Red Hat in Asia & Open Innovation Labs with Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen

Leong Chung Wei Bernard -

Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, senior vice president & general manager from Redhat, Asia Pacific joined us to discuss the company’s footprint across Asia and their recent launch of their new Open Innovation Labs in Singapore. We discuss how Asian companies are in different phases of their digital transformation from culture to innovation and adjusting against digital disruption.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

  • Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, (LinkedIn), Senior Vice President & General Manager, Redhat, Asia Pacific and Japan [0:38]
    • How did you start your career? [1:20]
    • What brought you from Europe to Asia? [2:00]
    • In your career journey, what are the interesting career lessons you can share with my audience? [2:25]
  • Redhat in Asia Pacific and Open Innovation Institute [3:00]
    • Can you briefly describe Redhat, the company who has built its fortunes on Linux, an open source operating system to our audience? [3:10]
    • What is the current vision and mission of Redhat? [4:45]
    • Can you talk about your current role and coverage? [5:06]
    • What are the current products and services of Redhat and are they focused mainly in the enterprise? [5:31]
    • What is the current footprint of Redhat in Asia Pacific? [6:53]
    • Can you share any interesting stories of enterprise clients leveraging on Redhat technologies? [7:11]
      • MyRepublic
      • GovTech’s responder app
    • Are there any additional verticals beyond government and telco which used Redhat? [9:20]
    • Redhat launches the Open Innovation Labs in Singapore, and that is the first in Asia Pacific, what’s the role of the institute in providing an environment for customers to develop new solutions? [10:01]
    • How do your customers engage the Open Innovation Labs on building new innovations? [11:42]
    • What are your perspectives in how businesses should think about innovation? [13:00]
    • How does businesses balance the priorities between being agile and being secure at the same time? [15:31]
    • The region of Asia Pacific is divided into three types of markets: developed (Japan, Korea, Singapore), emerging (Indonesia) and frontier (Myanmar), does that mean innovation has a different role to play in each of these markets? 
    • Most Asian companies are currently in the phase of digital transformation and innovation, what are the key challenges do they face particularly in transitioning from traditional business & operations by increasing their digital technologies stack? [19:01]
  • Closing [20:45]
    • Can you recommend anything (and that can be in the form of a book, podcast, movie) that you find interesting in your work or life recently? [21:03]
    • How can my audience find you? (Social media or plug Redhat’s social media assets as well)  [22:20]

Podcast Information:

The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw & my weibo account)and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Altizen and sign up for their mailing list. Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack.