Winston Ma shared his insights on what challenges we have to look out for now the ‘era of connected things’ has quietly arrived, in his article published by the World Economic Forum.
Key insights:
In China, the internet of things (IoT) has proliferated to the degree that there are now more connected things than connected people.
As the era of connected things has expanded into industrial applications and emerging technologies advance, several problems still need to be solved, including its rollout at scale.
Societal challenges, such as the infrastructure gap, personal data protection and e-waste, must be tackled head-on in the new era of connected things.
Winston Ma is an investor, attorney, author, and adjunct professor in the global digital economy. He is one of a small number of native Chinese who have worked as investment professionals and practicing capital markets attorneys in both the United States and China. Most recently for 10 years, he was Managing Director and Head of North America Office for China Investment Corporation (CIC), China’s sovereign wealth fund.
At CIC’s inception in 2007, he was among the first group of overseas hires by CIC, where he was a founding member of both CIC’s Private Equity Department and later the Special Investment Department for direct investing (Head of CIC North America office 2014-2015). He had leadership roles in global investments involving financial services, technology (TMT), energy and natural resources sectors, including the setup of West Summit (Huashan) Capital, a cross-border growth capital fund in Silicon Valley, which was CIC’s first overseas tech investment.
Prior to that, Mr. Ma served as the deputy head of equity capital markets at Barclays Capital, a vice president at J.P. Morgan investment banking, and a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.
A nationally certified Software Programmer as early as 1994, Mr. Ma is the book author of China’s Mobile Economy (Wiley 2016, among “best 2016 business books for CIOs”), Digital Economy 2.0 (2017 Chinese), The Digital Silk Road (2018 German), China’s AI Big Bang (2019 Japanese), and Investing in China (Risk Books, 2006). His new book “The Hunt for Unicorns: How Sovereign Funds Are Reshaping Investment in the Digital Economy” (Wiley) was released in November and the latest of his China book serial “The Digital War: How China’s Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain and Cyberspace” in December 2020.
Mr. Ma has served on the boards of multinational listed and private companies. He was selected a 2013 Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and has been a member of the Council for Long-Term Investing and Council for Digital Economy and Society. He is a member of New York University (NYU) President’s Global Council since inception, and in 2014 he received the NYU Distinguished Alumni Award.
Mr. Ma earned his MBA from the University of Michigan Ross Business School (Beta Gamma Sigma) and his master of law from the New York University School of Law (Hauser Global Scholar). He earned bachelor of science and bachelor of law degrees from Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He has served as adjunct professor at NYU School of Law (current course “Sovereign Investments & Regulations”), NYU Stern Business School and Tsinghua School of Economics and Management.
Winston Ma shared his insights on what challenges we have to look out for now the ‘era of connected things’ has quietly arrived, in his article published by the World Economic Forum.
Key insights:
At CIC’s inception in 2007, he was among the first group of overseas hires by CIC, where he was a founding member of both CIC’s Private Equity Department and later the Special Investment Department for direct investing (Head of CIC North America office 2014-2015). He had leadership roles in global investments involving financial services, technology (TMT), energy and natural resources sectors, including the setup of West Summit (Huashan) Capital, a cross-border growth capital fund in Silicon Valley, which was CIC’s first overseas tech investment.
Prior to that, Mr. Ma served as the deputy head of equity capital markets at Barclays Capital, a vice president at J.P. Morgan investment banking, and a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP.
A nationally certified Software Programmer as early as 1994, Mr. Ma is the book author of China’s Mobile Economy (Wiley 2016, among “best 2016 business books for CIOs”), Digital Economy 2.0 (2017 Chinese), The Digital Silk Road (2018 German), China’s AI Big Bang (2019 Japanese), and Investing in China (Risk Books, 2006). His new book “The Hunt for Unicorns: How Sovereign Funds Are Reshaping Investment in the Digital Economy” (Wiley) was released in November and the latest of his China book serial “The Digital War: How China’s Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain and Cyberspace” in December 2020.
Mr. Ma has served on the boards of multinational listed and private companies. He was selected a 2013 Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and has been a member of the Council for Long-Term Investing and Council for Digital Economy and Society. He is a member of New York University (NYU) President’s Global Council since inception, and in 2014 he received the NYU Distinguished Alumni Award.
Mr. Ma earned his MBA from the University of Michigan Ross Business School (Beta Gamma Sigma) and his master of law from the New York University School of Law (Hauser Global Scholar). He earned bachelor of science and bachelor of law degrees from Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He has served as adjunct professor at NYU School of Law (current course “Sovereign Investments & Regulations”), NYU Stern Business School and Tsinghua School of Economics and Management.
Winston‘s keynotes are:
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