Learn from Asia
Fabian von Heimburg Co-founder and Managing Director, Hotnest When I started my technology company in China 7 years ago, everybody in the West thought China was just copying European and US technology and there was no real innovation taking place. The overriding theme in the media and at conferences – where I spoke about the daily reality of operating in the Chinese startup world – was always belittling Chinese innovation, while South East Asia was not even mentioned. But what I saw seven years ago from my daily experience is that China was already very innovative in many areas – from e-commerce to social media – and had created a unique ecosystem. The world was surprised when China was suddenly recognised as being innovative and leading the way in AI, IoT and electric vehicles – areas where the West thought it was ahead. The problem was an inability and unwillingness from western observers to understand or acknowledge the tremendous development that was taking place. The West is frankly not used to learning from others. Europe and the US are mostly looking at each other, or worse, just internally for innovation and progress. Many Asian countries on the other hand, are used to observing very closely what is happening in Europe and the US in terms of innovation and progress. The West’s judgement of the rest of the world is more and more clouded by judgement based solely on differences in values. If Europe wants to keep progressing like it has in the last 50 years, it needs to finally start learning from Asia, just as Asia has been doing from Europe for decades. Our future depends on cooperation and mutual learning, avoiding conflict and solving the world’s biggest problems, such as climate change, together. Europe needs to learn how to […]