 These platforms are these kind of businesses that are fundamentally not the same. They're more complex and they operate by different laws of motion than traditional businesses. I see. You're really acting more like a regulator who is trying to ensure a high quality market. I actually was, got into platforms through studying online dating. Learning from simulations that are particular to your company, to your business. Dr. Sam Flanders and Dr. Malati Nung, sorry. How are you guys doing today? Hi. Great. Excellent, excellent. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I'm a professor of economics at ASB E-Cliff. I'm originally from the US and from the state of New Hampshire. And I did my PhD at UNC Chapel Hill in North Carolina. And taught briefly in the US before I came to ASB. I've been at ASB for three years now. What do you do at ASB? I teach, so I'm an economist. I teach quantitative methods courses and also teach competitive strategy. Wow. Sounds impressive. Malati, how about you? I'm from Penang originally. So Penang girl through and through. I was trained primarily in the US. So I spent more than half of my life in the US. Wow. And I also received my PhD in economics from the University of North Carolina. I taught in the US for a bit and I've been with ASB for three years. Okay. And what do you do at ASB? At ASB I teach in a variety of different programs, but I primarily teach economics for managers. And I also teach a program on platforms. For the ASB E-Cliff Executive Education program, the both of you are teaching a program called Platform Strategy. Yes. Tell us about this program. It sounds wonderful to me. Platform Strategy in the Platforms track is really it's a competitive strategy course, but it's really going to be focused on platforms. Because platforms are these kind of businesses that are fundamentally not the same. They're more complex and they operate by different laws of motion than traditional businesses. I see. So in many cases, these sort of platforms, instead of selling a good or service yourself, you're really acting more like a regulator who is trying to ensure a high quality market where buyers and sellers or different participants can come together to get some sort of product that they want. And that requires a different way of thinking about business, which is what we're really excited about teaching. Looking at you, I think there's something you want to add to that. Yes. So we have spent years now tailoring on this program to Southeast Asia. So we have studied with and worked with a variety of platforms in the region, such as food delivery companies. We have worked with job search platforms. We have worked with platforms that do supply chain. So if you're thinking about connecting suppliers and growers of food to people who actually consume the food and restaurants who buy the food to produce, we have worked with those people as well. So we are able to basically give you a sense of the platform industry in Southeast Asia and tailor it basically to what we see in the region. Clearly, the both of you have spent a lot of time doing research on this subject matter. Why is this area important to you? I actually got into platforms through studying online dating. Wow. Yes. So at one point I was actually signed up for a lot of online dating websites. So I understand them. And in that study, I learned and can now speak on how to set up a platform, how to think about matching dynamics, how to think about pricing. And so all of that will be covered in platform strategy program as well. I think that platforms are just these tremendously interesting types of businesses because they fundamentally don't operate the same way as traditional businesses. And with this different paradigm framework for thinking about business, thinking about being the regulator, the market maker, the market designer who creates a platform for people to interact rather than trying to sell a good or service yourself. That creates new opportunities for me as an academic to study these topics, but this is not just an academic issue. So with the advent of information technology, platforms have gone from being this very marginal form of business that you could think of as being represented by small businesses like marriage matchmakers to being the default form of a startup at this point. Right. Wonderful. And what specific organizational issues do you think is addressing? And who should sign up for such a program? So we are targeting sort of two segments for this program in the strategy track. We are looking at people who are interested in starting up a platform. We will provide frameworks and tools for you to think about whether or not you should be doing what you're thinking of doing. And also we will be looking at bigger companies that have internal startups. Yes. So there are lots of different types of platforms or businesses that can benefit from platform strategy. So an obvious one is online retailers. So for example, from Amazon to Alibaba, all these sort of retailers, they operate platforms where buyers meet sellers and form partnerships by products, etc. So we can think about online retailers. We can think about online gig platforms. Those are going to really, if you're operating an online gig platform, you will really benefit from the concepts and the tools that we have in this program. But it's not just limited to platforms that connect buyers and sellers. We can also think about other forms of platforms such as technology architecture. So if you are starting an app store, for example, or if you have an operating system or some other form of software on which other people build programs. So you have a technology architecture that serves as a foundation for other participants in the market to innovate. That is also a core platform topic. And similarly, if you are trying to develop some sort of industry standard, for example, the USB standard for computer connectors or Blu-ray standard, that is also a core platform issue. I see. And what impact do you think this program will have on the participants? So we see a couple of things, I think. The first is that in the time of COVID, I think a lot of businesses are realizing that they need to digitalize and sort of go online. And platforms are going to be a very big component of that. Even more so now. Exactly. So in a very sort of high connectivity, low touch or no touch environment, platform businesses are going to be very important for people to understand. Perhaps you want to start transitioning towards that. This course will be for you. And we're also going to be thinking about just giving you very practical tools, practical frameworks to use. And we're also going to be working through simulations and games so that you get the content that you need for your business in a very fun way. Right. And Sam, what final words do you have for people who might be interested to sign up for this program? We are going to make this a very fun program. It's going to be very little lecturing from us, but it's going to be you learning from cases that we've developed throughout the years. You're going to be learning from simulations that are particular to your company, to your business. And it will be super fun. So we hope you join us. So when can I sign up? Tomorrow or today. Thank you very much, guys.