Facebook and IMDA kick off second season of Facebook Accelerator Singapore

Facebook, in partnership with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), is pleased to announce the startups selected to be a part of the second edition of Facebook Accelerator Singapore (previously Startup Station Singapore), a six-month program to support innovative, data-driven startups across the Asia Pacific region.

Following the call for applications in October 2019, 14 startups have been selected from across the Asia Pacific region – including the following from Singapore:

1. Lucep (lucep.com): A sales and marketing tool that connects leads from FB ads directly with their sales agents. The mobile app notifies the sales team and allows them to compete to be the first to respond to the new lead.
2. Outside Voice (outsidevoice.io): Helps enterprises conduct interviews with their customers at scale. We connect market researchers directly to consumers via video chatbots so research takes minutes instead of months.
3. Privyr (privyr.com): A mobile CRM built for sales professionals who run their businesses from their phone. It works with WhatsApp, SMS, email, and other popular chat apps.
4. Trabble (trabble.co): A SaaS platform that helps businesses in the Travel & Hospitality industry to automate Guest Engagement on their channels.
5. UIB (uib.ai): Created the UnificationEngine® Conversational IoT platform to facilitate frictionless onboarding and seamless communications between people and devices.

Powered by Plug and Play, the program celebrates and supports Asia’s startups by helping them grow, develop better ways of working with data and connect to a wide network of opportunity. The startups were selected based on how they use Facebook products and services such as Messenger, social commerce, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality. In addition, startups were considered based on how they leverage data for innovation in trusted and ethical ways, such as adopting IMDA’s Trusted Data Sharing Framework, or its Model AI Governance Framework.

We travelled to six cities across the entire APAC region for our startup recruitment roadshow, and were not only encouraged to see the innovative use of data and technology, but a higher representation of women in tech. Out of the 14 startups selected, six have women co-founders or senior leaders, and the startups represent a diverse range of industries, from e-commerce, to eSports, to travel and hospitality. In collaboration with IMDA, we are proud to provide these startups with mentorship, connections and training to advance and mature their businesses.Virginia Yang, Director, Developer Partnerships and Programs APAC, Facebook

We are excited to join Facebook and IMDA in announcing this diverse group of startups from the APAC region for Facebook Accelerator Singapore. Together with our partners, we look forward to providing them with business development, fundraising and other strategic opportunities to help grow their businesses through this program as well as our global network.Jupe Tan, Managing Partner, Plug and Play APAC

The Trust, Transparency and Control Labs (TTC Labs) and IMDA are also launching People-centric Approaches to Notice, Consent, and Disclosure report, which looks at prototypes and solutions built by the startups from the first edition of the accelerator program who have taken concepts such as notice, dynamic consent and explainability – found in IMDA’s Trusted Data Sharing Framework and Model AI Governance Framework – and implemented them.

Singapore supports a design thinking approach towards communicating with consumers and robust practices around data governance to build a trusted data ecosystem for the digital economy. Partners like Facebook provide an excellent platform for startups to create this ecosystem while developing new concepts such as dynamic consent and AI explainability. We are heartened for a second group of startups who will take these up, and encourage other organizations to use the new report and adopt the same approaches for innovation while safeguarding consumer interests.Yeong Zee Kin, Assistant Chief Executive, Data Innovation and Protection, IMDA.

Find out more about the 2020 Facebook Accelerator Program at https://fb.me/fbacceleratorsg.