Meet the women leading the way in Tech-for-Good and diversity from Singapore

It is no secret that the tech industry is dominated by men. In 2021, just 9.9 per cent of capital raised overall went to all-women and mixed founding teams, according to the State of European Tech 2021 report. That means a whopping 90.1 per cent went to the hands of men exclusively. Yet, Citi’s Women Entrepreneurs report found that achieving gender equality could boost global GDP by as much as US$2 trillion. Diversity, gender or otherwise, is sorely needed.

While 41 per cent of Singapore’s tech workforce are women, far above the global average of 28 per cent,  the city state understands that more can always be done. Initiatives have sprung up with hopes of building diversity and inclusion in tech spaces. For instance, NextUp: Singapore, under the umbrella of the La French Tech initiative NextTech Asia this year, is a pitch competition which aims to support DeepTech startups that champion diversity.

Amel Rigneau, co-lead of NextTech Asia, summarises, “We, as women, can bring various capabilities to the table. [We focus] not only [on] profitability but also [on] positive impacts on our life, planet, and education, and we can provide fresh perspectives on business.”

In the spirit of female empowerment and fresh perspectives, we follow three women blazing trails in tech-for-good from Singapore.
 

Jamie Soon-Kesteloot

Soon-Kesteloot is a woman of many hats. Born and raised in Singapore, and now living in Paris, she is Head of Protection and Valorisation of Innovation, R&D at Essilor, where she transforms research into value and formulates comprehensive IP strategies to accompany new product development — in other words, manifesting innovation into real-life value. Beyond her day job and full-time role as a mother, she is a jury member of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Science and Technology Pioneer Award, a deep tech curator of Hello Tomorrow and the founder/ organiser of NextUp: Singapore.

Living and breathing tech innovation, Soon-Kesteloot is motivated by building “an inclusive world for our children tomorrow”.

For her, tech-for-good means not only using technology to solve a real problem, but also being able to quantify the impact of that solution, especially with respect to diversity and inclusion, and sustainability and the environment.

Her beliefs and expertise came together when, in 2018, she was inspired to bring even more innovation to Singapore. She had the win-win idea of bringing together the “major flux of innovation” from startups, and the promotion of diversity and inclusion in a deep tech startup competition — NextUp: Singapore. Winners of the competition are rewarded with an all-expenses paid trip to Singapore to experience the ecosystem first-hand. 

Startups, for Soon-Kestoloot, are where women may find more opportunities as leader-founders. In turn, these women widen opportunities for others with, typically, increased attention to diversity and inclusion in their hiring processes.
 

Kay Vasey

Vasey is a modern storyteller, both in her work and in her life. She is the Chief Connecting Officer at MeshMinds, where art and tech come together for good. Using frontier XR technologies, MeshMinds empowers creators to connect with communities to protect our culture and environment. For instance, with the intention of keeping traditional art relevant to youth and online communities, they worked with Meta to create the Art Reimagined project in Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore transforming traditional arts with AR and VR technology.

Vasey’s story is a tale of being unafraid and pushing boundaries. Letting misogynistic banter glide off her, she flew with the Bristol University Air Squadron, became an aviation lawyer, a technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) lawyer and even met King Charles as a representative for British tech entrepreneurs in Singapore.

This verve is perhaps a tacit acknowledgment that challenges remain for women in tech. She suggests improving access to tech careers and creating more women-centred support networks whether at universities or in the workplace. Drawing from her personal experience of following networking leads on LinkedIn, her biggest advice is to “‘find your tribe and root out supportive networks and programmes that can help take your contacts, knowledge, skills and experience to the next level”.

MeshMinds has also benefited greatly from Singapore’s rich tech ecosystem as a member of Meta’s Spark AR Partner Network and the Apple Consultants Network. In 2019, MeshMinds even presented a workshop based on their Clean Seas interactive workbook designed for the iPad to Tim Cook, Apple CEO, at a public session hosted at Apple Orchard Road. Vasey shares, “Since then, we have had numerous opportunities to work with various educational institutions across Singapore to bring AR to the classroom.”

MeshMinds also remains committed to creating opportunities for women and non-binary people at the intersection of art and tech in Southeast Asia, with their Creative Technology Incubation Programme, Please Insert Women.
 

Elke Biechele

Biechele is the founder and CEO of Singapore-headquartered, risk assessment startup RisikoTek — and a high-tech crime fighter. Quite literally using tech for good, RisikoTek fights fraud and financial crime using advanced data analytics and its own software, AMALIA.

Biechele is just as interested in the artistic as she is in the analytic. RisikoTek has combined the two in their recent contribution to EDB-Brytehall’s NFT exhibition, Minting Good. The two NFTs that RisikoTek contributed, Network and The SG-UK Trade Orb, show the strong, long-lasting trade relationship between Singapore and the UK. With these NFT pieces, Biechele expresses her belief that not only can technology address real-world problems, it can also elevate the mundane into something artistic and insightful.

Besides diversity in her work, Biechele too contemplates gender diversity in tech spaces. Some common challenges women, including herself, have faced in the industry are common to other women in other industries. “Being extremely underestimated, having to make that extra effort to prove your worth and gender-based bias are just some of the things women have learnt to deal with,” she explains. 

Reflecting on how much farther society must go, she posits that a better future lies in harnessing strengths across gender differences. “I believe that women are worlds better in making cool tech usable and finishing the job, whilst guys seem to have more patience spending enormous amounts of time and dedication on something “fiddly” and succeeding with it,” she shares.

In line with such beliefs, Biechele advises women or minority individuals in the early stages of their career in tech to be “confident of their potential while exploring different points of views from [their] colleagues or seniors” to become a more well-rounded problem-solver.