I don't mind unusual venues.
But it does amuse the working me a little when I'm trying to find a particular venue in a city campus, only to find out that it not be only me who is lost, but also second/third year undergraduates of said campus as well.
The students actually looked puzzled when I asked if they could direct me to the Greenhouse.
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Took them a bit of thought, and a couple of minutes- plus a keycard tap on the door (how were members of the public going to get in?) before I finally found the venue, which, apparently, was part of a co-working space on one of the upper floors.
Honestly (because I hadn't looked at the agenda) I had no idea what to expect.
And so it turned out that most of this afternoon was spent listening to panel speakers and award recipients making their introductions in person, or in video.
The panel speakers were an interesting segment.
The organizers had arranged the program such that it were an award presentation followed by a panel sharing, then an award presentation, then a panel sharing again.
I didn't get to hear everything, save for three which I was present for, and managed to hear.
One was about Web 3, one was about medical and the other was about... something else.
So I might not have an inkling of what it was they said, but if they were the last group, I know for sure that it was for them I wished to have a more attentive audience.
Because even though they were doing good work, and sharing good points, they were unfortunately speaking to an audience much devoid of people- a majority whom had slipped to the back for early afternoon cocktails.
I'll be honest.
I don't know who it was that plonked the bartending counter at the back of the room but the sounds of shaking and all that were very distracting, and a tad annoying.
The guys sitting up front- moderator and emcee included- tried so hard.
I do wish I could remember clearer what it was they had discussed.
If I'm not wrong they might have been the group sharing something along the lines of AI in the medical industry- making diagnoses using AI, perhaps?
Whatever it was they were sharing, it were good points being raised, and now I wish there been a couple of slides to take pictures of, or maybe a deck or two for the office documentation file.
Strangely enough it was the first panel that made the strongest impression on me.
Not because I was bowled over by what they said, but because out of three that were on the panel, two were in tandem and the last- the most senior one, interestingly- was not.
In fact after a while it felt like the last guy was a contradiction to the work of the other two.
Maybe it was the position that said speaker was in.
I don't know.
VCs and investors tend to scrutinize, play devil's advocate and raise an eyebrow at everything and anything, but OMG it is rare that I see a VC who is hardball at not only the work of the startup but (nearly) the entire industry of Web 3.0 itself.
I mean it's fine to be critical and everything but oy, usually advice is granted to get things going in the right direction, not contradict it all the way to the other side.
I kid you not when I say that this had a most pessimistic vibe.
There's a difference between saying that Web 3.0 is not new and that the term was coined 20 plus years ago versus saying that Web 3.0 will (may) collapse the same way that the dotcom bubble burst several years ago.
(Dont' transfer your sense of betrayal at the deflated bubble to everyone else, ey?)
At another event this might have turned into some sort of debate.
But everyone was remarkably polite.
I have to give applause to the other two panelists.
Had I been on the same panel I might have worked myself up into some sort of reactive reaction and countered his rather pessimistic, tsk-tsk type of (wisdom).
Perhaps they were convinced enough of what they were doing to know that they'd continue having sufficient to do what it is they were intending to do.
I thought VCs existed to fund people who were attempting to solve problems.
I guess not necessarily so.
Still it wasn't too depressive an afternoon at this co-working space in SMU.
To the very least I got a glimpse of which territories Alibaba was involved in, and I got an introduction to the industries that they were interested in.
The Philippines is one major market.
So is Thailand, Vietnam, South Asia, and Indonesia.
Wherever they might be, it is a very diverse range of industries we're seeing- bioscience, agriculture, medical, logistics, data acquisition, and so on.
It's a bit of a pity that I can't recall much of what I heard from the panelists and the introductions that day, but that's just how some events are.
Perhaps in future I'll make sure to attend these events in a better frame of mind, and I'll make sure I'll come back from them with a more solid impression than the sweetish cocktail and the half glass of Pilsner I attempted to drink.