Press Release: Geek Terminal Launches ‘Geek Pass’ Introduces revolutionary stickkey® RFID as membership card. First organization to use Singapore-developed technology to replace traditional plastic membership cards. 26 August 2008, SINGAPORE – Geek Terminal, the world’s first business café, today launched its inaugural membership programme aptly called the GEEK PASS, a non-traditional stored value membership card that allows members to purchase food and beverages at Geek Terminal. Adopting state-of-the-art technology, The Geek Pass is an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip embedded into a small, non-slip adhesive sticker which serves a dual purpose – a non-slip surface for the object it is stuck onto and a membership card which collects information on individual members’ F&B preferences. Small enough to be pasted on the back of a mobile phone, wallet or any daily carry-around hand-held accessory, the Geek Pass introduces a revolutionary Singapore-developed technology that replaces traditional plastic membership cards, freeing members from the hassle of carrying yet another card that fights for wallet space. Members simply tap their GEEK PASS on a RFID reader to pay for their purchases and Geek Terminal will be able to track their members’ preferences, like their favourite coffee or favourite dish, resulting in more customised customer-centric marketing efforts in the near future. For a limited period, members who sign up (for free) will receive a stored-value of S$10 in the Geek Pass. Thereafter, for each S$10 topped up into the Geek Pass, each member will receive an additional S$1 worth of credit to make F&B purchases at Geek Terminal. Geek Terminal members will also be entitled to a range of privileges as laid out in Appendix A. The first 100 members to sign up, will also receive a complimentary Bak2u anti-theft software for devices. Geek Terminal is proud to be the first F&B and retail establishment in Singapore to adopt this technology for commercial purposes as a membership identification and payment tool. While many establishments use traditional plastic cards to identify their members, Geek Terminal’s business café positioning propelled the café founders to pursue a more cutting edge solution that proved hassle-free and convenient. Exploring various latest innovations in CRM (Customer Relationship Management) technology, Geek Terminal eventually decided on the RFID Stickkey® developed by local company, First Innovations Asia Pte Ltd, launched this year at the Singapore Fashion Festival. Says Leonard Wee, CEO of First Innovations Asia Pte Ltd, “We are pleased that Geek Terminal has selected Stickkey® as the technology for their membership programme. Stickkey® combines two innovations that allow businesses to integrate unobtrusively into the lives of their customers, thereby creating a truly user-friendly membership programme, allowing customers access to their membership privileges with the least hassle. Geek Terminal is our first retail client to use Stickkey® for a full-fledged membership programme and we look forward to their success.” Geek Terminal is conveniently located in the heart of the Central Business District at 55 Market Street, opposite the Golden Shoe carpark. +++ About Geek Terminal Geek Terminal is Singapore’s premier business lounge and business office for the corporate executive. Geek Terminal links and empowers like-minded professionals to connect to new business services. Built specifically for business travellers and mobile business executives looking for a place to meet, socialize, work on their laptops and have a great cup of coffee and food – with full access to state-of-the-art business centre facilities all within reach. For customers, Geek Terminal provides premium technology – readily available power points, high speed secured wireless internet access, complete document management and the most advanced tele- and video-conferencing technologies. Companies looking to hold functions and presentations can consider Geek Terminal as a one-stop location for full business facilities. Geek Terminal is strategically located in the Business District of Singapore and serves breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner from 7.30 am till 10 pm on weekdays and from 9 am till 6 pm on Saturdays (closed on Sundays and public holidays). For more information, visit www.geekterminal.com. About Fast Innovations Asia Pte Ltd and Stickkey® Fast Innovations Asia Pte Ltd is your exclusive distributor of Stickkey®. Stickkey® is a non-skid sticker with a RFID chip that can replace proximity cards for various applications with just a tap of your mobile device. With Stickkey®, RFID applications have never been more convenient. From contact-less micro-payments, membership cards, secured door access to transportation payments, Stickkey® allows consolidation of convenience just by sticking a Stickkey® on the back of a mobile device. Furthermore, Stickkey® is an advertising medium on its own with the capability of being a billboard on a mobile device! Stickkey® is patent pending and all rights are owned by Stickkey® Security Access Pte Ltd (major shareholder of Fast Innovations Asia Pte Ltd). Visit us at www.fia.com.sg for more information. About BAK2u Pte Ltd BAK2u Pte Ltd is a Singapore startup company (2005) that develops and provides unique lost and found services through anti-theft softwares to protect owners’ gadgets; PDA phones, mobile phones, laptops, digital cameras, iPods, External hard drives, USB Flash Drives, and so on. For more information, visit: www.bak2u.com. +++ Issued on behalf Geek Terminal by ActVentures Marketing For media enquiries, please contact: Veronica Tan HP: +65 9105 5910 E-mail: veronica@actventures.biz Liew Chai Hoon DID: +65 6488 1381 E-mail: hoon@actventures.biz APPENDIX A GEEK TERMINAL MEMBERSHIP PRIVILEGES - Free high-speed, reliable and secure internet connection - Free local and overseas phones calls using Geek Terminal’s IP phones - Free loan of laptop (usual charge at S$5 per hour) - 20% discount on use of enterprise level video conferencing facilities - 20% discount and priority booking of sound-proof private meeting rooms - 20% discount off business centre facilities (print, fax, copy and scan) - 20% off space rental for event packages - First-hand discounts on gadgets from Technology Partners - Networking opportunities with like-minded executives - Discounted rates or free professional seminars and workshops - Priority access to business concierge services o Jet Quay’s exclusive flight check-ins and returns at members’ rates o Hotel booking o Limousine/Taxi booking o Courier service Birthday Privileges for members o Free 2 glasses of wine on the month of your birthday o Free dessert if you dine with us on your birthday o 20% discount off birthday packages Press Release - Winners of WCG ‘08 Singapore appeal for funds to compete in global championships Singapore, August 26, 2008 – An online fund-raising campaign has been started to enable Singapore’s top cyber-athletes compete in the upcoming Grand Finals of the World Cyber Games (WCG) ‘08 in Cologne, Germany. This fund-raising campaign is crucial after gamers were stranded without sponsorship even though they qualified at the National Finals to represent Singapore. Three of these Singaporean champions are even medal hopefuls in Cologne. World Cyber Games (WCG) is the world’s largest and most recognized gaming festival. This year, more than 800 of the world’s best cyber-athletes from over 70 countries will be arriving in Cologne, Germany to compete. Unless our six national cyber-athletes manage to raise S$5,000 each by September, they will not be able to represent Singapore in Cologne even though they won that opportunity by qualifying at the Singapore National finals. Unlike other countries like China and South Korea, Singapore has yet to recognize cyber-gaming as a national sport. Therefore these cyber-athletes find a lack of structured support even though some of them have performed consistently well on the international stage. In a last ditch attempt to participate and win in what has been hailed by some as the equivalent of the cyber Olympics, our national cyber-athletes have decided to personally raise the $30,000 needed to cover airfares, accommodation and tournament entrance fees. Inspired by their maturity and determination, (Singapore) Cybersports and Online Gaming Association (SCOGA) has decided to help these cyber-athletes because one of the cornerstone of our mission is to “achieve international success and recognition for Singapore in competitive gaming”. Some of our cyber-athletes actually stand a good chance of winning medals and bringing home the glory. Team members have previously won numerous pan-Asian and international titles including - 2005 World Cyber Games International Grand Finals Dead or Alive 1st Runner Up - 2006 World Cyber Games Asian Championship Dead or Alive Champion - 2007 World Cyber Games Asian Championship Dead or Alive 1st Runner Up - 2007 Championship Gaming Series Pan-Asian Championship Team Champion - 2007 Championship Gaming Series World Finals FIFA Individual 2nd Runner-Up - 2007 Championship Gaming Series World Finals Dead or Alive Individual Champion The players who have won WCG ?08 Singapore and being supported in this fundraising are Mohamed Phirkhan s/o Mohamed Yusuf Khan (FIFA 08), Mohamed Fadhil Bin Mohamed Anwar (Need for Speed), Dennis Ooi (Command & Conquer 3), Lim Wei Yang (Warcraft III), Danny Koo Kwok En (Virtua Fighter 5) and Wilson Chia (Virtua Fighter 5). Of these 6 players, SCOGA have strong reasons to believe that Wilson, Phirkhan and Danny have good medal chances in Cologne. However, SCOGA will be fund-raising for all 6 with a goal of S$30,000/- through our online website. Donations can be made through Paypal, cheque, and by 28th of August, through eNETS which supports Mastercard and VISA. We have to reach our targets by early September 08. Sponsorships are also welcome. At the time of writing, close to S$5,000/- have been raised through the gaming community and friends. On behalf of our Singapore cyber-champions, we plead for your support to donate and help us spread the word – we have put up some banners and widgets which you can add to your own blogs and sites. Your support is crucial in sending these Singaporeans to „cyber Olympics? and win a medal for Singapore. We do not have much time and every effort counts. Notes to Editor: - For complete player profiles, please visit http://www.SCOGA.org/sgchamps - For more information on WCG, please visit http://www.worldcybergames.com - For additional information or to interview the athletes, please contact Nicholas Khoo. Contact Information: Nicholas Khoo, SCOGA Co-Founder Nicholas (at) SCOGA.org Kelvin Tan, SCOGA President and Co-Founder Kelvin@SCOGA.org About SCOGA SCOGA was formally registered as Cybersports and Online Gaming Association (Singapore) in Febuary 2008 with the mission “to develop local gaming communities, through education, to achieve international success and recognition for Singapore in competitive gaming”. In the midst of registering as a National Sports Association, the acronym SCOGA has been used instead of ‘COGA(S)’ because we plan to be the national organisation for Singapore eSports eventually with ‘Singapore’ in front of the organisation name. The executive committee is made up of some of the top cyberatheletes, coaches, managers of the Singapore eSports scene as well as concerned parents, educators and doctors. Our patron is Dr Yeo Ning Hong, who is also the current patron of Singapore National Olympic Committee. SCOGA is very much in our infancy and in the midst of planning exciting events for 2008/09. More information can be found on http://www.SCOGA.org Related Links [1] Straits Times, Digital Life. 65Bits Episode 85 : iPhone Mania - Singapore Edition! Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] iPhone 3G launch in Singapore, [2] Intel Dev Forum: Inside Nehalem, [3] Kevin Rose’s Apple products rumors, [4] Apple Macbook MagSafe power adapter strain relief issues, [5] Exploding iPod Nanos, [6] Dell latitude E series launch in Singapore and the Bytes of the Week : Caffeine & Renamer. Do click and check out their podcast. Press Release: WIDGEOUS launches developer network Singapore, 22nd August 2008 – Local web startup Widgeous (http://widgeo.us) launches their Developer Network – also known as the Widgeous DevNet – today with the aim of increasing engagement efforts with the international developer community. Featuring consolidated feeds from a recently integrated forum and their blog, the Widgeous DevNet (http://widgeo.us/devnet) comes equipped with a getting started guide and sample codes to help interested developers have a go at creating applications that enable users to interact across multiple communications channels. In addition to just technical resources, a job board for Widgeous Developers will also be integrated into the DevNet for companies sourcing for developers who are experienced at integrating and building applications with the Widgeous platform. The DevNet plays a critical role in the development of their ecosystem which involves application developers, web content and services consumers as well as business entities coming together. With applications using Widgeous as a key communications platform, more users will gain the benefit of being able to interact with their applications regardless of where they are. In line with their goal of increasing developer engagement, Widgeous is also running a hackathon (http://widgeo.us/hackathon) lasting till the end of September 2008. Developers are encouraged to build creative and useful applications that fully utilize the Widgeous cross-channel capabilities. Widgeous made their debut appearance in the local development scene earlier in the year when they presented their initial version of the platform at Barcamp Singapore on the 25th May 2008. They have since developed several in-house applications and are slated to make several new releases in the next few weeks. For more information, please visit: http://widgeo.us http://blog.widgeo.us http://widgeo.us/devnet For enquiries, contact: Ridzuan Ashim Chief Executive Officer Tel : +65 97968124 TenCube’s WaveSecure in Nokia’s N96 (India) While India celebrated the launch of the new Nokia N96, Singapore startup TenCube had their own piece of good news to shout about. Their flagship product WaveSecure is the only 3rd party application that is bundled together with the sleek N96! Links to several news sites after the jump. Nokia Unveils the N96 Tech2 - Mumba,Maharashtra,India The Nokia N96 comes pre-bundled with WaveSecure, an application that allows consumers to secure everything on the device wirelessly. … See all stories on this topic Nokia Unveils the N96 in India as a competition to Apple 3G By Latest on Tech(Latest on Tech) The Nokia N96 comes pre-bundled with WaveSecure, an application that allows consumers to secure everything on the device wirelessly. One can save and create a back up of all data (contacts, SMS, call logs and calendar entries) through … Talk about Gadgets, Freeware,… - http://freewareindia.blogspot.com/ Nokia launches the N96! By Editor It comes loaded with Wavesecure that allows the device to be tracked in case of theft and allows data back up through Internet. It also offers Navigation through Nokia 2.0 maps, a 5megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics. … Thinking Aloud - http://www.thinkingaloud.in Nokia N96 launched in India! By jaganath … Dual slider with dedicated music keys; A-GPS chip with built-in software for turn-by-turn directions; 3G with HSDPA; Dedicated music chip for excellent sound quality; Built-in WaveSecure software for storing backups. … Nokia N96 Blog - http://n96.nokiablogs.com Press Release: New website for expatriate information services: ExpatFinder.com ExpatFinder.com addresses the increased demand for information and services for global on the move professionals and their families. Singapore August 21, 2008- Interexpat Pte. Ltd., a Singapore headquartered Internet services company (www.interexpat.com) today launched new information services combining social community capabilities with a powerful global search engine: ExpatFinder.com. The new service aptly called ExpatFinder is the first vertical search engine for people intending to relocate or already living abroad. ExpatFinder.com addresses the increased demand for information and services by Global HR departments, relocating professionals and their families. The website acts as a channel to guide expatriates or pre-expatriates about to make the move, to the most relevant information and websites both locally and globally. Featuring a simple keyword search interface, ExpatFinder provides its users access to the highly detailed and relevant information needed to make informed expatriation and relocation decisions. ”Expatriation is characterized by a need for information on various topics with a different perspective than other average web users. Expats need deeper, more focused information to relocate with ease. With the unveiling of our specialized search engine www.ExpatFinder.com, we are excited to be able to provide expats all over the world with a comprehensive and user-friendly resource, giving access to information search but also very soon additional search for services like local relocation services, international moving, housing and much more,’ said co-founder Sébastien Deschamps. The global family start-up with offices in Singapore and France, uses the search technology from French company Exalead and Singapore’s Qweki (for the blog search only). ”Working with a mature search engine technology provider like Exalead gave us the necessary experience to build a state of the art search solution. Qweki allowed us a greater flexibility with the expat blogging community.” adds Francois Deschamps, co-founder, Interexpat. In addition to web search, users of ExpatFinder.com can interact and share the experience and lifestyle with other expats by doing a search on blogs, and discussion forums. The Expat Blog search provides an insight on local experiences through the eyes of an expat and further helps to ease the adjustment of expats and expat families to make the relocation a success. About Interexpat & ExpatFinder.com French and French-American co-founders Francois and Sébastien Deschamps are working on innovative solutions for the expatriate populations around the world. ExpatFinder is one of their favourite as it combines their fascination for the search technology as well as their goal to bring support to people and families in global transition or with international lifestyles. ExpatFinder is also the first website launched by their co-founded Singapore based company: Interexpat Pte Ltd. They are currently working on other expat-related projects including a community website to drive innovation in the expatriate online experience. For more information visit: www.expatFinder.com Media Contact: Sébastien Deschamps – email: seb@expatfinder.com - cell: +65 9738 2373 65Bits Episode 84 : Anti-Social at the Social Media Breakfast Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] Tech65 will conduct a Podcasting workshop at Science Center as a part of “A Month of Science”, [2] Creative Zen X-Fi Review, [3] ISPs, Internet Speed, and Net Neutrality in Singapore, [4] RAZORTV, [5] Will freedom ring on LiMo’s Linux-based mobile platform?, [6] Intel’s “mainstream” 80GB and 160GB SSDs ready to launch with mainstream price?, [7] Palm’s Treo 850 is really the Treo Pro? and Byte of the Week: DownThemAll. Do click and check out their podcast. Event: Yahoo! Networking Session for Global Hackday (Developers Only) Are you a developer, or do you know someone who is an avid developer? If so, come and apply for this once in a lifetime opportunity! E27 is offering an all-expenses paid trip to Yahoo! HQ in Sunnyvale California to represent Singapore at the company’s Open Hack Day with exciting prizes to be won! Coding glory! Here are details for the coming Yahoo! Networking Session for the coming Wednesday. So, check out the event if you are an avid developer. Please note that the correct date (from E27) is 21 August 2008, Thursday. Here are the details for the event: Date: Thursday, August 21, 2008 Time: 6:30pm - 9:00pm Location: Loof (Odeon Towers Extension Rooftop) Street: 331 North Bridge Road #03-07 City/Town: Singapore, Singapore Programme: 6.30-7.30: Registration & Dinner 7.30-7.45: E27 Introduction 7.45-8.15: Yahoo! Open Hack Day Announcement 8.15-9.00: Networking & Cocktail RSVP now - join us for a night of geeky get together! Of course, more details regarding the sponsored trip to the Hackathon @ Yahoo! HQ California will be given on the event itself! Open Web Asia Conference 2008 Open Web Asia Conference ‘08 - “The first pan-Asia web technology event bringing together executives, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from throughout Asia”. Held on October 14 2008 (which happens to BL’s birthday), Sheraton Grande Walkerhill, Seoul, Korea in association with the 9th World Knowledge Forum Open Web Asia ‘08 marks the birth of a new conference that will be the first truly pan-Asia web technology event. Top technology executives, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists from throughout Asia will gather for this premier event to be hosted in Seoul, Korea in its inaugural year. The event is organized by members of the Open Web Asia Workgroup and other prominent entrepreneurs, thinkers, and bloggers from within the Asian web industry. It was spurred by a desire to create a high quality, informative and practical technology conference focused on the Asian internet industry. To date this has been lacking. Open Web Asia will be held in association with the World Knowledge Forum (WKF). The WKF has established itself as one of the most prestigious conferences in Asia with speakers and attendees such as Bill Gates, Colin Powell, Jack Welch, Alan Greenspan, Michael Dell, and Paul Wolfowitz. The theme of the 2008 conference is ‘The Social Web’. Socialization has been a game changing development in the internet industry and the social web is an area where Asia has its own strength and vibrancy. Asian countries have a distinct internet cultures and market players, so informative and educational cross-country comparisons can be made. The one day conference will be divided into four sessions focusing on the following key areas: Insights and Best Practices, Innovations in Asia; Collaboration - An Introduction to Asia’s Social Web; and East Meets West - The challenges of Internationalization To and From Asia. The topics were chosen as a platform for information, education and debate. Confirmed speakers include some of the most experienced and knowledgeable people from the Asian internet industry and a selection of business leaders and thinkers from outside the region. - Kevin Day (CEO, Comsenz) (China) - Arthur Chang (VP of Global Sales, Alibaba) (China) - Yongjoon Hyoung (CEO of StoryBlender & Founder of Cyworld) (Korea) - Yongseok Jang (Senior Director, eBay Asia Pacific) (Korea) - Yozo Kaneko (Director and COO of ngi group, inc.) (Japan) - James W. Kim (CEO of Yahoo!’s Korea Region) (Korea) - Jimmy Kim (Executive Vice President, Nexon Corp.) (Korea) - Loic Le Meur (CEO, Seesmic) (USA) - Ram Lee (Head of Communities, NHN Corporation (Naver)) (Korea) - Kent Lindström (Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Friendster) (USA) - Shusaku Maruko (General Manager, Corporate Strategy Department, Felica) (Japan) - Jean K. Min (Communications Director, Ohmynews) (Korea) - Akio Tanaka (Partner, Infinity Ventures) (Japan) - Bill Wang (VP of Overseas Business, Perfect World) (China) - Andreas Weigend (Consultant & Lecturer; Former Chief Scientist of Amazon) (USA) - Kwan Yoon (Partner, Bluerun Ventures) (USA) This premier conference will offer web professionals from inside Asia and those from outside with an eye on the Asian web market an opportunity to learn, network and create business connections that will benefit both the regional and global internet industry. For more information and registration: please visit www.openwebasia.com News Flash: Launch of Ogywawa at Le Noir, Clarke Quay Have you ever thought of buying a pretty girl a drink, knowing which pub she will be? Then imagine you are a global citizen with friends all over the world and all you wanted is to buy them drinks not physically but by the power of the Internet. An interesting web service integrating with the mobile phone has popped up in Singapore that allows you to do that. Preetam Rai, our famous web evangelist on interesting Internet services in Asia, has recently talked about Ogywawa in Unconference 2008 Singapore and Barcamp Malaysia, which means ‘Cheers!’in Zulu. Ogywawa.com, founded by Sunil Coushik and Ray Koh, is a service where you can now send your friends messages and buy them drinks online. BL, Daniel Goh, Ben Koe and Ian Timothy have attended this interesting soft launch at Le Noir, and would be bringing you the most interesting updates soon about this interesting service. However, later today, do check out their service. 65Bits Episode 83 : The Chilly One Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1]A shout out to the editor of Streetdirectory.com, [2]iPhone to launch in Singapore on 22nd August, [3]The soft launch of Blog.nus, Wiki.nus and the Online Mindmapping Tool, [4]xBox 360 Pro (60GB) will be coming to Singapore, [5]iriver Spinn caught on video, kills without words, [5]The “Mojave Experiment” by Microsoft, [6]Google Calendar gets simpler sync with CalDAV and the Byte of the Week : SuperGenPass: A Free Bookmarklet Password Generator. Do click and check out their podcast. Singapore PHP User Group Meetup - August 2008 The theme for this month is “Let’s Bake Cakes”, and if you are a PHP fan, the focus is on CakePHP. The date for this PHP User Group meetup is on Thursday, August 21, 2008, from 7:30pm - 10:00pm and the location is Microsoft Singapore, NTUC Centre, 22nd Floor, One Marina Boulevard. The topics will be “Intro to CakePHP” by Frederick and “Power-Up Your CakePHP Application” by Michael Cheng. If you like to come for this event, you can RSVP through Facebook. Open Call for Volunteers / Speakers ======================= We’re on the lookout for volunteers and speakers for our monthly meetups and year-end events. Do email us at meetup@php.com.sg. Many thanks. The Actionscript Conference 2008 Singapore The Actionscript Conference (TAC) is a community conference with the focus on Flash Platform. It will be held on 19th October. 2008. Singapore in National Library, Singapore. For the attendants, they will see themselves immersed in a day of learning, knowledge exchange, and networking. TAC aims to bring topics on Actionscript 3.0, Flash development, Enterprise Flex, AIR, Integrating of Flash and other Platforms, and building Rich Internet Application to its audience. TAC is organised by the Singapore Flex Usergroup. We aim to create a conference for the developers, by the developers. For those who are interested to do a micro-sponsorship like Phlook or help out in the conference, please go to their TAC website for more information. 65Bits Episode 82 : Two Parter Special.. Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week with guest hosts - Nicole, DK and Hisham, and the stories this week are: [1] Street Directory.com is back, [2] Sony’s new notebooks - the Z, SR and FW series, [3] Cuil.com, a new search engine by Ex-Google engineers and the Byte Of The Week: Stixy.com. Do click and check out their podcast. Happy National Day 2008 The SG Entrepreneurs team continues their annual tradition to wish Singapore a happy 43rd National Day. In a time of turbulence from the US credit crunch and rising costs of oil and other related commodities, we also appeal to the government to take note of the issues which the entrepreneurs in the small and medium enterprises are facing - high inflation and rising costs for office rent, transport & infrastructure resources. We wish everyone to be healthy and a thriving and vibrant economy in the coming year, and all in all, making opportunity out of the present adversity. The Geek Goddess Show Episode 8: E27 Unconference If you have read much about the E27 Unconference two weeks back, we now present you in the latest installment of the Geek Goddess Show, where Estee and Peter appeared at the E27 Unconference 2008 two weekends back. Of course, in their list: (i) Justin Lee, co-founder of E27, (ii) Mohan Belani, the project director for the Unconference and finally, the keynote speaker for the event: (iii) Daniel Ingitaraj, Director, Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Singapore. So check out the latest video in the Geek Goddess Show or see it here: News Flash: Beta Launch of Phlook From the founders of Phlook, and they say, “Yes, almost 4 months into Private Beta, the time has now come to unleash Phlook upon the world! Signing up no longer requires fiddling about with invitations.” By the way, Phlook aims to create a web 2.0 interactive photo-sharing website that creates better ways to organize and manage photos, increases the desirability of each photo and increases the publicity of members and their photos. Our editor (BL - who is ready to frankly declare any possibility conflict of interest) is currently mentoring this interesting start-up with a venture capitalist from Thymos Capital LLP, and btw, he managed to convince his fellow partners and advisory board that Phlook is no clone of Flickr and iStockPhoto, but something more interesting. So, if you are game for something different, check their service out. You can also check out an independent review from a Malaysian tech blogger here in GreyReview.com who walked to BL during a Barcamp and discussed his review about this start-up. 65Bits Episode 81: A Boomy Science Centre Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1]iPhone 3G Preview from Blog2u, [2]Creative Introduces the Sound Blaster Play! [3]Creative announces Zen Mosaic, [4]mioTV gets more channels that people actually care about, [5]Sony Ericsson unveils 3 new phones, [6]Sony Reader goes open, will be able to work with other booksellers, [7]Voodoo products get a place in HP catalogs and the Byte of the Week : AVG Free Anti-virus. Do click and check out their podcast. Barcamp Malaysia 2008 - Aftermath and Thoughts about Malaysia Web Tech Scene After going through the two days in Barcamp Malaysia, I am now back in Singapore. To be honest, the Barcamp Malaysia has been an eye-opener for other fellow Singaporeans and myself who took the trip up to check out the interesting web/tech scene in Malaysia. Developers, entrepreneurs and investors from all walks of life are all gathered in this event, and the best part is that the event still go on with lighting talks (5 minutes given to each presenter and one of the speakers talk about Google Gears) even the official schedule is over. Even though there is no wi-fi access despite the best efforts by the organizers to procure one, I felt that the event was very successful and exciting. The first thing I liked about the event is the people. The Malaysian web/tech community is made up of many enthusiasts and interesting people from all walks of life. I am heartened by the fact that some of them just come up to me and introduce themselves. Another thing about their community is that they all shared a deep passion in what they are doing, particularly the talk by Ditesh Gathani on the Malaysian Free Software Movement. For me, it is a very fruitful trip to really get to know a different community who shares similar interests to the groups I have worked with over the past three years here in Singapore. In fact, here are a few lessons which I thought the Singaporean community should also think about. Working around the lack of resources: Unlike Singapore, where we have some much wi-fi access and resources from the government, the Malaysians has to work around with the lack of resources. During the 2nd day, there is a session done by a local hacker on “Wireless Hacking” where he was talking about how to seek wi-fi access around the area, and tried to do a local demo. What is more impressive, he demonstrated how to get around the servers in the KLCC area. This would not have happened in Singapore because the hypothetical hacker in Singapore will likely to get in jail for breaking rules. While I am not advocating breaking the law, I can see that a lot of necessity innovation that arises in the Malaysian tech community. They have a vibrant technology developer community than us: I was telling Mohan in E27 that their developer community is far more advanced. They dabbled in open source from Drupal to Firefox extensions, and they do a lot of interesting things with these open source software. In this event, the developers provide very deep insight on the coding aspect which I don’t see that much in Singapore, except maybe the Singapore PHP User Group. The other difference is that the Singaporean developers tend to work with APIs from the more established companies: Google, Microsoft and Facebook, since all our events tend towards working with the established corporations. Almost all the technical sessions I attended require some knowledge of the programming language or the platform used, for example, the Drupal sessions done by Ahmad Najib Habeb and Joeri Poesen. It seems that our community in Barcamp Singapore should note some best practices from this event particularly on technology and developer sessions from our Malaysian friends. Problems in technology entrepreneurship in Malaysia are pretty similar to those faced in Singapore: While moving around and interacting with different people, I find that the problems of technology entrepreneurship are similar in many respects, except that in Malaysia, you see more entrepreneurship because of necessity. The lack of talent is cited to be one of the major issues. I actually agree with one perspective that if some of the talent can put together something and succeed is better than each one of them venturing out on their own individual project. The emphasis on ideas rather than execution is the other issue that the younger entrepreneurs need to avoid. While I reflect with Mohan and Daniel Cerventus about the state of things in Singapore and Malaysia, there is one thing which the community has not delivered: success stories. It is important at some point that each one of us in the community achieved a degree of amount of success even if we have to venture abroad. I am starting to see that the reason why Singapore and Malaysia will find it difficult to emulate the success of Silicon Valley for very good reasons. While we rejoice the stories of the successes we read from Silicon Valley, we don’t realize the failure rate in that place is far more astronomical than both Singapore and Malaysia add together. The context for fundraising in Singapore and Malaysia is totally different from Silicon Valley, and hence a lot of things don’t really work in our environments. It is up to the ground level to make some adjustments in those issues. The technology entrepreneurs in both countries need to step up and compete at that pace with those in China. I will actually talk about this more in my blog about the session on investing, valuing and funding start-ups in both countries that I facilitated during Barcamp Malaysia with Mr William from Ingenious Capital. All in all, it has been a great event and I am sure that my fellow Singaporean friends who are there, share the same sentiments, and we look forward to more interaction, collaboration and fun in pursuing our passions in web/tech with our Malaysian friends across the causeway. Of course, this is not the end but just the beginning. So, watch this space. Related Links: [1] Barcamp Malaysia blog - Check out the various Malaysian technology bloggers’ entries about the event. Check out Cheryl Goh (winner of the best blog for Barcamp Malaysia), Grey Review, Khai Lee about doing what you love, Perry Loh and many others from the Barcamp Malaysia blog. [2] My Flickr pictures for the event. [3] BL, Barcamp Malaysia: IVF Drip III - Comparisons btw Singapore and Malaysia. Photo 1: The Registration Booth on Barcamp Malaysia Day 2 Photo 2: Team Widgeous on Day 2 of Barcamp Photo 3: The Wireless Hacking session Photo 4: Perry Loh with his talk on Firefox Extensions Development Photo 5: Yung-Hui Lim reviewing the latest web/tech development and he has his interesting blog reviewing Asia web/tech start-ups: Greyreview.com Photo 6: An entrepreneur talking about his experience in Silicon Valley during Barcamp Malaysia 2nd day. Photo 7 (i) Ditesh Gathani and his presentation “The Malaysian Free Software Movement: The Way Forward” with (ii) his audience listening to his humourous and interest presentation. Photo 8: Mohan (E27), Daniel Cerventus (Barcamp Malaysia) and BL Barcamp Malaysia 2008 - First Glimpses Reporting from the shores across our causeway, BL (our editor) has travelled to Kuala Lumpur this morning to attend Barcamp Malaysia 2008. He is not the only one, as this event has attracted many Singaporeans to turn up there: the entire team from Widgeous (Ridzuan and U-Zyn), Mohan from E27, Ben Koe, Kelvin Quee, Preetam and Wong Meng Weng (a Singaporean entrepreneur who came back from Silicon Valley). Here are some of the highlights for the event with a short review and pictures from the event. The event was held in the city of Kuala Lumpur near the famous Petronas Tower. The location is xTrain Sdn Bhd, Megan Avenue 1, Jalan Tun Razak, KL. If you take a quick peek at the schedule, you will find that there are just so many things to do that you have to decide which to go. BL has actually decided to go for some and accidentally dropped by some, and found an old friend back in Cambridge who now resided in Malaysia, talking about Health 2.0 and his start-up in Malaysia, MyFamilyHealth.com . Of course, the Widgeous Team started the ball rolling with their presentation of the platform. Throughout the day, the event is divided into various tracks. One of the tracks is totally focussed on the content management system, Drupal, where the developers led by Joeri Poesen started from the basics to the advanced, talking first about the platform and how to make use of Drupal to develop more interesting applications. Another interesting discussion I have gone to is done by Wong Meng Weng (a successful Singaporean entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley). It is a discussion to use the analogy of wizards in fantasy role playing games and try to generate new ideas and insights about technology in the real world. One major lesson that I learned from this session is that the Internet has facilitated not just transactions without face to face, but also a platform to coordinate chaotic activity such that useful and organized output of information helped to create value for people and make their lives better. I thought that this type of ideas generation is sole lacking in our sessions back home, and urged Mohan to get Meng Weng for a session like this in the next E27 Unconference or related event. The most interesting panel that I have attended is the session where the Malaysian entrepreneurs discussing going global where the issues and challenges they face are not so different from us in Singapore, and discuss about the entrepreneurs in terms of their mindset, and the execution risk as pointed by one of the panelists Vishen Lakhiani, co-founder of MindValley pointed out that the execution risk is a major issue among entrepreneurs in Malaysia. Dr V. Sivapalan, from Venture Partners Sdn Bhd, made this acute observation that there are actually enough talent to build four to five great companies in Malaysia, but the issue is that all the talent wanted to do something for themselves and hence you have 25 small start-ups where that combined strength can do 5 great start-ups. In some sense, it is also very reflective of young Singaporean entrepreneurs, where all of them do their own start-ups and not thinking of combining together to form a bigger start-up. The most interesting lesson is froom Ganesh, the CEO and President of MOL where he pointed out he has to modify the business models of his business to one that is of revenue generation. One thing that all of them agree is that ideas are cheap, and the execution is more important than idea. For more updates on the event, please look at the Barcamp Malaysia Blog as the bloggers in Malaysia discuss and narrate what happened in the event. Here are some pictures for the event: Photo 1: The venue for Barcamp Malaysia Photo 2: Daniel Cerventus and one of his teammate at the Registration Table Photo 3: The session on Drupal by Ahmad Najib Habeb and Joeri Poesen Photo 4: Meng Weng’s interesting session about technology insights and ideas generation Photo 5: Panel on “Entrepreneurs Going Global” - (From the left) Dr Sivapalan (Managing Principal of Ventura), Roslan Bakri (GM, MDEC, Technopreneurship Development Division), Ganesh Kumar Bangah (President, CEO of MOL AccessPortal Berhad) and Vishen Lakhiani (Co-founder, MindValley) Photo 6: Preetam’s talk on interesting web 2.0 companies in Asia Photo 7: The Singaporean speakers for Barcamp MY: Meng Weng, BL and Preetam Rai Event: You have a date with the First Singaporean hired by Google From our friends in The Digital Movement: Now, you must be thinking, who in the world is the Jolly Good Fellow? Here’s a hint: What do Gwyneth Paltrow, Bill Clinton, SR Nathan and His Holiness the Dalai Lama have in common? Find the answer in New York Times’ article: Hey, Who’s He? With Gwyneth? The Google Guy! Want to know what it’s like to work and PLAY in Google? Want to find out more about how Google promotes innovation? Then you must come and meet Google’s Jolly Good Fellow. Date: 30th July 2008 Time: Registration starts at 6:30 pm Venue: DXO, Colours by the Bay, 8 Raffles Avenue, #01-13, Esplanade Mall Check out his email auto-responder below - you can be sure that this meeting will prove to be an interesting encounter! “If you can’t reach me, please don’t think I’m dead, especially if you’re from payroll (if you’re not from payroll, I don’t really care what you think. Except you, boss). During my leave, I will archive most of my incoming emails without reading them. Why? Because being on leave, I’m likely to be frolicking on a beach or something, and reading emails is incompatible with frolicking.” As there are limited spaces for this event, please REGISTER EARLY with the form at the end of The Digital Movement’s blog post. Barcamp Malaysia this weekend! Across our causeway in the coming weekend (26-27 July 2008), our Malaysian friends have organized Barcamp Malaysia at Jalan Ampang (near KLCC), Kuala Lumpur. Other than showcasing the up and coming technology discussions among the developers, entrepreneurs and investors over there, they have also invited us over, for example, Widgeous will be presenting their platform in the Barcamp, and some of us from both SGE and E27 will be attending the event as well, with our editor Bernard Leong also presenting on a panel with his Malaysian counterpart on the state of investment, valuation and funding between both countries & Preetam Rai, who will present his overview on the development of interesting web companies across Asia with his travels. Do check out their blog for the most exciting developments and the schedule of the event. If you happen to be in town, you should check out the event. Event: i.Jam Networking Session, announcing the launch of i.Match We are honoured to have RADM (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, Senior Minister Of State For Education And Information, Communications And The Arts as our guest of honour to announce the launch of i.MATCH, a matching program to bridge companies ready for investments and potential investors. Global new platform players such as HP will be announcing their intention to jointly call for new IDM projects with the IDMPO. Through these partnerships, our IDM companies now have the opportunity to reach global audiences through their partners’ platforms. Details: Date: 30th July 2008 Time: 3-8pm Venue: Swisshôtel Merchant Court Ballroom Highlights include: - Announcements by industry players such as HP, Friendster…and more. - Panel discussion by investors such as Ms. Lauren Liang from GE Commercial Finance. Mr. Pierre Hennes from Upstream Ventures and Mr. Eric Chan from ST Electronics on the topic of “What do investors look for?” - Project showcase by companies including Umondo, Personal e-Motion and Wireless Intellect Labs. - Presentation by Mr. Michael Yap, Executive Director, IDMPO on 2 new Call for Proposals: (1) New Media Applications (2) i.MATCH Registration for this event is free, but places are naturally limited so kindly register early to confirm your seat. For more information, please visit www.ijam.sg or contact Julian at 9788 9470. Click here to register. Click here for location. 65Bits : Episode 80 - YYYYYYYYAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY!!! From SGE team, we congratulate (1) the Tech65 team for winning the best podcast/videocast award from the 2nd anniversary Ping.SG awards. Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (2) Shoutout to Singapore GarageBand Meetup, (3) E3 Round up - (a) (i) New Dashboard for xBox360, (ii) Portal : Still Alive on XBLA, (iii) Play Without your Disk, (iv) Access Live Marketplace remotely from your Browser (v) Finally Final Fantasy XIII comes to xBox360 and (vi) Microsoft Lips, (b) Wii - (i) Wii Speak, (ii) WiiMote Motion Plus, (iii) GTA for Nintendo DS, (iv) Guitar Hero : On Tour Sequel for Nintendo DS (v) Wii music, (c) PS2 Bundle - The 256-player MAG, (4) Starwars : The Force Unleashed for the iPhone, (5) The Intel Centrino 2.0 launched in Singapore, (6) Apple says turn-by-turn GPS coming to iPhone, copy / paste not a high priority, (7) Apple files suit against Psystar for copyright infringement, mellow-harshing, (8) MIT opens new ‘window’ on solar energy, (9) Hands-On With the Voodoo Envy’s Instant-On OS, and finally, Byte of the Week : Google Gears. The Third State of Our Blog A few days back, Gwen and Weichang notified me that our blog is finally reaching our third birthday and our official birthday is 18 July (the day which we registered the domain). Hence it is that time of the year to have the third state of our blog. Believe it or not, our blog has already made it to the third year and we are still growing. Instead of really talking about things which we did this year or not, I like to use this third state of the blog to open up how SGE has maintained its position over the years with her partners, and the many more things which we hope to do within the two years or more. In the last year, SGE has more or less transitioned from a start-up blog to a normal group blog that services the community. We have streamlined our focus towards the technology entrepreneurship and remains committed to market the events organized by different communities, from our partners: E27 (Garag3), The Digital Movement, Singapore PHP User Group (which will transition to an official society soon), and many others that helped to service Singapore like the Start-Up@Singapore competition. With the rising tides of social media, we are beginning to bring Tech65, the Geek Goddess Show and E-Conversations to bring the elements of audio and video which gives a different feel for our audience. Our Facebook group has already surpassed the other groups on user numbers now at 1000+, and we have passed a quarter of a million unique visitors and half a million page views over the course of the year. We do hope that we will hit the tipping point sometime in the future and reach a million unique visitors within the next two years. Yes, we have made an April Fool’s day joke out of TechCrunch and organized an event with one of TechCrunch editors last month too. Yet, deep in our hearts, we still think that we are far away from where we really want to go. Let me tell you a few things that people have often asked during community meetings. Why do SGE not have their own events? The answer is that most entrepreneurs (including ourselves) have too much things to do, and we thought that it is better that we can help with the content and bring the awareness of events online organized by our partners. After all, if we are not good as practitioners, then what we say on this site would not be so credible. Speaking of which, one of the co-founders Weichang was recently featured in Zaobao for graduating with his honours in physics, overcoming his cancer illness and have started three businesses successfully on his own. We consolidated our core competency that we are committed to content and not the rest. We have started publishing press releases for innovative tech companies and venture capital because we are filling a gap that traditional media (like Business Times) do not want to go. We are not against simple businesses by removing their comments because they are often spamming the blog with their advertisements. Sincerely, we want this to be a forum to discuss business issues and not an advertising platform. Other than committed to quality of content, we also want to ensure that the quality of comments and the way how the rest of community view the blog: credible and professional. We believe that this strategic focus is right, otherwise, the government bodies (ACE, SPRING) will not have added us to their resources links. That’s what separates us from the “me-too” sites who failed to replicate what we do. We don’t want to rest on our laurels and continue to believe in a win-win approach. We work with our partners and groups in Singapore, particularly in helping people to be aware of events and bringing together mainly on the entrepreneurship in the tech sector and service those who happens to be in the niche business of entrepreneurship. When we first started, no one believed that a business blog like this can create impact and value for the community. In fact, I was ridiculed by some in NUS and government officials that starting a blog like this is the dumbest idea possible. Today, we see people like Prof Wong Poh Kam, director of NUS Entrepreneurship Centre, have followed our lead to start blogging about issues in entrepreneurship and the government websites have acknowledged our presence here. That is what entrepreneurship is all about: the determination and passion to start something against what others think and in the process convince the detractors that your ideas are correct. So, we have succeeded in a way as a small enterprise (thankfully to a group of contributors and partners who some of them have made it on their own as entrepreneurs) and remained the pioneers of the journey even if the rest who followed after do not acknowledge what we have done. So what will we like to see in the next two years? In fact, we do have some thoughts and ideas about how we should move forward. - A new theme design for the site: Yes, we know that our present theme has been stuck here for almost one year two months. We like to have more features for the site to allow more interaction among readers. - Working with groups beyond the shores of Singapore: In fact, we are slowly reaching out to the other Asian countries around us, particularly our neighbour across the causeway. So, watch this space. - More content on how to start a business: We really hope to have professionals and practitioners writing for us and see the need to help young entrepreneurs to grow. We have seen all the nominees for Asian young entrepreneurs in Business Week all have done their interviews in SGE, and we hope to see more out there. - A possible gathering?: Actually, the founders (Gwen, Weichang and I) hope that we can amass the resources someday to hire an event management group to do an event someday. We thought about it but we usually end up not moving forward because maintenance work for the site is too much to do. In case you do not know, Weichang has spent time to do the backend maintenance like upgrading the site and ensure that our bills to the hosting server are paid while Gwen is busy with her editorial work behind the scenes. Personally for me, I hope to pass to on the baton of my current role within the next two years and be a chief evangelist for the site, where new people can come and move this blog or site to the next frontier. We thank all our friends and partners, and many out there for their growing support to our site, and we wish everyone well. As entrepreneurs, we want to remain optimistic and hope that something will grow in the future here in this little red dot. Yours sincerely, BL on behalf of the founders of SG Entrepreneurs The Geek Goddess Show Episode 7: AdTech & eBay.Dev.Shack. In the latest episode, we move back to the web 2.0 universe back in China and Singapore. First of all, Estee and Peter talk about the demise of one of the video sharing sites, 65.com in China. Following on, Peter interviews Ming Shen, co-founder of Nuffnang where he shares his recent experience in the Ad-Tech event, a conference focusing on digimarketing and online advertising. Finally, one of our producers did the uncanny job of interviewing Kevin Lau, Project Manager of eBay SEA about the eBay developer program and eBay developer challenge and also his thoughts about eBay.Dev.Shack event organized by E27 in the Arts House. Of course, do check out the other shows in Podfire.sg. Online Public Voting Open for Spirit of Enterprise Awards 2008 Now in its 6th year of promoting Singapore Entrepreneurship the Spirit of Enterprise Awards 2008 is now open for online public voting. Singapore. July 16, 2008 – It isn’t easy to cast away the perfunctory 9-to-5 route and live your dream. The Spirit of Enterprise (SOE) Awards was coined to salute the courage, wit and creativity of entrepreneurs who have valiantly walked their talk, even if it meant repeatedly conquering hurdles and pushing boundaries. This event also serves to inspire budding entrepreneurs who just need that gentle push to attain remarkable heights. This year, the SOE Awards 2008 sees 144 nominees, interviewed by students from local tertiary institutions. Your vote is an encouragement and an impetus. Join in the meaningful buzz by casting your vote. Voters can vote for a minimum of 5 nominees and a maximum of 43 nominees. Voting ends on 31 August 2008 and results will be announced on 10 October 2008. Mr. Richard Eu, Group CEO, Eu Yan Sang International Ltd-cum-Patron and Past Chairman of SOE commented, “It is not the purpose of the Awards to sieve out solely the richest companies and adulate the people behind these, but to find people who have the richest minds, in terms of their ideas and attitudes. We all need recognition from time to time, and it is my hope that the SOE Awards would push our spirited honorees to even greater heights.” Profiles of all nominees and their success stories can be found in the SOE website here. In conjunction with the Awards, a new collection of success stories of entrepreneurs will be published as the latest in the SOE Books On Entrepreneurship series. The book will be released in October this year. For more information: Kelly Teoh Spirit of Enterprise Mobile: +65 9763 9054 E-mail: kelly@soe.org.sg About Spirit of Enterprise Spirit of Enterprise (SOE), an Institute of Public Charter, promotes and advances entrepreneurial spirit in Singapore by honouring local self-reliant entrepreneurs operating small and medium-sized businesses, and serves to inspire Singaporeans, especially the young, to become entrepreneurs by facilitating interaction, communication and knowledge dissemination between students, the entrepreneurs and the general public. Its key programmes include Spirit of Enterprise Awards, Student-Entrepreneur Programme, and SOE Books on Entrepreneurship distributed free to local university and polytechnic business school courses. SOE is funded by the private sector and its board of governors which consists of established entrepreneurs, corporate senior management, students, public service and political leaders. For more information, please visit www.soe.org.sg. 65bits Episode 79: Now in Low Quality! Our friends at Tech65 start their weekly podcast on the following issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: (1) Creative launches the ZEN X-Fi with Wireless LAN, (2a) The Singapore iTunes Store is live! Sort of… - Side story: (2b) SquareEnix’s Song Summoner RPG for the iPod Classic and iPod Nano, (3) The International iPhone Launch. What will ours be like?, (4) Seagate comes up with new 1.5 terabyte hard drives, (5) Xbox 360’s Mid-range console receives further price drops. What is Maxsoft doing with the Wii?!?, (6) Konami lodges patent suite against Harmonix, MTV over Rock band, (7) Google launches their own Second Life called Lively and finally, the Byte Of The Week: Evernote: Remember Everything. Do click and check out their podcast. E-Conversations Episode 1: ZopIM During the E27 Unconference 2008, Michael Cheng, founder of Podfire.sg, has launched a new show: E-Conversations where he profiles a new generation of start-up entrepreneurs and finds out what drives them, what motivates them and how they work as a team. With his tools in the social media space, he has started off with the ZopIM team which we have interviewed. So, now you can see actually how the ZopIM works and their trials and tribulations. Aftermath of E27 Unconference Singapore 2008 Kudos to the E27 team, the Unconference Singapore 2008 held in Matrix, Biopolis had been a fantastic and well-organized event. It had an overwhelming turnout, hitting between 200-250 people. From a surprising excellent keynote from Daniel Ingitaraj (Director, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft) to the enthusiastic pitches from many start-ups in the event, it was a gathering of many enthusiastic minds for a growing and emerging Internet industry. Of course, the event started with registration till lunch. There was an exhibition area where Microsoft had a booth allowing the audience to try out their latest Xbox craze, Guitar Hero II. Other than that, we have the founders from several start-ups, for example, Homespace, ZopIM, Eteract, Widgeous, Phlook, GoThere, Podfire, Hibernater, Yum.sg, PatSnap and many others featured here. Surely with the good food and drinks, we mingled around the area to watch demos from the entrepreneurs about what they have worked on for the past few months. Following on, the event started with a keynote by Daniel Ingitaraj, (Director, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft Singapore) entitled ““Innovation: Persevere or Perish”. In the talk, Daniel went from a slow start in defining two important ideas from Ted Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia” article from Harvard Business Review and Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma” about disruptive technologies and talked about how technology has evolved from the past to present. He went to discuss the three major trends that is to come: (i) user experience, (ii) collaboration and (iii) cloud computing. The talk ended with some interesting demos (likely we will get a video soon). After that, the keynote was followed by the start-ups pitching about their products and demos. Once that ends, the event is followed by the six major breakout sessions split between 2 hours: (i) Enterprise 2.0, (ii) What’s so difficult about valuing and investing in Internet Companies? (iii) Mobile Platforms, (iv) Social Media in Asia Pacific, (v) Web2.0/Mobile Startups in Eastern Europe/Africa/East Asia, and (vi) Interoperability for Startups. The event has drawn a lot of people together, bring back old friends and new ones to the grassroots movement. Sometime back, Preetam (a well-known web evangelist in Asia) and BL (our editor in SG Entrepreneurs) have expressed a worry that they have been meeting the same people over different events in Singapore. Since the eBay.dev.shack till this event, we are heartened to realize that we are now meeting new and enthusiastic people from all walks of life who come and share their ideas and thoughts on the industry. Of course, we do have interesting photos to share with you for this event. :) Related Links 1. Mohd Hisham, e27 Unconference LIVE Update using Plurk and e27 Unconference Summary. 2. Thinking Nectar, Unconference 2008. 3. Thinking Nectar, Unconference 2008 - More Start-Up Pitches. 4. Young UpStarts, Singapore Startups at the e27 Unconference Singapore 2008 and Photos from the event as well. 5. Claudia, E27 Unconference Singapore. 6. The Armchair Theorist, The E27 Unconference was Definitely Unboring. 7. BL, The IVF Drip - Realities about Raising Capital for Tech Companies in Singapore on the breakout session he conducted for the Unconference 2008. Photo 1: Unconference Singapore 2008 Exhibition Area. Photo 2: Peter Du and Michael Cheng at the Podfire booth. Photo 3: Ridzuan evangelizing about the Widgeous platform at his booth. Photo 4: Royston pitching Zopim to interesting enthusiasts. Photo 5: Talk by Daniel Ingitaraj (Director, Developer & Platform Evangelism, Microsoft).