Back from the fifth Global Digital Trade Expo (GDTE) in Hangzhou, China (23 to 26 September 2026), Mr Sion Abednego, founder of Sanct Social, shares three notes from two days of business matching and the exhibition floor: the Chinese government backs its start-ups from research through to launch; each city is given its own field of innovation to grow; and technology and culture run side by side, seen on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival when a whole city went out to look at the full moon. He also sets out what comes next: one partnership from Hangzhou is being followed up, and Sanct Social plans to return in 2027.
SINGAPORE – On the night of 25 September 2026, the Mid-Autumn Festival, the streets of Hangzhou were still full at half past eleven. People were out to see the full moon, shops stayed open, and the pavements were busy with walkers and bicycles until two in the morning. Mr Sion Abednego, founder of Sanct Social, was among them as a member of the Indonesian business delegation to the fifth Global Digital Trade Expo (GDTE), held from 23 to 26 September 2026.
He came home with three notes.
First: support from research to launch
In his view, the Chinese government backs its start-ups from research and development through to market, which is why their products arrive at prices that are hard to match: on the production side, the companies have little to lose.
“What makes their prices hard to match is not only great labour at an affordable price. It is who carries the risk at the start,” said Mr Abednego. “Research and production trials are funded before the product reaches the market, so by the time it is sold, the price no longer has to cover that risk. For any young company that is a lesson in how an ecosystem can work, not only a lesson about cost.”
Second: one task per city
Each city in China, he noted from the conversations, has its own assigned field of innovation to grow fast. Hangzhou is not Shenzhen or Shanghai, and is not meant to be. On the exhibition floor, a wall marked “AI Hangzhou” spelled out the city’s six fields in one word, WEALTH: wellness, education, art, life, transport and health.
Third: technology and culture side by side
The visit coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated in China with mooncakes and with families gathering to look at the full moon. On Hefang Street, the city’s old street, a street painter drew visitors’ portraits on paper fans in a few minutes, a short walk from halls full of AI hardware.
“The technology at the expo was remarkable, and the way they back their start-ups is worth studying,” he said. “But what I remember most is a whole city going outside to look at the moon together. In Hangzhou people quote the city’s own poet, Su Shi: 但愿人长久，千里共婵娟. Dàn yuàn rén chángjiǔ, qiānlǐ gòng chánjuān. It means: may we live long, and though a thousand miles apart, share the same bright moon. Sanct Social is built for that feeling, for the people who cannot be in the same city.”
The greeting heard everywhere that night: 中秋快乐. Zhōngqiū kuàilè. Happy Mid-Autumn Festival.
On the river
At the delegation dinner on a boat after the GDTE closing ceremony, the towers on both banks lit up into one giant screen, and nearly everyone on deck watched it through a phone held above their heads. “Everyone was looking at the same thing, each through their own phone,” he said. “Sanct Social is built so that at 6pm the people you are close to are in one place, together, even when they live in different cities.”
What comes next
From the business-matching sessions in Hangzhou, one partnership is being followed up, and Sanct Social plans to return to China in 2027 to see the prototype. “We came home with homework, not with an announcement,” said Mr Abednego. “Hangzhou taught us that good products come from long support and from people willing to sit at the same table.”
About Sanct Social
Sanct Social is a social app for close friends and family, available for iPhone on the App Store in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. More at https://sanct.social
This press release has also been published on VRITIMES
Leave a Reply