RS21: Part Watson, Part Walt Disney

RS21 plans to use big data platform and Hollywood-like visualizations to solve the world’s most complex challenges.

Do you know that 1 in 9 Singaporeans has diabetes with an average of about 1200 diabetics undergoing amputations every year? These data were revealed by Singapore’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong in the National Day Rally 2017 to shed light on how diabetes could impact us on a massive scale. It is a “health crisis”. For individuals, it jeopardises quality of life while at the national level, it translates to higher medical expenditures and cause financial impact to the economy. These data also shed light to how our lifestyle and eating habits can lead to diabetes. In other words, by changing our lifestyle and eating habits, such as exercising regularly and reducing our sugar intake, we can help to manage the health outcome and prevent a potential “health crisis”.
This is the value which RS21, a US-based software and data analytics startup, hopes to bring forth – to harness and make sense of data to make decision faster, influence behaviour, and solve complex problem.

“The scale of challenges we face today is quite extraordinary. As a result of digitisation, 90 percent of the data in the world was generated over the last two years. It is challenging for organisation to navigate through the complexity; having to deal with massive amount of information available and make sense of it. However, there is an untapped potential in how amazing data is; to help us to be smarter, make better decision and solve complex problems. That is the inspiration behind RS21.”, said Charles Rath, President, CEO and Founder of RS21 in his exclusive interview with ACE.

Today, RS21 is 4 years old, with its headquarter at New Mexico, USA and branch office in Washington D.C. The team is currently looking at scale their business in the ASEAN market where they see growth potential in the region. Using Singapore as their landing point, they were part of the ACE Market Access Programme, a three-weeks structured programme to help technology startups internationalise. Through the programme, the team has learnt valuable insights to starting a business in Singapore and the region, the challenges of incorporation, as well as being connected to potential businesses and deals during their short stay in Singapore The team has also embarked on a three days market immersion trip to Jakarta, Indonesia as part of their programme with ACE.

“There are many similarities in the Singapore and New Mexico market where both cities have a small population size and drive for innovation. The speed for digitalisation, appetite for data, favourable business climate, supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem and abundance in complex challenges to solve are some of the key factors that attracted us here. The ACE Market Access Programme has gone beyond our expectation to help us navigate the business landscape in the region. We foresee that it will be challenging to set up operations in a foreign land, but with partners like ACE, it has made things easier. We are definitely excited of the journey ahead.”, said Charles.

Speaking of his personal entrepreneurship journey, Charles has wished that he had started it sooner. Spending most of his career in the public sector, the startup world has given him a different sense of satisfaction.

“In a startup, success is 100% dependent on you, and your ability to prepare and make things happen. You are also able to innovate at a more rapid pace and not stopped by rules and red tapes.”

For startups who are looking to internationalise, he advises fellow entrepreneurs to make sure that there is a market for their products and not to assume that if the product is success in one place will be successful in another. Lastly, know the rule of the country before navigating through the local startup scene.

Thanks Charles for his golden words of advice, and we wish him all the best in his internationalisation journey!

RS21 was the fastest-growing company in the State last year, growing revenue more than 5400 percent from 2015 to 2017. The software and data analytics company recently expanded to Washington D.C. Charles Rath, RS21 President, CEO and Founder has been selected as the 100 top executives to watch in the US. to watch in 2019.

How it works: Through the use of a library of microservice ‘components’ to assemble powerful analytical products, RS21 combines a robust platform with custom data and design services to empower organisations to solve complex challenges. These components can be deployed on any environment, have built in testing, security, and monitoring and can be quickly created or customised to fit the needs of the organisation. Get in touch with the team for a demonstration at info@rs21.io!