iHack Alpha: AI-Enabled Solutions

Charles Ho
Chief Executive Officer - AppMonz

Charles Ho has had successes in establishing sustainable profitable businesses for global companies and startups in Asia Pacific, and is experienced in business management, strategic selling and joint venture/partnerships structuring.

He is currently angel investing and project financing, and serves as a business mentor and sponsor for startups and advisor for business strategies for large publishers in the region. He has participated as panelist and speaker at industry events and conferences in the region.

He is now the CEO of AppMonz, a leading data centric agency offering managed services for both brands and publishers to increase user engagement and monetisation.

Jorge Rodriguez
Director - Influential Brands

Jorge is the Director at Influential Brands and former Director at Brand Alliance Group. In his role, Jorge provides market trends, insights and plays an advisory role to different B2B and B2C brand owners to improve their businesses through integrated solutions covering business and brand strategy, market trends, sales and operations management, market research, marketing and media effectiveness.

During his tenure at Brand Alliance Group, Jorge has undertaken branding and CCI (customer centric initiative) assignments for SMEs in Singapore as well as has consulted for global companies such as French multinational Lagardere Group. Prior to joining Brand Alliance, Jorge Rodriguez worked for Nielsen as Retail Director and acted as a key advisor to retailers for business improvement.

Jorge worked for The Nuance Group as Global Business Analyst and Nuance Watson Singapore as Head of Business Development. In his role, he took the lead in business development and business strategy. He was responsible to drive sales and optimize operations. His experience spans across multiple categories including Fashion, Watches & Jewelry, Perfumes & Cosmetics, Liquor & Tobacco, and Confectionary.

Lim Wen Li
Operations Director - Garden Impact

Wen is a collaborator at heart and loves to see people and purpose come together to serve the needs of others. She started her career in employment and international tax at EY, Australia, and then worked in HR, specialising in international mobility. She then co-founded an events and community platform in Perth, exclusively serving nonprofits and social enterprises. She now works at Garden Impact Investments.

Mohan Belani
Co-founder and CEO - E27

Mohan Belani is the Co-founder and CEO of E27, Asia's leading resource platform for innovation-led business, encouraging a new generation of technology leaders, creators, entrepreneurs and investors who are constantly impacting the marketplaces they work in. Mohan is also a serial entrepreneur who has previously run his own gaming company, Gokil Games.

Willy Tan
Lead, Digital News - Mediacorp Pte Ltd

Experienced Lead in driving change in the digital media industry. Spearheaded recent successful revamps of Channelnewsasia.com and TodayOnline - leading platform, UX, marketing and adtech teams in delivering audience and revenue growths.

Dr. Ma Keng Teck
Deputy Head, Science & Research - Sentient.io

KT has 17 years of working experience which spans over software engineering and research in multimedia (language, voice, vision) processing and understanding. KT obtained his PhD in Computer Science from NUS in 2014. After which, he joined A*STAR to lead the Cognitive Psychology Research Thrust of the $5M REVIVE Programme. This programme won the A*STAR TALENT award.

His team at DSO National Laboratories won the Defence Technology Prizes (Engineering) in 2006 and 2007. In 2016, he became the Co-Investigator of the $6M Human-Centric AI Programme. He was also a co-founder of the startups, Heuristix Lab Pte Ltd and Agi Technosys Pte Ltd.

He has published in top publications including IEEE CVPR, TPAMI and Nature Communications.

Dr. Ng Binghao
Head, Science & Research - Sentient.io

A physicist-by-training, Binghao has dedicated his efforts towards the development of machine learning algorithms and data analytics in technical fields such as Internet-of-Things and finance.

Prior to joining Sentient, he was first a research scientist at A*STAR's Institute for Infocomm Research and subsequently a data scientist at DBS Bank. He currently heads the Science and Research team in Sentient.io which is responsible for developing machine learning models in various AI disciplines such as Computer Vision, Voice AI and Natural Language Processing.

Jegadeesan Gurusamy
Engineering Manager - Sentient.io

With a First Class Honors Master’s Degree in Information Technology from Madurai Kamaraj University in India, Jeg has more than 12 years of experience in developing and maintaining IT projects and products for various sectors such as Internet businesses and Government agencies, with expertise in various technologies like Java/J2ee, database technologies, cloud computing, Python, Node JS, AWS, Watson, Bluemix, etc.

Wayne Chia
Product Director - Sentient.io

Previously the co-founder of Techsailor, a digital company specialising in Social, Mobile and Location-based (SoLoMo) solutions, Wayned helped to run and grow the business until it was acquired by TO THE NEW Digital, where he continued to lead marketing services division in South-East Asia for another 2 years.

With Asia P3 Hub, Asia's first multi-sector partnership incubator, he is in the process of consolidating everything he had accumulated in the past decade as well as exploring new possibilities.

Xavier Ang
Pre-sales and Enterprise Solutions Manager - Sentient.io

Curious, driven, and relentlessly optimistic. Xavier is a self-starter fueled by a passion for product innovation and equipped with the experience of working with innovators. He persistently seeks rewarding experiences of working with change-makers to transform our world. The intersection of engineering, business, and design is where he thrives.

Lai Zi Jian
Snr. Applications Engineer

Experienced Co-Founder with a demonstrated history of working with cloud-based systems. Skilled in Databases, Cloud Applications, Web Applications, and Unix. Strong business development professional with a Master’s Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Imperial College London.

Aaron Lee
Co-Founder - Buooy

Aaron Lee is currently the founder of Buooy, a digital innovation technology startup that served the SMEs market in strategising and developing technology platforms that would enhance their competitive advantages in their respective industry. He was the Chief Technology & Product Officer of Jaga-Me (www.jaga.sg), a digital healthcare platform which bridges a patient's transition from hospital to home, by making professional healthcare services, medical equipment and information accessible to patients and their families. He leads the product and technology team, working towards building the technology and data platform necessary to distribute healthcare back into the communities, and empower people with health data and professional mobility.