We are pleased to have Rajat Sharma as our business advisor for Asia, giving his insight on developing the Smartlands business network, and the issues it can face in the Asian region. With over 14 years of experience in Banking and Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare and IT services, Rajat is currently working as the Head of Sales and Alliances (Southeast Asia and South Asia) for eBaoTech Corporation, one of the most innovative digital insurance platform companies. He is an active supporter and advocate of blockchain technology and believes in the role cryptocurrency can play in any industry as a change agent for future.

Smartlands is working in a very niche space, and Asset-backed tokenizations bring in the required trust factor when it comes to Initial Coin Offering (ICO). I believe we can make an entry into the market with a unique proposition. Based on some research into the kind of investments that happened in 2017 vs the sectors that attracted capital, I feel that land or real estate as an asset is yet to gain traction in the ICO space”, says Rajat Sharma. “So, if Smartlands can start creating this as an alternative market segment, it could gain a first mover advantage, and also establish trust with regulators.”

Asia is a great marketplace with a strong acceptability of cryptocurrency. Singapore is probably the third most active country when it comes to the use and spread of cryptocurrency-led startups, after the US and Switzerland. Singapore hosts a great number of ICO firms, blockchain-led startups and Banks, Financial institutions who are actively working on one or more blockchain initiatives. Hence, there is a great spread of ecosystem that has become a good breeding ground for any ICO-led initiatives. Singapore hosts a lot of eCommerce players that have built a strong network of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in various domains as well, so it will also be important to get a few tie-ups and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with organizations boasting a strong network of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This can be part of an ecosystem, that at some point raises ICO for the overall benefit of industries.

Rajat noted that given his experience and successful business he has built in the past, he is a strong believer in partnerships, channels, and alliances, to create a healthy ecosystem for the Smartlands. ICO is on the borderlines of regulatory bodies, and its future depends on how regulators and big-time players participate. Thus, it is important to get regulators to be on your side and to create regulatory sandboxes for Proof of Concept ABT offerings, in order to build confidence.

Rajat will be working with us on an advisory basis to help us expand our network across Asia-Pacific.