This Thursday, ASC is back with Mentorship Programme #4! There is no pitching and no hard selling—just genuine support to help you hurdle specific barriers. Here is how our mentorship structure works: - Horizontal Mentorship: Founders helping founders across different disciplines to establish clarity. - Vertical Mentorship: Once you have clarity, we bring in an expert to tackle your specific bottleneck. - Custom Matching: The ASC team actively searches for an advisor that fits your exact profile! Come ready to share your fears without judgment, listen for the "unsaid," and build a community that actively supports you. 🗓 Date: Thursday, Feb 26th ⏰ Time: 6:30-8:30 PM KH (ICT) 🔗 Register now: Mentorship Programme | Asean Startup Connect

Check out this video recap of Mr. G's Launch Presentation from Day 1 of the ASEAN Startup Connect Conference: https://youtu.be/untf0BWu3cY In this presentation, G explains the specific challenges and opportunities that the ASEAN region currently has in regards to scaling and innovation. In a time of uncertainty, ASEAN nations must unite and support each other to shape the future of the region -- and ASC provides the AI-powered tools, community and resources to enable this. If you want to learn or revisit insights from the ASC Conference, please subscribe to our Youtube channel for more long form video recaps of presentations and short form reels of interviews with leaders at ASC!

Ironically, in a session about inclusion, I felt excluded. I attended an international group workshop on systems change last Sunday and left disappointed, however, took away 5 great lessons on facilitation and inclusion I'll share with you today. Here are my observations: 1) Never leave a concept floating, always anchor it. This will reduce the feedback that concepts are 'airy fairy'. When participants say a framework feels "fluffy", they aren't critiquing the theory. They're saying, "I don't know how to use this on Monday." Intellectual depth without relatable references creates more distance than people realise, that's the opposite of connection and often gets facilitators and leaders further than what they wanted to begin with! - Bad: "Let's sit with the energy of this system." (actual quote) - Good: "Notice the tension in your chest right now. That tension is great data for you. In a board meeting, that data often signals for you to pause before you answer." 2) Close the loop on every comment. The worst feeling for a participant isn't being disagreed with, it's being ignored or dismissed. When someone speaks and gets silence in return, they feel invisible, confused or dismissed. An input that isn't acknowledged divides group morale and trust. The facilitator must ensure every comment lands somewhere, even if they disagree with it. - Bad: [Silence after a participant shares] ... "Okay, who wants to go next?" - Good: "I noticed the room went quiet after you shared that. I want to repeat back what I heard to make sure we really got it." 3) Safety isn't comfort. Facilitators often mistake "keeping it light" for positive progress, often wanting to show their participants that the workshop or session went from bad to good. This assumes way too many things: - That feeling bad at any stage of the workshop is a bad experience. - Which in turn assumes the participant doesn't have the emotional maturity nor intelligence to gain an insight from negative feelings - It also assumes that learning needs to come from a place of safety, ignoring the fact that learning new things means sitting in uncertainty, failure and confusion to gain new insights. Learning by default sits outside the comfort zone.