So i was thinking right. What have we done so far? What kind of message will they bring back with them? Guy Kawasaki made a visit 2 years back. He talked about visiting Batu Caves and chicken wings in Jln Alor. haha As a Malaysian, I’m really proud of these things, but heres my question, when do people start talking about the companies and startups of Malaysia?

How do we compare against our neighbours to the South? I attended Unconference in 2009, and Echelon in 2010, and story is consistent. That Singapore produces startups of quality, with innovative ideas, refined products & potential for scalability. Wait a minute, so do we. BUT – They support this (and this part is really important) – with a network of human relationships stretching from Singapore to Shanghai to Silicon Valley and back .

This network provides Singapore with a not so obvious but huge advantage.
1) The ability to bring their startups global in the shortest time possible
2) bring investors to their shores, and not have their startups move away.
3) exposure to the world and vice versa, in terms of how they execute startups, following the lessons and learning from mistakes of not just Singaporeans but global level startups.

This didnt happen overnight, Singapore made investments years ago planting young interns in Silicon Valley (the folks at E27.sg remembers this, and Echelon happened 6 years later)
Now theres alot more that makes up a startup ecosystem but for the purpose of this post, i wanted to draw attention to this.

The last couple of years, Malaysia has been investing in the tangible. Financing via Preseed and Cradle, training and workshops via the same entities. I don’t think we pay enough attention to human relationships. Just because there is no obvious ROI to it, doesn’t mean its not part of the ecosystem, which I suspect is the way we operate today.

This is a call to action, that when Open Web Asia happens, we make an effort to build relationship with our international guests, to work on simple projects together, collaborate, co-invest, and etc. To be honest I dont exactly know what to do, but i do know something has to be done, and the timing is right. hence tagging all of you guys, whom I consider leaders and visionaries here and elsewhere.

The changes are wide-ranging and equivalent to the top markets around the world. The new ACE Market is particularly exciting and provides Technopreneurs and Investors with an alternative means for fund raising or exits.

This is a “Not to be missed” seminar and briefing for TeAM members and Technopreneurs brought to you courtesy of Bursa Malaysia and TeAM.

This event is by registration only.

Email thamkengyew@gmail.com if you have any queries. Thank you

Here are the event details:-

Download Event Details

Update: The second TEDxKL will be on 27 March. visit www.tedxkl.com for details.

TEDxKualaLumpur is closed for registration. Notification via email for the 1st 100.

TEDxKualaLumpur has confirmed its venue at Plug and Play on the 3rd
June from 3pm-6pm

This independent TEDx event is operated under license from TED

For those who do not know what TED is visit http://www.TED.com and be
awed with some of the most inspiring talks in the world.
We are looking for a few remarkable speakers to fill in 4 slots for
the First TEDxKualaLumpur

As with each TED talk the max time permit is 18 minutes.
Do let me know as soon as possible if you are available and spread the word.
Email to thamkengyew[at]gmail.com

Updates
Info on TEDxKualaLumpur
Location : Plug and Play Technology Garden
Time :3pm-6pm
Fee : FREE
Format: 6 talks by invited speakers and 3 video presentation of TED

Next Tuesday, 28th of April, Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia will be holding their TeAM 6th AGM in Bukit Kiara Equestrian Club, Mont Kiara. TeAM has been formed by a group of Malaysian Technopreneurs to further the interests of Technopreneurs and to assist in the development of the Digital Economy in Malaysia.

Bob Chua of Pulse Group who was “Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2008″ will also be there to share abit of his experience in Entrepreneurship.

100 people. 2.5 Days (Friday Evening – Sunday Evening). Business/product/prototype created.

In the words of the organizers, “UrekaWeekend is an intense event bringing brilliant minds together to create companies, projects and great communities! Participants come from diverse profiles and skill sets such as entrepreneurs, geeks, technical developers, artistic and creative designers, marketing experts, project managers, legal hawks, public relations and many more.”

Recently we spoke to Hakim Albasrawy of UrekaWeekend to find out exactly what the UrekaWeekend can do for you!

Q.  Hakim, can you tell us more about the weekend?

UrekaWeekend is an event that we are putting together to give people a chance to explore ideas and what can be done with them. We are inviting 100 of the most interesting people we know (and some that we don’t) from a variety of backgrounds and with a multitude of skill sets, all to join us and discover the joy of creating.

Each participant will have the chance to share ideas that they are passionate about and what to see come to life, the more ideas that people share, the more interesting the event becomes as there are more things to do and try. We encourage the open sharing of ideas, but given the nature of the event, and the fact that it will be live twittered/blogged/streamed etc., trade secrets will be difficult to enforce. We suggest that if you have an idea that you don’t want taken, then don’t share/present them.

Once the ideas are shared participants get a chance to view the pool of ideas and add their views on what would help the idea grow and evolve. They do they do this by commenting and voting for ideas that they think have great potential. Needless to say the more votes an idea gets, the more people will gravitate towards it.

All of the above happens before the event – check out http://urekaweekend.com (you have to sign up to contribute and rate ideas)

The event proper starts on the 17th or April (Friday evening). Where we get all the participants together to sit down face-to-face and further discuss the ideas that they have selected, form teams to execute the ideas and above all plan what they are going to be doing over the course of the next 48 hours.

The objective of this event is to nurture the spirit of sharing, and learning through experiencing.

Participants will be given a free hand to develop their ideas in any fashion that they see fit. If you are a programmer than go ahead and come up with a prototype of that “selling tempe online” website that everyone always draws reference to. If you’re a business minded person a business plan to commercialize this product would probably right up your alley. For those with a creative flair, flex your artistic muscles and come up with a corporate identity or product packaging.

Don’t worry however; we won’t be leaving you wholly on your own. If participants need help there will always be a friendly facilitator around to point you in the right direction if you get lost. Once you have your masterpiece completed you have to then present it to your peers, everyone then gets to vote for ideas that they thought turned out the best. Should people decide to start up businesses with this idea and what they have worked out during the course of the event – they are welcomed to. 

Q. Ok that was really lengthy. Now who should come?

We hope to see participants come from diverse profiles and skill sets such

Developer – Back End: You’re the person who lays the solid foundation upon which everything else depends. Everyone else will be trying to get you to code up their brilliant idea after the weekend; and with a budget, you could.

Developer – Architect: You’re the person that comes up with the overarching vision for the project. You fit tab A into slot B.

Developer – Front End: You make things look good, working directly with the User Experience team to make everything rock for the user. CSS is your friend, and IE bugs are the enemy in which you destroy. User rebellion will be directed toward you.

PR (Blogger Extraordinaire): You like telling the story of The UrekaWeekend (your project) and you’re awesome at keeping the message alive. Craft buzzword packed blog posts, dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bull.

User Experience: You know that all your friends are going to be using what you just helped create. You know that unless it’s user-friendly, your friends won’t talk to you. You fear losing your friends.

Designer: Someone has to add the drop shadow and gradient to that interface design, you will do it for the site design, banners, business cards and logo.

Legal: You make certain that all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed and help your project move forward after the weekend.

Marketing and Business Development: You have a knack for finding ways to sell and how to make money. You can easily come up with a plan to sell ice (even if it’s shredded!!) to Eskimo’s.

Cook/Court Jester: Don’t know where you fit in but want to experience the weekend? The cook/joker position might just be your ticket. You make sure the food shows up, the drinks are cold, participants are entertained and the most random tasks are completed. You could also slot into any of the roles above should there be a need. 

At the moment we are looking for mobile programmers, web programmers and start up entrepreneurs, anyone that has the interest to embark on the journey of entrepreneurship should consider coming over and check out what the weekend is about. 

Q. Can you tell us a little about what kind of activities will the participants be doing over the weekend?

The event is designed as such that what the participants experiences is heavily dependent on the dynamic of the team that they choose. Each team will experience the event in their very own special way. Added to that, the ideas that they chose to develop will play a big part in determining how they develop it. Take for example there are 2 teams – one with football shoes at the core of the idea and the other with new age farming techniques (using web based software to automate day to day operations on said far)

Each would have to some basic things such 

1. research into the 
2. planning execution of the idea (which would be worlds 
3. devising how to show a scale 
4. planning the pitch (as teams have only 5 minutes to tell the story on their idea)

For this reason we recommend that participants network and form teams with new people they just meet, especially if their proficiencies are different (or even complimenting)

There are very few rules that participants have to observe.

1. A Team must be made up of no less than 3 people
2. A person can only join one team at a time.
3. You can only develop based on ideas that are available in the pool of ideas
4. Any idea can be worked on by any number of teams

Q. Sounds like an amazing learning experience. How do you think the UrekaWeekend will benefit the entrepreneurial community?

Through joining this event participants will learn the following
Forming a group

1. Pitching an idea
2. Innovating
3. Working in a team
4. Working under pressure
5. Developing a business plan
6.  Implementation
7. Prototyping
8. Networking
9. Think for yourself

Q. Everything sounds good so far. What are the costs for attending UrekaWeekend?

Registration cost RM80. What do you get? The chance to live and breathe ideas and innovation for 54 hours, food, great line in your resume, learn something new, make new friends, be part of a community, and an exciting and very fulfilling weekend time spent that you will never get anywhere else.

Q. What should I bring to The UrekaWeekend? Do I need to prepare anything?

Just bring your enthusiasm, commitment and willingness to work in a team and be part of something exciting. If you have ideas, don’t forget your elevator pitch for Friday.

Other important items that are needed:

1. Laptops (You need definitely need this to “work” on your project, blog, tweet, play games, surf the web etc…)
2. Camera’s (take as much photo’s as you can and don’t forget to tag it The UrekaWeekend when you upload them to flickr, twitter, etc..)
3. Sleeping Bags & pillows (If you’re sleeping over)

Q. Lastly, Is there a discount for MYE Readers? Hehe. Where do we sign up?

Register yourself at the UrekaWeekend.com registration site. Choose from the different types of roles you want to be. These represents what role you’d like to contribute and what you’d like to spend the weekend doing. This does not necessarily have to be what you do for your day job.

For MYE readers just sign up below to enjoy the event for RM 50.00 instead of the walk in rate of RM 80.00

Ureka Weekend is a Malaysia Entrepreneurs supported event.

Elevyn adopts the Etsy and eBay concept, but designed specifically to make it easy for marginalized/rural communities to set up ecommerce stores for their local crafts. By buying an item, you support not only the seller, but a portion of funds are also channeled to a local community project (Think “textbooks for rural schools”). The folks of Elevyn also do a lot of work on the ground (currently in the jungles of Borneo!) helping communities get set up.

[KengYew]
Mike, thanks for interviewing! :) Tell us about Elevyn.

[Mike]
Thanks for the opportunity!
Elevyn (pronounced as “eleven”) is an online platform to empower marginalized communities. We enable rural entrepreneurs and non-government organizations (NGOs) to set up online shops and sell their crafts to a global market. Our goal? To improve the economic standards and financial independence of marginalized communities.
[Here's how Elevyn works]

[KengYew]
Why the name Elevyn?
[Mike]
The whole thing started when my partner Devan and I took the challenge of applying for the MDeC Preseed grant. We found out about it a couple of days prior to the deadline; and after poring thru sleepless nights on the proposals, doing the presentations and eventually having everything come together – we wanted to call ourselves 11th Hour Solutions for all the last-minute craziness. Elevyn is sort of a word-play on that – although a lot of people seem to have trouble with the name so we may do something about it later down the line!

[KengYew]
Okay, I want to try and understand this more. Part of the problem you are solving is using the Internet to empower communities to be able to sell online. How would your platform be able to help them any more, than say something like eBay?
[Mike]
Haha we get grilled on that a lot – even during the MDeC presentation Q&A itself! A unique factor is that we introduce this thing called CAUSES, which are little community-based projects run in collaboration with the community and field partners / NGOs. For example, a Cause could be something simple like “Raise $100 to buy books for the local school”.

Now here’s where it differs from eBay and anything else out there – every time a product is sold, 5% is automatically channeled towards a Cause. From here, we see multiple benefits – sellers make an income, their community project gets funded, and the buyer leaves with a great feeling knowing that they have not only supported a seller, but also to its community.

[KengYew]
That’s a great concept. So how are you currently reaching out to your buyers and sellers?
[Mike]
Our pilot project is a crafts seller in Kota Kinabalu, who also works with a group of single / aged mothers and poor women at her village. We have a Field Coordinator in the team, Puah Sze Ning and she works directly on the ground with the sellers. Reaching out – for now will be mainly online. Get blogger support / write-ups, provide widgets, banner advertising, partnerships.

Eventually we want the sellers themselves to be responsible for marketing because it’s a huge part of what contributes to the success of a business, and they need to know that. Ultimately we’d like to see sellers from the world over setting up their own online shops directly thru the website.

[KengYew]
So until you reach that “critical mass” point, you’ll be replicating the field coordinator model. I think user education is a big challenge man.
[Mike]
Tremendous challenge; but at the same time, we’re also surprised at many things. Who knew that a village, accessible only via logging roads, hours deep in Sabah, actually has satellite-based Internet connections?!

We were pleasantly surprised with how knowledgeable some of the village folks were. There was this elderly village chief – the old-uncle type you’d expect to sit at coffee-shops talking politics – and Sze Ning had him discussing e-commerce! Plus the community officers that we aliased with – most of them young adults from similar villages nearby – all Internet-savvy and some had nicer phones than we do!

[KengYew]
Okay. I’m going to talk a bit about the initial stages of the project. How did you come up with the idea of helping these folks?
[Mike]
The interesting thing is… this idea didn’t come up at the snap of a finger. Devan and myself initially wanted to do a project very similar to this! We wanted to interview social entrepreneurs… folks who combine both profitability and social elements into their business.

We actually started development on the site, and the more we got into it, the more ideas came about. We wanted to incorporate videos and create this whole social entrepreneur online scene… and it’ll have collaboration tools to get actions going, we’ll have this, we’ll have that, and as a revenue generator, we’ll have a shop that sells only cause-based products produced by the social entrepreneurs.
Elevyn materialized out of these many ideas that were built on top of each other. So a word of advice to entrepreneurs – never stop brainstorming – you never know what might come out of it!

[KengYew]
Yeah man… I plan on doing 1 year anniversary interviews for all startups.
Just to see how their ideas have evolved because that is so critical for the startup stage.
So you started this with Devan? How did you guys meet? And how big is the team today?
[Mike]
Yup, Devan and myself spearhead the business development – but since Devan is already a hardcore PHP programmer, he also spends a lot of hours on programming. Wilson our designer was also involved very early in the project – he and Devan go back a long way. We recently engaged Shahrul as another designer, and Ms Leong who does our accounts on the sides. We have Sze Ning as our Field Coordinator, and she’s, well, mainly in the field. Even right now, she’s in Sabah for 3 weeks to get us ready for the launch and to work with another community, potentially coming onboard Elevyn in the future.

How did I meet Devan? It was actually a series of interesting coincidences. A few years back I met him thru a PHP developer forum… had wanted to outsource some jobs to him. But it didn’t pan out… many months later I bumped into him again while with my girlfriend (Sze Ning) who helps out at this stall selling indigenous handicrafts called Gerai OA. Turns out that Sze Ning and Devan both volunteer for the same thing!
After that I kept bumping into Devan at an Indian restaurant in Sri Hartamas – but the changing moment came during a lazy Sunday afternoon where I had lunch, saw Devan there and we started talking and discussing all the way until dinner! It was then, that the idea for collaboration was hatched.

[KengYew]
Okay let’s talk about funding. When did you apply for Preseed? How long did development take and when do you plan to launch?
[Mike]
We applied for Preseed towards the end of 2007 and actual development started in April 08. We plan to do a beta launch within this week itself (Aug 08). The public launch will be confirmed once we get feedback from the beta users.

We’ve got one shop ready for the beta launch; and users can already buy the crafts online. We bought a pencil holder ourselves last week – and surprise surprise, it arrived within 3 days! It was quite a shock as the item just popped in out of nowhere – no email notifications; nothing. We weren’t even expecting the seller to have checked her email for our order! So that’s one of those little things that we need to work one with the seller… to not surprise buyers! Haha…

[KengYew]
Payment is done using credit card?
[Mike]
Yeah, credit card and PayPal at the moment.

[KengYew]
Alright so what are your future plans for Elevyn? Do you hope to be sustainable after Preseed? Looking for investment?
[Mike]
Future plans – we want the impact of Elevyn to be felt globally. As influential as Kiva, if possible. Because with the internet – your market really is global. Preseed funding has been tremendously helpful, and we are thankful for that. It has allowed us to do so many things which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
We’re keeping our costs very low to ensure sustainability for as long as possible after Preseed. We’re also looking at grants from social entrepreneurship foundations. We recently made it to the final of the YSEI competition – but the results will only be known in September. So that’ll give us a small amount of money which will help – if we win, that is!

Examples of these social entrepreneurship foundations:
YSEI – http://www.ysei.org/
Skoll Foundation- http://www.skollfoundation.org/
Ashoka – http://www.ashoka.org/
Stockholm Challenge – http://www.stockholmchallenge.se/

[KengYew]
What have been your biggest obstacles so far, and what do you think will be your obstacles in the future?
[Mike]
We’re having too much fun! Hahaha… Seriously I’d say it has to be working with the communities. It’s a very steep learning curve – from learning of their infrastructure, to getting their interest to come online, and managing the various “people” issues that come along with it.

[KengYew]
Can you give me some examples of what you mean by “people” issues?
[Mike]
Issues that are beyond our control! :-)
Firstly, there’s the challenge of selling the idea of going online to the communities. This isn’t much of a problem – we’re incredibly lucky to have Sze Ning onboard. She’s built up a good reputation with her community work throughout the years so it helps a great deal. I’m not sure if we would have been able to even step foot in any of the villages without her around.

But the real issues start from there. Communities must first get organized as a team – who will produce the crafts, what to produce, pricing, fund management, etc. And somebody needs to lead the team. We can’t go into the village and start ordering people around. We can only advise – the people themselves must take the initiative. These are some of the many factors that we cannot control.

Another major issue was copyright. Some parties expressed serious concerns about local traditional motifs being open to plagiarism once published on the web. Again, these are human factors – fear of the uncertainty; because we can say the same of the products being sold in the offline market. Suggested solutions include drafting protection clauses and forming copyright taskforces – all of which were beyond our capacity!

[KengYew]
I think I will end on that note. Thanks for interviewing Mike!

This interview was writen by Tham Keng Yew and edited for Malaysia Entrepreneurs.

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