Singapore meets Sunnyvale

Posted May 8th, 2007 at 5:23 pm by Keith Nilsson, Emerging Markets

 4 Comments / Filed in: Behind the Scenes, Working at Yahoo!

Every once in a while, we need a good excuse to get our CEO and cofounders to put on a sport coat. They did so yesterday in honor of the Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong, who visited our Sunnyvale campus. Over the past week, PM Lee has been on a tour of the U.S. that has included visits with President George Bush and presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He’s now making his way home with a stop in Silicon Valley, and Yahoo! is the only Internet company on his itinerary.

It’s an important visit for me — as head of Emerging Markets, I spend a lot of time in Singapore (and am moving there later this month). Singapore is a critical gateway to countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, where Internet adoption is accelerating, and where Yahoo! has a strong and growing presence. It’s also the second-fastest growing economy in Southeast Asia after Vietnam.

While many Internet and social media companies are rushing to Singapore, Yahoo! has actually been there for 10 years. We worked early on with the Singaporean government to grow the Internet industry there through investment in training and infrastructure, understanding the unique needs of the market and developing locally relevant products. So, we were happy to host the prime minister today and continue this partnership.

Prior to the traditional gift exchange, Terry, Jerry, and I sat down with PM Lee to talk about three things: innovation in online and mobile technologies, education, and the evolving digital media industry in Singapore. Education is a top priority for the prime minister, as he sees its potential to drive his country’s continued development. And an increase in usage of online and mobile services naturally follows that development. In fact, emerging markets such as Indonesia and India are expected to make up 90% of new mobile subscribers this year. Mobile communications is part of daily life in Singapore and Yahoo! has been developing some cool search and Internet tools such as oneSearch and Yahoo! Go, which we’ll be bringing to Southeast Asia soon.

On a tour of the campus, we gave PM Lee a demo of many of these tools, including the new Web-based Yahoo! Instant Messenger that we released last week. Products like these are designed for users in developing markets like Vietnam, where not everyone owns a PC but they still have access to the Internet. Many people there have to share a PC at home or work, or rely on their local Internet café. The prime minister truly enjoyed his visit to Yahoo! as he was very interested in learning about new technologies and taking this Silicon Valley perspective back to his country.

After more technology demos and a stop at the Network Operations Center, the PM’s motorcade rolled off to its next destination and I went back to my plans for the emerging markets, even more energized. It was a great day and a great honor to have a head of state visiting Yahoo!.

I’d better start packing for my big move — look for future posts on the cool things we’ll be doing in Southeast Asia and India.

Keith Nilsson
Vice President of International Emerging Markets

Photo from Maximum Mitch

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4 Comments Add your own

Rose Ann | May 9th, 2007 at 5:00 pm

To Whom it may concern,
I just wanted to tell all of you, how much I love
Yahoo, and for an old gal, I have alot of enjoyment,
on Yahoo, and I know at times, When I was off line,
I always was happy, that you welcomed me back, I hope
someday I can get Yahoo internet, in this part of theUSA,North Carolina. I always use yahoo mail site,
its easy and convenient. Well Thanks again, and I will always be a yahooer at heart.

Yours truly,
Radnc2000@yahoo.com

Christian Cadeo | May 10th, 2007 at 6:25 am

Keith,

Best of luck on the move. I just recently made the move from Los Angeles to Singapore with Microsoft and absolutely love the adventure. If you have the time and inclination when you get over here, do send me an email as I would love to grab lunch.

Cheers,

Christian

Al | May 23rd, 2007 at 2:21 am

I was watching Frontline last night and was sorely dissapointed with your company the way you function in China. You have blood all over your hands to what happened to Mr Sher Tao. He is now languishing in prison not because he did a very bad deed but expressed his views which I think is every human being’s inherent right.

A company’s ideals don’t change when they conduct business, may it be in a foreign country like China. Fear of losing your competetive edge in China may be one of you reasons in doing that unthinkable act. I always admired the American pride and honor but it seems you lost it when you succumbed to Chinese pressure.

I have been a loyal Yahoo patron for years now and I am beginning to show distaste to your company. Hope the board can realize the fact that they lived in a country which espouses freedom of ideas and I know Yahoo, Inc. also espouses this freedom. Let not profit motivate you to compromise your ideals.

Sunnyvale California | October 4th, 2007 at 5:39 am

I like Yahoo! in terms of lay-out or designs of their website or applications.