The Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI.Asia) turns ideas into sustainable, valuable businesses by connecting people, communities and cash. We are a privately-owned, for-profit innovation company based in Singapore with partners including SingTel Innov8, MDA and SPRING Singapore.
- We specialize in interactive digital media.
- The focus of our work is in Asia, for Asia.
- Our principals are creative technologists and successful entrepreneurs. We seek to empower the next generation, turning founders into funders and inventors into investors.
Current projects
- The JFDI-Innov8 2012 Bootcamp, South East Asia’s first Global Accelerator Network seed accelerator
- Creating an online resource that will help startups hire better
.
History
Hugh Mason and Meng Wong founded JFDI.Asia in 2010. Since then it has:
- Facilitated Startup Weekend events in Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Melbourne, Manila and Delhi. Collectively these engaged 1,500 people to create over 220 prototype digital businesses over a weekend.
- Provided mentoring to over 50 Singapore-based early-stage businesses
- Co-founded Singapore’s Hackerspace
- Conceived and delivered a Visiting Mentor Program that benefited 200+ Singapore startups
Why the name?
We’re sometimes asked about our name. In Chinese we translate it as 佳孵蚪伴, the characters within which literally mean Good Hatch Tadpole Partner and which also captures many of the sounds of the English letters J, F, D and I.
We chose our name for three reasons:
- Firstly, around the world Frogs are associated in mythology with transformation. That is what we do.
- Secondly, ecologists have observed two contrasting approaches to reproduction in nature. Animals like human beings have a small number of offspring and care for every one of them deeply. Trees shed thousands of seeds knowing that most will never make it. Frogs too. As entrepreneurs and investors, we’ve found that you have to take a portfolio approach to launching new ideas.
- Finally, an old story form the East tells of a frog, prideful of the beauty at the bottom of his well, and ignorant of the world beyond. We have met many small companies that hold themselves back, never feeling brave enough to seize a greater opportunity. We help them make that joyful leap.
There was a frog that lived in a shallow well. “Look how well off I am here!” he told a big turtle from the Eastern Ocean. “I can hop along the coping of the well when I go out, and rest by a crevice in the bricks on my return. I can wallow to my heart’s content with only my head above water, or stroll ankle deep through soft mud. No crabs or tadpoles can compare with me. I am master of the water and lord of this shallow well, What more can a fellow ask? Why don’t you come here more often to have a good time?” Before the turtle from the Eastern Ocean could get his left foot into the well, however, he caught his right claw on something. So he halted and stepped back then began to describe the ocean to the frog. “It’s more than a thousand miles across and more than ten thousand feet deep. In ancient times there were floods nine years out of ten yet the water in the ocean never increased. And later there were droughts seven years out of eight yet the water in the ocean never grew less. It has remained quite constant throughtout the ages. That is why I like to live in the Eastern Ocean.” Then the frog in the shallow well was silent and felt a little abashed.
