels and be able to serve them at scale.” says Henry Hendrawan, Traveloka’s Chief Financial Officer. Despite these challenges, demand increased dramatically by 2014, the same year the company began offering itshotel booking service.

Henry Hendrawan, CFO of Traveloka

 IGNIS mobile display

IGNIS Innovation Inc. (IGNIS) is a Canadian display technology company based in the heart of Canada’s technology triangle: Waterloo Ontario. Our company is focused on improving the quality of active matrix organic LED (AMOLED) displays. We do this by using patented technologies to compensate for AMOLED displays’ inherent weaknesses. Over the years the flat panel display industry evolved from economies such as Taiwan and South Korea to now include the Chinese mainland. Today, China is a dominant force in the flat panel industry when it comes to LCD displays. The next generation displays are now becoming thinner and more complex using AMOLED technology. Mainland-based companies are working hard to become a major player in this sector, but lag behind the technological know-how of their counterparts inSouth Korea and Japan.

Over the past five years, IGNIS, the only independent company with the ability to help advance the mainland-based AMOLED display makers so that they can overtake the others, has concentrated our efforts to build relationships with many Chinese display and integrated chip companies. These companies are powerhouses such as CEC Panda, BOE Technology Group, Tianma and TCL, just to name a few. IGNIS offers these partners a patented approach to improve display quality, increase output and extend the useful life of the display to meet today’s requirements. This is accomplished through both a licensing of technology, and a transfer of the knowledge and know-how. This is why LG Display of South Korea licensed our technology in 2016.

IGNIS tablet display

What IGNIS offers these companies is to collaborate with their internal engineering teams and guide them to design, build and produce top quality panels. Whether it is for television, computer, automotive, notebook, tablet or mobile displays, our experience and intellectual property focus on the basics of what the best design is given the current materials and production capabilities used by the customer. No other company in the world is independent and able to provide such services.

Our competition is limited to a few select engineers who have worked forcompanies in countries and regions such as South Korea, Japan andTaiwan that invested heavily in AMOLED and these individuals have a fraction of IGNIS collective knowledge and experience. Be it basic optical compensation for initial Mura correction or lifetime compensation known as Tn, IGNIS has the solution.

As a proud Canadian company, IGNIS is pleased to be a part of this special Canadian edition celebrating 150 years for Canada. By strengthening Canada’s relationship with China, the opportunity to collaborate more fully on advancing technology through the licensing and transfer of knowledge will benefit both countries economically.

Finland is building on its reputation as a global leader in information and communication technology. The country invests almost 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product into research and development initiatives. Finnish companies are exporting innovative, cutting edge solutions to international markets, including emerging economies in Asia Pacific where markets for telecom and information technology systems continue to show strong signs of growth.

The Asia Pacific region’s global external spending for telecom IT systems is the second highest in the world after Western Europe. Rather than developing in-house solutions, Asian telecommunications companies are purchasing software and services from external suppliers and are increasingly partnering with Finnish technology companies.

“With over three decades of experience within the telecommunications industry, we have established ourselves as a leading global provider of information technology solutions”, says Tatu Tahkokallio, Group Marketing Director of Tecnotree. “Our solutions enable our clients to successfully manage products, customers and revenue across all the markets in which they are active”.

With its convergent Tecnotree Agility^TM suite of products, the company partners with leading communication service providers. Tecnotree’s innovative business support IT-solutions enable clients to monetise their service bundles, provide a customized user experience and create value within the customer lifecycle. The company’s services include solution design, systems integration and deployment, maintenance, support and managed services.

“Our vision is to grow our business in partnership with our clients,” explains Tahkokallio. “We have already designed and delivered solutions for over one hundred service providers in over seventy countries and work with tier one companies including Celcom in Malaysia and Indosat in Indonesia.”

 Tecnotree has over 1,100 telecom professionals in fourteen countries including Singapore and research and development centres in Finland, Ireland, Argentina and India.

Tatu Tahkokallio, Group Marketing Director, Tecnotree

“Singapore is a key regional hub in the Asia Pacific region and we are committed to strengthening our operations and service offering across the region from our Singapore office,” says Tahkokallio.

As communication service providers shift from telecom-only services to total solution providers – or Digital Marketplaces –, Tecnotree is continuing to support its clients as they monetize their bundled fixed, mobile and broadband services to include media and entertainment content, mobile applications and internet services.

 “On-going developments within the global telecommunications industry present numerous challenges for companies and as a niche solutions provider, we have the necessary expertise and competence to support the larger companies within the industry,” says Tahkokallio.

Kim Väisänen, CEO and Co-Founder, Blancco Oy Ltd.

Secure data erasure management is becoming more critical around the world according to Kim Väisänen, CEO and Co-Founder of Blancco, the global leader in data erasure and computer reuse solutions. “Data Erasure Management is an important process of any organization’s data lifecycle management. With the data explosion and its lifecycle getting more defined due to regulatory compliance, no longer should we only be focusing on data erasure during IT assets’ end-of-life but rather implementing this process as and when data is no longer required,” Väisänen said.

“In Southeast Asia there is an increasing demand for secure data erasure as awareness grows and legislative initiatives focus on the use of personal information for commercial purposes.” The Singapore Personal Data Protection Act was passed in 2012 and became effective in January of 2013 to regulate the collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal data and to impose obligations on how businesses manage that data, how long they keep it and how they dispose of it.

Against this backdrop of legislative reform, effective data erasure is becoming a key component of data protection practices, and Blancco is responding by making its solutions available to a broadening user base worldwide.

Data erasure is a software based method that completely destroys electronic data residing on a hard drive or other digital media. It removes all information while leaving electronics operable, preserving IT assets and the environment.

While beginning as a small start-up in Joensuu, Finland in 1997, Blancco has grown into a multinational company erasing tens of thousands of IT assets worldwide each day with offices in 15 countries. A Southeast Asia office opened early this year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

“We’ve seen a growing need for permanent data erasure as electronic devices are retired or refurbished,” Väisänen continued. “Increased storage of sensitive data coupled with rapid technological advances and shorter IT asset life spans have driven this trend. A rise in corporate information theft and fraud has also contributed.”

“The digital universe doubles every 18 months while the spectrum of device platforms becomes more fragmented, so secure data erasure will become more challenging. But, Blancco is committed to working together with organizations to help them manage these challenges. In particular, our Southeast Asia office is ready to serve customers in Singapore.”