The Asia Tech Podcast was joined by Lindsay Davis, a co-founder of the FemTech Association of Asia, the gateway to the FemTech industry within Asia, driving advancement in available, accessible, and affordable healthcare for every woman at each stage of life, through knowledge, solutions, and funding.
 
Some of the topics Lindsay discussed included:
  • Going to Texas for university and finding herself
  • Living in Europe and moving to Singapore
  • Why she co-founded the FemTech Association of Asia
  • Getting the market ready for funding more FemTech investment
  • Thought leadership and understanding the changing needs of women
  • Creating the opportunity to demand more in the FemTech space
  • The economic importance and opportunity for women’s health
Other titles we considered for this episode:
  1. I Love Being a Part of a Team
  2. Finding Comfort With Discomfort
  3. I Wouldn’t Work on Something That I Thought Didn’t Have Infinite Potential
  4. We Invest in What We Relate To
  5. Women’s Health Is Not Just for Women
This episode was produced by Isabelle Goh.

Read the best-effort transcript below (This technology is still not as good as they say it is…):

Michael Waitze 0:41
Hi, this is Michael Waitze. And welcome back to the Asia Tech Podcast. Today we are joined by Lindsay Davis, a co founder of the FemTech Association of Asia. Lindsay, thank you so much for coming on the show today. How are you doing?

Lindsay Davis 0:55
I’m doing really well, Michael, and thank you so much for having me here. And I do have to say, looking back at the journey of the FinTech association of Asia, you were actually one of the first outside people to reach out to us proactively. So it really shows you have that eye on the trends in tech here in Asia, which femtech, I believe is definitely up and coming. And you spotted it, we only had about 200 followers on LinkedIn. And now many, many more.

Michael Waitze 1:21
I want to get back to that in a second, right? Because there’s a reason why. But before we get into the main part of this conversation, I do want to get a little bit of your background to set up the context.

Lindsay Davis 1:31
Absolutely. So as you can tell by my accent, I’m originally from the US. And if you talk to me long enough, you’ll hear I’m from Wisconsin, so Milwaukee, you can hear my northern accent. I spent my childhood there moved to go to university at the University of Texas in Austin, where I studied Spanish language, political science and business. I moved to Europe in 2007 and pivoted my career into looking at customer experience, building b2b partnerships, and really expanding businesses and scaling businesses into over 25 countries, spent time in a lot of those countries longer term on secondments, whether it be China, New York, which was exciting to go back to, you know, the US for a while, Qatar and more. So I’ve been very fortunate and kind of having a really international career as it sounds like you have as well.

Michael Waitze 2:24
Indeed, I have, I want to ask you about this, the population of Wisconsin is only about 6 million people. Right? So it’s not that much bigger than Singapore, to be fair, maybe a little bit smaller,

Lindsay Davis 2:34
obviously. Yeah, Wisconsin is quite large. I mean, obviously, Milwaukee is a huge city we have Yeah, which is a phenomenal, you know, phenomenal University. So yeah, great people good place. Very, very proud to be from there. Oh, no,

Michael Waitze 2:45
unbelievable place. But what makes you go from Wisconsin, which has great universities, to Texas, which is kind of like the opposite, not the opposite side of the country, right? And then study Spanish, like where did that interest come from?

Lindsay Davis 2:57
I credit my parents with that, that they always wanted us to, you know, kind of study abroad go far be very independent. And especially for their their daughters. They really wanted, you know, strong, independent women. And I think they really instilled in that, you know that, again, we talked earlier about the concept of choice and a call we had previously and it was them saying you have the choice to do whatever you want, and go wherever you want and be whomever you want to be. So when it came down to it, I realized that my passions really were that there was this whole world out there to explore. And learning another language was a critical part of that. And moving on from there going to a really amazing school that had, you know, the largest school in the nation at the time and meeting just as many people as possible and a strong, strong programs in the Liberal Arts and Business, which I definitely wanted to pursue.

Michael Waitze 3:48
It may just be me, right. But my introduction to the University of Texas at Austin came late in life. But I do feel like it’s a gem of a university. And I was gonna say like a gem in the rough, but I guess probably more people know about it than I did. Right. But again, I’ve been out of the country for 30 years. So maybe I don’t know, how to how did you get to be so great, because it really is an amazing place. Yeah,

Lindsay Davis 4:12
it is an amazing place. And the people are amazing, which is great. Both you know, the local, the actual Austinites as well as the, the students that go there. And I think it’s a very, it’s a really special place you can really find anything you want to do. I was an athlete at Texas so I was able to row for Texas, which was really exciting. So you can do sports, you can do you know, volunteer work, you can get involved in a million different things. It’s a large school, so great research projects, you know, great museums, great history. There’s there’s just a lot there. And I think it’s a very welcoming community for anyone who wants to do anything and you know, there are the bumper stickers that say Keep Austin weird. And I think that that really you know, kind of says that everyone’s welcome. And that’s a great part of going to school there is no matter where you’re from. There’s there’s a place for you in Austin. You’ll find it at the University of Texas.

Michael Waitze 4:58
I don’t find you weird but okay. Whoa, that’s cool. All this travel that you’ve done? Can you tell me this idea of like a young lady looking to the rest of the world wanting to learn another language trying to figure out like what the greater world has to offer. And I love this idea that your parents encouraged particularly their daughters to do this. I have a daughter as well. And one of the things that her mother and I talked about before she was born was that the best thing we can give him more than anything else, besides a great education is just self confidence, this feeling that you can do anything? Do you think this is innate? Like, where do you think this comes from? Because you clearly have this as well. But obviously, it feels like your parents were instrumental in giving this idea to you that anything is possible.

Lindsay Davis 5:47
Gosh, that’s a great question. I, I don’t I don’t I don’t know nature versus nurture, I think I think I have a very driven family. And they’re very bright and very curious. I would say, perhaps that’s really the the link that we all have in my family is just a lot of curiosity for the world around us. avid readers. So you know, it’s actually being able to even if we hadn’t been there paint the picture of what the world looked like. Right? Your point, I had a great education. So I’m very fortunate, and I’m grateful to my family for that. But I think a lot of it is building confidence through, you know, education, studying hard playing sports, I found as a female was was a pretty major component, being a part of a team, and being a part of a community. And that’s, again, something that’s been through my entire career is communities. I love being a part of a team, I whether it’s a professional team, a sports team, or work, you know, I love a volunteer group. I love feeling like I’m a part of a team. And so that’s always been consistent, which is probably why seeing a gap in the market here for femtech and saying no one else is doing it. I’ll create the team, so to speak. You said

Michael Waitze 6:55
you wrote in college? Yeah,

Lindsay Davis 6:57
I did. Yeah. For two years.

Michael Waitze 6:58
And was it single rowing? Or was it like in a team of people that were rowing? Exactly. Right. So I want to make this point, though, because rowing is it’s like very symbiotic. It’s not like being on a, it’s different than being on a basketball team, right? Where there’s a lot of individual movement. It’s a very, you tell me where I’m wrong, but rowing seems to be very coordinated. Right? Do you lean on that? Now you think when you’re building the teams that you’re building or trying to get people together to do something together? Do you feel like you’re leaning on that experience you had rowing?

Lindsay Davis 7:28
I do believe that I was not as resilient or to use Angela Duckworth word gritty grit. I don’t think I had that before then it really toughened me up and pushed me pushed me physically, obviously, because you know, you’re you train a lot you get up very early in the morning and you know, that, that that’s real, that’s not a you know, stereotype you really are out there on the water, you get up at, you know, five 515 and you’re out there. Yeah. I think one thing with rowing is that it’s an interesting sport and that you’re competing for your seat in the in a boat, but you’re also competing as a team with the people you compete against for that seat. So one thing I will say is everyone I know who was a rower with me, I respect so much such hard workers it takes such commitment and, and drive and organization and balance and mental strength and the willingness to push beyond comfort. And perhaps that’s that also comes to mind of you know, leaving my hometown and going to school abroad, going from abroad to another state to do internships, you know, in Florida internships in Spain internships, you know, and then to work in a career that, you know, just I’d fly around the world and that’s what I did. And I think having comfort with, with discomfort, probably is a big part of who I am is, as the years go on, I become more and more comfortable with the unknown, more and more comfortable with having to start things from scratch on my own.

Michael Waitze 8:58
Talk to me about the FinTech association of Asia, you said you saw this gap. You’re in Singapore now. Right? You live in Singapore, you’re settled in

Lindsay Davis 9:04
Singapore. Exactly. So I moved here to launch my consultancy, which I still run, which I think many people who are working in organization based work as opposed to a kind of a formal business. So it really came from three things I mentioned curiosity. Basically, I met someone who was in FinTech and I thought, oh, women in tech. That’s amazing. And she was like, No femtech women’s health and technology, which to be fair, the term was really only coined in 2016. So it wasn’t a part of, you know, it wasn’t. Exactly so you know, we kind of knew about FinTech and all these I had all those ideas in my head but not femtech. So being me and and kind of research oriented I, yes, being me and organized as you saw, you know, everything I’ve done so far, but it’s, it was immediately that I started researching because I thought well, what is this? This is really interesting. The other thing is moving to Singapore. I hadn’t found a volunteer opportunity yet. that matched with with what I had done before. So in London, I sat on a couple of boards of charities including the RSPCA, which I absolutely love animals, so that was a nice fit. And then the Junior League of London which focused on it was a women’s volunteer organization focused on eradicating poverty in London. So I had done a lot of kind of civic minded work before, and I was I missed that here. And so I found out about femtech learned about it did the research found out that you know, you know, 47 million women in low income countries may not have access to modern contraceptive contraceptives, or, you know, a lot of medical care for birth control pills is trial and error until you find the one that suits your your body company, you know, your body chemistry, or 59% of women say menopause has negatively affected their work, it’s these things, these facts started coming up in my research that I just thought this, we, you know, we need to start trying to address this. So I thought, Well, I’m gonna volunteer, I’m gonna volunteer my time and put it towards this, I’ll join the association learn more. So there wasn’t an association to join. And so I thought, well, you know, why not me? Why, why can’t I do this? So why not? I launched the association with the support of people I had met in the community, which I have to say globally is one of the most collaborative communities I’ve ever worked with, no matter who you call in FinTech, who works in it, or who touches in any way from tech, they are 100% willing to talk so and share their experience. And it’s been really great. So I reached out to a few entrepreneurs here, and they were all like, oh, you should definitely start this I would join this is amazing. So I kind of had, I guess the consumer feedback, lie? Basically, exactly. And started it. And so our mission is to inspire collaboration to accelerate the creation of more healthcare solutions for more women. And what we would like to see as the vision is, you know, healthcare that’s accessible and available and affordable for all women. And yes, that’s a big goal. And we have a lot to overcome to get there. But I think it’s a good mission. And I believe in the purpose. So we talked about curiosity. The second thing, the reason I started it was purpose, I thought, This feels really good to do. I feel like I’m giving back. I’m raising the profile of businesses that yes, their businesses, yes, this is commercial. However, they’re addressing what has previously been an under researched, underserved and underfunded community. And this is really what we need. So I feel good about it.

Michael Waitze 12:24
Is there an investment angle to this as well? And the reason obviously, the reason why I bring this up, I think it’s obvious, right? We can pick a number 3% of global venture capital money goes into investing and even just female founded businesses, right? And the amount that goes into FinTech has to be lower than that, I would presume, is there an investment angle to this? And do you feel like the market is ready for this now? And if so, has something changed? Or are you pushing that change, if that makes sense?

Lindsay Davis 12:53
So I would say, as far as investment goes, to answer the question, I’m going to say yes, because I would not spend my time working on something in an industry that I didn’t believe had infinite potential. Women, half the world’s population, that’s a pretty big consumer base to work with. So there are also many life cycles for a woman whether it’s, you know, menstruation, through to childbearing years through to menopause. So there are a lot of elements along the way. And then certainly things people may not realize like chronic illness impacts women more than men, more women suffer from mental wellness challenges than men, despite men actually having a higher suicide rate, actually 75% of suicides, but so I want to acknowledge that as well. But you know, women really are impacted caregiving. Caregiving is an enormous weight on women’s shoulders. So yes, I think the opportunity is there because there are so many opportunities to create solutions that women are ready for. So women are asking for these and we see this economy with more women entering the labor force, women are with, you know, the funds more and more to spend on not only taking care of their families, which women typically are, make 90% of health care decisions for the family 90% 90% According to Frost and Sullivan and 80% of household health care spending is done by women. So we should really be looking at this target and saying, you know, these are these are people with great purse strings. As far as investment goes, you’re absolutely right, Michael, that there, this is underfunded and women in general are underfunded. We’ve seen articles in the past two weeks about how only 2% of VC funding goes to women. For femtech You know only 3% of money or excuse me 3% of funding goes digital healthcare funding goes to femtech 3% of all digital healthcare funding, deal street Asia, I’m gonna get into stats here because I think it’s really important to be accurate with what underfunded means with the challenges in deal street Asia recently just reported that 70% of VCs instead Southeast Asia do not have a female decision maker, we really need to diversify our in our investors. That’s really the solution. Ultimately, what do we invest in, we invest in what we can relate to. And we see some really great investors who are early adopters looking for the long term investment, which I believe Fintech is those who think early, and they see the opportunity early. So it really does take a visionary investor. But what’s interesting is you reached out to me early, Michael. So clearly, you saw femtech as a potential, you know, vision for the future of Now, having said that, I think we can talk about things, some things that are really exciting, which is that we’ve seen two of our femtech association of Asia members raising over a million so we have e, EAS, which is sexual health, who has raised over 1.3 million US dollars. And then we’ve seen 5.1 5 million from fertility company handle Life Technologies in two plus fertility, who are working on solutions for for better results from from infertility and trying to kind of solve that. So we are seeing some traction in the VC space. But most of our members are pre seed and seed round stage,

Michael Waitze 16:08
can we go back and talk about this 70% of venture capitalist capitalists or investors in Asia, don’t have a female decision maker and then go further up the funnel, and talk about angel investing. So I had Hester Spiegel and Micah Boyer on the show. A couple of weeks ago, I can’t remember who it was last week, or the week before that we released that episode, the founders of epic angels. I think one of the points that they made was that they were trying to educate because like you said, females make 80% of the health care decisions and 90% of the health care spending.

Lindsay Davis 16:41
They’re also making 90% decision Sorry, just want to keep my stats.

Michael Waitze 16:47
Down. So I was doing it from memory, so fair. And if you remember the discussion we had before we started recording this. That’s why it’s great to have you here. But one of the points that they made was, it’s really, it’s really necessary to start at the top of the funnel, and at the top there in this case is educating females who do have a lot of control over their own money, to be fair, but also their family’s money is making the educating them about how to Angel invest, right, because the biggest risk for any founder is getting money at the beginning of their journey. Right?

Lindsay Davis 17:23
That is correct. Now, I will say so. So going back, and this actually goes back to the second half of your earlier question that I didn’t answer. Is the market ready? Are we driving change? Go ahead. I do believe that amplification that we’re doing is key. And it’s critical. It’s getting people talking about it. It’s making people curious about it. Right. So I think that curiosity and I get I’m only talking from an investment, investor perspective, not a consumer perspective. But from the investor perspective. Absolutely. I think we are raising awareness. And I’m excited to see we’ve talked with a couple of Angel networks. And I do actually know Pastor mica, they’re friends of mine, Singapore is a small place. So you know, we all know each other, and they’re absolutely wonderful and supportive, super supportive of femtech. So as I am with with their, you know, with their group, because I believe that their community is equally valuable, if not more, because they’re going to fund and have that, you know, that gender lens investing I that’s so important to diversify where money is going, and to whom. So So to answer your question, I do believe that we are pushing the change in the market as far as the consumer driving change. So looking at, as Dr. Alice Zheng has has mentioned on the podcast, and I really enjoyed listening to her speech, she mentioned in that and I kind of have digested this sense, is there’s like a whole value chain of FinTech starting with investors, excuse me, starting with inventors, all the way through to the consumer.

Michael Waitze 18:49
My next question is actually my exact. Go ahead. That’s why you don’t

Lindsay Davis 18:53
even need me on this podcast. So starting at the beginning, research and development budget, is only about 4% of it goes towards women’s women’s health care. So when we look at that we see 13% as Dr. Zheng shared of inventors, 13% are female. Finally, when we look at where people are going to be investing their time doing research, they need their research to be funded. So if women’s healthcare isn’t getting funded at the get go, that the whole chain is impacted. Now, one thing that I will say I’m really excited about our consumers. And by that I mean women owning their own health, saying I demand more than this, it shouldn’t take me five to seven years to discover that I have polycystic ovary syndrome. Because if you use a tracker, like a, you know, a period tracker, you can start seeing these trends earlier and maybe even get diagnosed in two to three, two to three years. Not in every case again, and I’m not a medical professional. I’m an enthusiast, so please don’t quote me on any of this. I’m not gonna give medical advice. I’m just Here to talk about the opportunities that are there for some tech.

Michael Waitze 20:04
Sorry, I wanted to jump back to just why my my reason for reaching out and thinking this is important. You know, obviously I grew up in a family with with a mom and two sisters. My grandfather, obviously, who was a very successful businessman was essentially illiterate. But his wife was a an actuary. So she was brilliant. And together, they were super powerful. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t even sign his own name to his own business checks. And he passed that on to his children who passed it on to us. And I think at some level, it has to come from like you, there has to be some impact from somewhere. But then also remember, I moved to Japan when I was 24 years old. And I used to say when I was there, right, because I lived there and worked there. For 20 something years, the Japanese women were the most underutilized workforce in the world, now was biased, right? Because I was there. So I don’t know what happens in other countries. But it was just so obvious to me that there was this whole portion of the population that was sort of underappreciated and under utilized. And when I see somebody out there, and again, I’d love to make a difference. But I think it’s important, and I’ve seen this in different places, for women like you to go out and do this, right? Because I can’t start the femtech association of Asia. Right, but I can’t, but when I see somebody doing it, I have to be there to support it. And also, you mentioned this word amplification. If nothing else, I have to be there to help amplify it. Anyway. So that’s where my that’s my story on this. I wanted to go ahead. No, no, please, please. I want to talk about this term literacy. We talked about this a lot in the FinTech space space. And in the inshore tech space, even you said, you know, when you first heard the term femtech, you were thinking, okay, females in technology. So even women like you, highly educated, highly experienced, global citizens weren’t aware that this was a thing. How does the femtech association itself, amplify this message and try to support this idea of STEM tech literacy, not just here, but globally.

Lindsay Davis 22:13
So what I’m starting with what you were talking about just a second ago, 80% of FEM tech founders globally are female. Here in in the FinTech Association here in Asia, we’re about 82%. So right around that number. And I did want to recognize the male founders, as well as our male allies and our supports, and our amplifiers, such as you who understand the value. So anyone who has a woman in their life or an individual with women’s health care needs, I think, can appreciate that. That is, women’s health is important. You know, it’s critical, it’s critical to industry and businesses, people being able to be in the workforce contributing to, you know, the country’s workforce, and, and all those good things, it’s critical to the family, being able to take care of family and friends. I don’t just mean literally children, I mean, family and friends and the community. So I think it’s important to recognize that we’re all in this together, Women’s Health is not just for women, and I’m pleased to say that we do have actually a lot of men showing up to our events. And more interesting is that a lot of our businesses 43%, in fact, sell product to male and female customers. So this isn’t, you know, so it’s whether it’s people taking care of their mum, their sisters, their their girlfriends, wives, whatever it may be. So So onto your question about literacy. What does the femtech Association do for that? So we’re across eight countries. Now, we are mainly focused on Southeast Asia but have representation in South Korea and Japan as well, which is really exciting. Cool. We focus mainly on four things. So we focus on thought leadership, programming, amplification, and community building. So thought leadership, it’s really looking at that under research term, I used earlier that research gap and saying, How can we help close that? So we believe that that is kind of the key element around education is coming up with, even if it’s lighter research, and not super in depth analysis, but just trying to better understand what women want and the changing needs of women, right. So we do have a consumer survey that I encourage everyone to go to our LinkedIn profile, anyone who again, is a woman or with women’s healthcare needs, who would have five minutes to spare to fill out our survey would love to have those responses. So thank you for letting me use this platform to share that programming. We run a number of programs so we run things that are events that are category based, so it might be a category talking about fertility, it might be a category talking about menopause, or aging. We also run programs and panels based on investing in FinTech or investing in tech, so we try to be a bit more inclusive, we run leadership panels. So for instance, we had one recently on strategic planning for tech startups to actually help founders be a part of the group. Because the whole thing is we don’t want to just be in a vacuum talking to each other those of us who care about FinTech, it really needs to be talking with different businesses and learning from them. And then finally, you know, amplification, which is all of the PR, we do the podcasts we do, you know, the talks, we do the speaking engagements. And then community building, which is key. So ultimately, we are here for the founders first, the industry second, and by industry, I mean, investors, consultants, MNCs. And then finally, enthusiasts, because a big part of our group are people who don’t work in this space, but are just plain curious about it, which I say, welcome. Join us.

Michael Waitze 25:46
So, two things, and I just want to I want to cover them as much as you’d like, actually. Is there a place for on I’m gonna call it FAA, right, the FinTech association of Asia, but the FinTech Association globally, to raise its own funding, and to run accelerator programs specifically focused on this thing in the same way that there are artificial intelligence ones or machine, you know what I mean, the same way, right. And again, not just for women, but to address this issue. Using technology.

Lindsay Davis 26:16
There are I think that’s a really great idea. And whether it’s an incubator or an accelerator, I guess, is the question. And then building on from there, there are a couple I believe there’s one I know that just had a there’s one called Tech for like the number four ever UVA, who actually just had a really great event in in Seoul. And so following their Roadshow is they go to more and more markets. It’s very interesting. But there are a couple of accelerators out there. Thinking about it here, what it really comes down to is the resource to run that. So right now, the femtech association is lean, we have some wonderful volunteers to help us with, for instance, a wonderful, wonderful lady named Mabel limb over who’s helping us with our brand strategy and our brand marketing and really, you know, lifting that up. And right now we have another lady grace. So who’s helping us with our events. So we do have a lot of volunteers. But I think when it comes to the actual resource to implement, that’s we need to make that pivot to something that’s monetized as opposed to just a volunteer base, which right now we are volunteer based.

Michael Waitze 27:20
Yeah, it sounds to me like there’s a massive opportunity to turn this actually into quite a big business. Is that fair?

Lindsay Davis 27:26
I believe so. Because I believe that Asia in particular, is really the future. Right now. We’re about 14% 14 to 19%, I see different stats, but 14 to 19% of FinTech businesses worldwide. But FinTech analytics is saying by 2026, we’re going to have more women’s health apps than anywhere else in the world, we have an aging population over here with just one, which is a wonderful opportunity to have a target audience that we can support. Again, you know, McKinsey reported that 44% of private equity and VC funding is being channeled into or invested into Asia, in digital health. So the movement is all towards Asia, which is why I love being in Singapore. And I think probably you’ve loved being in Asia over all these years, because the opportunity is huge.

Michael Waitze 28:14
I’m gonna make the case that the market is moving in our direction, and that it’s not the future is not in Asia that now is in Asia. And it’s been a long term bet of mine. And it’s definitely paying off and I don’t think it’s going to stop paying off. And in an interesting way, if you look at some of the countries that surround where we are today, right, Singapore, very amenable to female founders also very amenable to female CEOs and female executives. Thailand has to be the poster child for like how many female CEOs there are. Korean women are strong Japanese women are making strides and in the rest of the region, and in China as well. Probably more female billionaire. I don’t know what the exact numbers are, right. But it’s the region’s ready for it. And I like to talk about this map that you can’t see. But there are definitely more people within like a five hour flight of you and me than there are outside of that circle. And this is just the future and you and I are going to be a big part of it. Is that fair?

Lindsay Davis 29:17
I think that’s hugely fair. And I’m really excited to be here. So I’m grateful to be in Singapore, which I think in general is favorable to business and welcoming to business. So as I mentioned earlier, I have a consultancy that I have been able to set up here and run and it’s given me the flexibility to really build this FinTech group that’s been, you know, that I feel really fortunate to be able to do and I and, in addition, I would say looking at opportunities. Singapore is a really neat market for FinTech, because we do have the most businesses here. It’s around 40% of FinTech businesses, I believe are here in Singapore compared to the rest of Southeast Asia. So not all of Asia, but just Southeast Asia. So excluding India, which is a really exciting market, that I’m super excited to start working with more and But you know, seeing the the movement we have, you know, ease healthcare has moved into the Philippines in May of 2022. We have Fern, who also is, you know, sexual health has moved in Malaysia, we have speed doc who has moved into Indonesia. So people kind of use Singapore as where they set up their business where they start their business where they do the MVP, the pivots, and then they take those concepts, and broaden them out to all of these exciting markets around us that really are kind of untapped for femtech. With really, you know, great, like you said, great entrepreneurial, and consumer bases who really understand what’s going on, it’s just bringing the products there or starting the products there, which is exciting as well. And I think that’s what we’ll see is we’ll see a lot more people in, you know, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc, starting businesses, and Vietnam is also super exciting for entrepreneurs. And we’re actually chatting with a lady there now about bringing FinTech association to Vietnam just to bring that momentum.

Michael Waitze 30:57
Yeah, there have been some incredible women that I’ve had on the Asia tech podcast that will release soon from Vietnam. It’s a market of very big interest to me, along with India, as you mentioned, as well, I mean, the whole region, super interesting. You mentioned earlier, and I’ll let you go after this. But you mentioned earlier that you’re always looking for ways to give back to the community. You said you were part of the RSPCA that I get that right. Back in London Society for the Protection of cruelty to animals, I believe it is Yeah, correct. Yes. How important is it for you, as you continue to institutionalize the FinTech association of Asia and integrated into the rest of the FinTech Association globally to have impact?

Lindsay Davis 31:38
It’s very important and how I think is the question and for me, it’s around education. And a lot of that is, you know, for instance, we have one of our members, who does a lot of work with Tru cup, it’s a menstrual cup of reusable menstrual cup. And basically, we do a lot of work around period positivity. In other words, let’s make sure you know, young women understand what they’re going through, understand what that means for them understand solutions. So they don’t have to miss a day of school, or whatever it may be. So a lot of it, I think, is around education, and positivity around being a woman and what that means and educating on the solution. So for me, I think being that we are a community based organization. It’s our role to support the community through education and awareness. And that’s where I see us being able to make the best impact outside of the commercial side of all of this is really just bringing options and education to more women. Throughout age. I think that can be our first step towards that available, accessible, affordable health care for all women everywhere in the world. But I think that education and awareness is the first step. Plus it gives consumers the opportunity to demand more, which is what we mean.

Michael Waitze 32:50
That is awesome. Lindsay Davis, a co founder of the FemTech Association of Asia. Thank you so much for doing this today.

Lindsay Davis 32:57
Thank you, Michael. It’s been a pleasure to speak with you soon.

 

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