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Friday, July 26, 2019, 08:59
Startup uses AI to pair ‘gig economy’ workers with jobs
By Pamela Lin in Hong Kong
Friday, July 26, 2019, 08:59 By Pamela Lin in Hong Kong

Editor’s note: One company is gaining traction in the growing trend of employers and employees who are seeking mutual short-term commitments. In China Daily Hong Kong’s fourth and final report in its series of female entrepreneurs, Pamela Lin talks to Xania Wong about how her company, Jobdoh, has succeeded in this field via rigorous screening and artificial intelligence.


(BILLY WONG / CHINA DAILY)

With a passion to connect people, veteran entrepreneur Xania Wong — who has started four businesses — is breaking the glass ceiling while making an impact in society. 

“I think doing business is not just about financial satisfaction, it’s also about making social changes,” Wong said.

Her fourth startup, Jobdoh — a hiring platform that connects employers with on-demand and temporary workers — currently has about 200,000 users, including employers and temporary-job seekers. 

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The platform, which she launched in 2014, targets the expanding “gig economy”, which focuses on temporary positions and short-term contracts.

Wong tested the project on hotels and events companies, and received favorable reviews.

I think doing business is not just about financial satisfaction, it’s also about making social changes.

Xania Wong, Veteran entrepreneur

Jobdoh has a series of questionnaires for job-seekers that include work-experience questions, psychological quizzes, and inquiries about how frequently they use the company’s app, and then Jobdoh uses artificial intelligence to process the data and produce scores for the job-hunters. 

“We have a proprietary formula to develop a score for everybody who applies for the job, and the scores depend on the type of jobs they applied for,” Wong said.

The system has drastically reduced the screening time for employers by narrowing down the suitable candidates for the post based on analyses of their data. Users can also upload videos to introduce themselves to create a deeper understanding between employers and employees. 

Jobdoh will ask employers for their business registration, and individual employers need to provide proof of their address. As for job-seekers, identity cards and photos are needed to prove they can work in Hong Kong legally.

Starting innovative businesses is nothing new for Wong. In 2012, her expertise in wine and spirits led to the creation of her third business, Xantana Wine Society, which she’s still operating. It provides customized wine solutions for users through the app Wine2Go, with which users can choose a wine based on the flavor and their mood or location. Xantana Wine Society also hosts tastings and other wine events.

It was at this time that Wong discovered it’s difficult to find short-term employees in the hospitality industry, and this discovery laid the foundation for Jobdoh.

Opportunities in Myanmar

Serendipitously, on a trip to Myanmar, Wong sensed the untapped opportunities in the country, which has a large population of young people and two existing wineries that served a diversified drinking culture there.

“But I was a bit too early at that time as the internet penetration in Myanmar in 2013 was very low,” Wong said.

In 2016, when Wong was operating both a wine business and Jobdoh, she revisited Myanmar and realized the time was ripe for the country to embrace the convenience engaged by the accelerated internet access and the growing number of smartphone users.

According to World Internet Stats, the internet penetration in Myanmar has spiked from 0.3 percent in 2010 to nearly 30 percent now. In addition, smartphone penetration has soared since 2014, with a growth rate of more than 90 percent.

Wong first reached out to schools and universities in Myanmar. Because of the language gap, she chose to visit some universities in Yangon to introduce Jobdoh, and she happened to have a chance meeting with the headmaster of  Yangon University of Foreign Languages.

“After like five minutes of our presentation, he said he likes our software and would like to use it to improve the placement of students,” Wong said.

Jobdoh has partnered with the Yangon University of Foreign Languages and Thanlyin Technological University, where Jobdoh gained access to over 8,000 students with foreign language, technical and engineering skills.

Wong also brought back her wine services to the country, and her team just held a wine-tasting event in Myanmar.

“Myanmar’s infrastructure is gradually being set up due to the Belt and Road Initiative. The internet penetration is growing rapidly; they all created a good business environment in Myanmar,” Wong said. She added that Jobdoh also helps Chinese companies in Myanmar hire Chinese-speaking Burmese.

Connecting people

Now focusing on fintech, Jobdoh is improving its payroll system to provide faster payment to employees and convenience in wage transfer and payroll service. It has implemented projects in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Chinese mainland as well as Hong Kong and Macao.

Looking back, Wong found her businesses were all associated with connecting people. The first one was about “speed dating” for the Asian Canadian community in Canada. Speed dating involves planned events that pair up singles with a large number of potential boyfriends or girlfriends in a short period of time.

“We held events to connect all my single guy friends. It was pretty successful and we made some money,” Wong said. But the business shut down after she left Canada and came back to Hong Kong.

The second business Wong started was her first full-time business to connect retail investors with growth-potential startups and businesses. Wong hoped to provide a sustainable vehicle for retail investors that was unlike investing in stocks and other financial products. Unfortunately, the timing to launch the venture wasn’t right.

“It was in 2008 when the financial crisis hit, and it was very difficult to raise capital for startups around in Hong Kong,” Wong said. After working on it for more than a year, the company’s staff finally had to move on.

Looking back on her business adventures, Wong said it has been a lonely but inspiring journey. “I don’t like to see myself as a female entrepreneur. I just look at myself as a general entrepreneur,” she said.

Everything is a challenge even though you have a team, including balancing the number of workers and employers, and being involved in company’s decision-making, Wong said.

With years of making strides forward in startup ecosystem, Wong shared her observation on diversities among male and female entrepreneurs.

She said females tend to have psychological barrier internally that they may be less competitive than men generally. “I’ve seen that guys could be more aggressive with their goal-setting, which makes them present a better story than the females do,” she added.

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However, as females are driving more than half of the global economy, which continues to rise, they are taking major parts in the groups. “A female on the team could help to better understand at least 50 percent of the market,” Wong said.

pamelalin@chinadailyhk.com

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