Intelligent SME.tech Issue 11 | Page 57

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// REGIONAL ROUND-UP // AFRICA | APAC | EUROPE | MIDDLE EAST | NORTH AMERICA

APAC

HUAWEI TO INVEST US $ 100 MILLION IN ASIA PACIFIC START-UP ECOSYSTEM OVER THREE YEARS

Huawei announced its plan to invest US $ 100 million in start-up support at the inaugural HUAWEI CLOUD Spark Founders Summit , which took place simultaneously in Singapore and Hong Kong . Huawei said the investment would go towards its Spark Programme in the Asia Pacific region , which aims to build a sustainable start-up ecosystem for the region over the next three years .

Huawei has been helping Singapore , Hong Kong , Malaysia and Thailand build their start-up hubs . At the summit , Huawei also announced that this programme would focus its efforts on developing four additional start-up hubs – in Indonesia , the Philippines , Sri Lanka and Vietnam – with the overarching aim of recruiting a total of 1,000 start-ups into the Spark accelerator programme and shaping 100 of them into scale-ups .
Also at this summit , Huawei launched its Cloud-plus- Cloud Collaboration and Joint Innovation Programme , to further ramp up its support for start-ups around the world . Huawei will devote on-going efforts and leverage its complete business portfolio in the cloudplus-cloud collaboration space to foster technological innovation , global and local services , and business ecosystems , accelerating the growth of start-ups .
( SIP ), focused on facilitating enterprise innovation through the Spark start-up ecosystem .
Huawei Senior Vice President and Board Member , Catherine Chen , opened the summit by emphasising how important start-ups are to social advancement and what Huawei is doing to support start-ups : “ Start-ups and SMEs are the innovators , disruptors and pioneers of our times . Thirty-four years ago , Huawei was a start-up with just US $ 5,000 of registered capital . Recently , we have been thinking : How can we leverage our experience and resources to help more start-ups address their challenges ? Doing so would allow them to seize the opportunities posed by Digital Transformation , achieve business success and develop more innovative products and solutions for the world .”
Zhang Ping ’ an , CEO of Huawei ’ s Cloud Business Unit , said , “ Since its launch in 2017 , HUAWEI CLOUD has been the world ’ s fastest-growing cloud and has
This summit was attended by representatives from many prominent Asian start-ups , academia , various industries and governments , and the media , as well as more than 50 regional top venture capitalists and over 300 start-up founders . Speeches and panels at the event focused on the social value of this start-up ecosystem and how start-ups can promote technological and ecosystem innovation , to contribute to local communities and drive socioeconomic development .
Three additional initiatives under the Asia Pacific Spark Programme were launched by Huawei at the event : The Spark Developer Programme , which aims to nurture a developer ecosystem powered by HUAWEI CLOUD in the Asia Pacific region ; the Spark Pitstop Programme , designed to onboard and support start-ups on HUAWEI CLOUD to accelerate product development and the Spark Innovation Programme driven the growth of countless start-ups . Last year , we launched the Spark Programme in Asia Pacific . Through this programme , we are working with local governments , leading incubators , well-known VC firms and top universities to build support platforms for start-ups in many regions . Now 40 start-ups are participating in our programme .” �
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