Global Entrepreneurship Week, Malaysia

YEM - Rocking GEW 2009 !

2009-11-04T18:58:00.005+08:00

These guys - I call them the F-MAD team are rocking GEW this year.

F - Fareez
M - Michael Teoh
A - Aidan Chew
D- Daniel Cerventus.

Together - they are the force behind YEM - Youth Entrepreneur Malaysia.

YEM exists to create "an entrepreneurial community among youths in Malaysia".

Last year, their dynamo - Daniel Cerventus organized one of the most exciting events during the Week - the Start-up camp. The start-up camp brought together an immense number of aspiring entrepreneurs and established entrepreneurs together .

Many youth who were sitting on the fence - not sure if entrepreneurship is for them - took the plunge as a result of the camp.

This year, we made YEM the Youth Catalyst.

To-date - the 4 handsome young men has done wonders - their head honcho - Michael Teoh, a celebrity on his own accord is usually seen in GEW t-shirts at events. Its almost like having our own Tiger Woods marketing GEW !

They will be on TV this week - creating more buzz on GEW.

Watch out for this team - they are taking the entrepreneur community by storm !

Cheers

For Fresh Updates - Refer to My Tweet

2009-11-03T19:22:00.002+08:00

Dear Friends and Partners,

Amazing things are happening in Malaysia for GEW2009 ! I have been super busy with my team working and supporting partners put together an amazing array of activities and events to rock GEW 2009.

In fact our activities began from the day we launched GEW2009 on 21/2009 ! That event - a colorful one was sponsored by the British High Commission and the UK Trade and Investment.

Many activities has taken place since then.

I think the time has come now for me to give you an day by day quick update on all the things that are taking shape.

Follow me on my personal tweet : http://twitter.com/DashInsights for fresh updates and other thoughts I may have from time to time.

Thank you - will see you all here for one more summary of all the events before we move in completely to the tweet. It will also save you time - to just get the top of the line updates.

Cheers

Meeting SWEPA

2009-10-08T23:47:00.003+08:00

This entry is one week overdue lah.....but better late than never !

FINALLY ! I met SWEPA : the Sabah Women Entrepreneurs and Professional Association.

From left : Johan Amilin, Emily (WG), Hanaa Wong Abdullah (Deputy President of SWEPA) and Ursula, SWEPA.

I was in Sabah last week for a client event. I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet SWEPA - and my team made it possible and we met at the Borneo Paradise Resort Hotel.

Thanks to Johan for being kind enough to bring those lovely ladies over.

SWEPA was one of the biggest supporters of GEW last year under the then President Ms Dolly Jimayol. They not only delivered impressive activities but also drummed up immense media awareness for the week.

This year the President of SWEPA is Dato' Adeline Leong. Hanna is the Deputy President.

We met for slightly over an our and I must admit these women have passion and they want to ensure entrepreneurship thrives in Sabah and no one is left out. They want to MAKE THEIR MARK.

The SWEPA ladies promised to discuss and revert with a plan for the week. I am sure they will blow us away !

Thanks to Hanna, Ursula and last ut not least Johan to drop by to pay me a visit.

Cheers

The Stanford Global Innovation Tournament in Malaysia

2009-10-07T16:20:00.003+08:00

As we march closer and closer to the Global Entrepreneurship Week, our various partners are taking the initiative to organize and lead programs and events that spark the entrepreneurial fire in the young. One such organization is Alpha Catalyst - our Innovation Catalyst for GEW09.

Alpha Catalyst is the lead driver for the Stanford Global Innovation Tournament in Malaysia. They are not only organizing the competition here for the Global challenge, they are also stirring a great deal of hype and interest by unleashing a Malaysian problem prior to the announcement of the Global challenge.

These gives 2 chances for winners to participate and win . Truly Taking the Loca, Global !

Please visit their site : http://www.gitmy.blogspot.com/ to see what they are doing.

Alpha Catalyst has managed to line up an impressive list of sponsors to support the challenge. They are an Innovation company and they have truly used their own tool to make the challenge happen in a big way in Malaysia.

Congrats to Azim and his team for pulling the challenge off !

Alpha Catalyst - Our Catalyst for Innovation !

2009-09-05T22:31:00.012+08:00

Azim and his lovely wife, Dr Suraya are both great friends of ours and supporters of the Global Entrepreneurship Week.

This soft-spoken couple are an inspiration not just to the GEW team at Warisan Global but also to me. I have never come out of a discussion with them without being inspired to look at things with "new eyes" ! They can nudge one to think and see things in new and innovative ways - all in their vintage non-threatening and pleasant manner.

Azim and Suraya run Alpha Catalyst Consulting - a boutique Innovation Consulting firm, based in KL, established since 2000.

For GEW 2009, Azim and Suraya will be co-hosting the Stanford's Global Innovation Tournament (GIT).

Their plans for GEW 2009 and what they did for GEW 2008 will be on the website soon.

We have invited Alpha Catalyst to be the Innovation Catalyst for GEW.

Catalysts are partners who are able to exert a wider impact on the entrepreneurial community - they organize activities and do more than just organizing one activity as per the definition of a partner.

The Catalyst category is introduced in Malaysia to acknowledge partners who have contributed a great deal to GEW 2008 and are able to influence a wider audience in 2009.

I am pleased to have this dynamic duo on board.

Meeting Jude.

2009-09-05T20:10:00.006+08:00

Met an interesting young man last evening - Jude Jiunn Yoong Chia is his name (pic)

Actually Jude and I have been trying to meet for sometime now and only yesterday we finally managed to sit down to chat. I am glad I met this very smart and passionate guy, who came with another equally capable and passionate lady by the name of Yen.

This is how Jude introduced himself via email to me:

"I'm still a business analyst/ researcher on project basis in Malaysia. I also author globalization reports for Global Voices Online at Harvard's Berkman Center. Recently selected in Twitter's Top 100 opinion leaders in social entrepreneurship by Social Edge, Skoll foundation. Currently initiate long-term pursuit to set up social enterprise, still in early stages of fieldwork in urban slums, Malaysia with objectives to identify globally scalable & replicable social mission."

We spent about an hour talking about what we do and I found Jude to be a keen proponent of Social Entrepreneurship - seeking out real opportunities to work in urban slums. He tells me he is currently doing some work in Sentul.

"We aspire to find a way to take what we do global", he says looking straight into my eyes.

I am keen to follow this man's progress and have invited him to participate in GEW in any which way he can ignite a few with his passion.

We await his proposal which he promised to send soon.

Another day spent meeting good people.

8/8 :100 Days to GEW Countdown

2009-08-16T11:33:00.008+08:00

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon on the 8th of August.

The program : Countdown : 100 Days to GEW.

The VIP : Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah, Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Patron for GEW Malaysia (the Patron)

Time of the event : 12pm to 4pm. The event was to start with a networking lunch followed by the event proper and a press conference. The patron's scheduled time of arrival :1.30pm.

One and a half hours for people to come, register and settle down for relaxed lunch. We did not want to rush anyone on a Saturday afternoon.

It was a simple Malay lunch - fried rice, satay and a few other items including some Malays kueh for dessert.

More than 80 people came - Partners, people new to GEW and friends.

Our our Main Media Partners, Media Prima Group were there in full force - NTV7, NSTP, Berita Harian since 12pm.

Also present was Malaysia SME. Other media such as The Edge requested for the stories to be sent to them as they were unable to attend.

Saloma in a sense is a perfect location for such gatherings - located at the heart of the city, a few metres away from KLCC, it has ample parking and the food is not bad.

Everyone was relaxed, had lunch and was networking. There was camaraderie among the partners. Many knew each other and was glad to catch up again.

The Patron arrived close to 2pm. He was held up at another earlier meeting, down the street at the Nikko Hotel.

The program began as soon as Dato' arrived.

The itinerary was simple - 10 Minutes for the opening remarks, 10 Minutes for the 100 Day gimmick and about 30 minutes for the sharing by catalysts and partners. We had to play press conference by ear - depending on the Patron's time.

We allocated the most time for the catalysts and partners to share what they planned to do for GEW. We wanted the Patron to hear them.

However, there was a time constraint now. Dato' had to leave by 2.40pm. The media too was waiting for him for the past 2 hours and they wanted to have a press conference with him too. So the pc is now on.

This means, he had to adjourn to a press conference by 2.30pm and then leave by 2.45 latest to make his appointment by 3pm.

I gave a quick 2 minute welcome remark, followed by the Patron's inspiring speech.

Dato' in his speech urged universities and college students to become more entrepreneurial and encouraged them to participate in the GEW activities by either organizing their own activities or by attending partner activities.

He mentioned that not many students in Malaysian universities and colleges are becoming entrepreneurs as soon as they graduate compared to their counterparts in other countries. He wanted to see this trend reversed - more ventures created by young people.

The 100 Day to GEW Launch gimmick was designed to create interaction between the partners and the patron. The gimmick was to fix a 8 piece jigsaw puzzle of the backdrop to the board on the stage. 6 people were selected from the sponsors and catalysts including the Patron and I.

2 other partners were selected at random - Datin (the Patron's wife) helped to draw lots.

This was fun - everyone had a great time on stage and the media and photographers had a field day taking photos of people trying to fix a velcro mounted styro-foam backdrop on stage.

This was followed by several sharing sessions by the catalysts and partners. 10 people were selected to do this.

However, as we approached the 5th partner, we had to move the patron to the next room for the press conference. The remaining partners carried on listening to the sharing session.

The Deputy Minister spoke about the relevance of GEW, being enterprising and also various matters relating to the event at the press conference.

This was covered extensively by the media.

The same night we were on the main news, the late news and also the next day in the afternoon news.

The newspapers also carried the story widely.

We thank everyone for being there to make the event a big success. We thank the media too and last but not least, our Patron, Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah for his continued and untiring support of youth entrepreneurship in general and GEW in particular.

Cheers

8/8 : 100 Days to GEW Countdown Party : The Planning Behind the Scenes.

2009-08-15T21:57:00.006+08:00

A few weeks ago, I asked Vivian (Head of GEW Malaysia Secretariat) what date falls on the day that marks 100 Days to GEW.

After a few minutes of intense calculation, like a Chinese Feng Shui master, she exclaimed "on the eight, eight" !

8/8 ! Wow!! Excellent ! What an auspicious day !

I have a special affinity for the number 8. I have done almost everything important on a date that somehow adds up to 8. Call it superstition. Also according to numerology, my "life path" number is 8 (date of birth + month of birth + year of birth, all reduced to a single digit).

So, with that date, we had 2 reasons to celebrate now - one for the 100 Days to GEW and the other, it falls on an auspicious date !

Now the next challenge is to get the Patron, Dato' Saifuddin's time on that date. I managed to get a brief appointment with the Deputy Minister and his aide a week before the 8th. They kindly agreed "8th is fine, though it looks like a super busy day" ! Time : 2.30pm.

I was exhilarated we had the VIP's date and time out - now to confirm the venue and the menu and to send the "mark your dates" alerts out whilst we plan the program.

As we were working out the details, we (my team and I) realized from various Facebook updates, Money Tree, a GEW partner will be having their YES Challenge on the same day and time too.

I did not like the idea of competing with a partner event and also to divide the entrepreneur community. So I rang Michael Reyes (Regional CEO of Money Tree) to explore the possibility of a joint event. Michael liked the idea. So did I.

Michael and I met to discuss the possibility. But even before I arrived at the venue, I realized this was going to be a tough one. I was confined by the Patron's time and his preference for a venue - in central KL whilst Michael was confined by his sponsor's venue in Taman Tun.

We discussed and agreed we have no choice but to keep the events separate. We also discussed the media and the invitee list and agreed our audience is also different except for a few judges. I have to live with some of these key people not attending the GEW function. That was fine - the judges have to be there to support Michael and Money Tree.

We shook hands and agreed we will proceed with each other's events and support each other in other ways.

The plans for the countdown then proceeded and then the fun began - Dato' Saifuddin can now only make it at 1.30pm and he had to leave by 2.30 pm for another appointment with a another Minister.

We had to move the tea menu to a lunch menu. We did it gladly.

The venue was fixed at Saloma Bistro Cafe - a nice white washed bungalow and cafe a few metres from KLCC.

More on the event in my next entry....

7/9 : NST Interview

2009-08-08T07:35:00.004+08:00

I was interviewed by Kye Lee of NST yesterday. The interview took place at the NST office in Jalan Riong.

Obviously the interview was on GEW - how it began, the role of the Host and Partners and how Malaysia did last year and some success stories.

The paper also wanted to know what the plans for this year were.

When it comes to the goals for 2009 - I said "to be the top country in the world, full stop" - a quote by the British High Commissioner, Boyd McCleary last year during the GEW launch.

We also talked about our first sponsors - Microsoft Bizpark, Senedi and the NST. We talked about other media coming forward such as Voize, Malaysian Today and Malaysian SME.

Media Prima Bhd is our Main Media Partner for GEW.

I also mentioned our potential tie-up with YEM.

The paper published the story today -8/8 : the day we are going to celebrate the 100 Day to GEW Countdown. We have a good story today though the entire story did not make it, due to space constraints, I believe.

I look forward to the next 100 days being meaningful - where partner organizations will organize various activities around the country to put Malaysia on the GEW map once again.

Thank you NST for the nice coverage.

Cheers

New GEW09 T-Shirts

2009-08-06T22:24:00.003+08:00

The brand new GEW09 t-shirts has arrived - see our own in-house "models" Emily (Head of Enterprise in WG) and Syam (Designer) posing in them.

The t-shirts will be on sale on Saturday : RM25 per piece.

Sorry everyone, we have no t-shirt sponsors yet and have no choice but to charge a small fee for them.

Free t-shirts are only reserved for sponsors. Hope you understand.

Part of the proceeds of the t-shirts will go towards an entrepreneurship program for an orphanage.

Hope to get your support.

Thank you.

100 Days to GEW : Countdown Party : Change of Time

2009-08-06T22:13:00.004+08:00

Dear Friends of GEW,

There is a small change to the timing of the 100 Day to GEW event this Saturday : we have to bring the event forward from 2pm originally to 12pm.

This is because the Deputy Minister and Patron of GEW - Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah has another important appointment at 3pm and has to leave by 2.30pm.

Please take note.

We have now made changes to the menu and agenda. We now serve a light lunch and the event begins earlier.

We thank you for your understanding and thank Dato' for still accomodating the GEW event despite his hectic schedule.

Thanks Dato' and friends. Look forward to seeing you all.

100 Days to GEW : Countdown Party

2009-08-05T15:54:00.004+08:00

The time has come and I can't procrastinate anymore in updating this blog.

Many people have sent me messages asking me when I will start updating this blog again. They ask me if there is nothing happening and that's why I have not updated the blog !

On the contrary - we have been working at a blistering pace from the background.

Preparations for GEW09 are moving along nicely - we have been having new partners joining and 2008 partners planning exciting activities.

But before I ramble on with more updates, here is the invite for the GEW 100 Day Countdown Party - it will be on Saturday, 8th August 2009 at the Saloma Bistro at Jalan Ampang.

The event will be officiated by non-other then GEW Friend and Patron and now the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah.

Be there to hear how our young entrepreneurs are going to rock GEW09.

More on the milestones achieved in the coming entries..

Cheers

"Let A Thousand Flowers Bloom" ! MyGEW09 Is Going to Rock !

2009-06-11T13:37:00.003+08:00

"Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom" is a "common misquotation of Chairman Mao Zedong's "let a hundred flowers bloom".

Chairman Mao is not necessarily the apt mascot for entrepreneurship but that quote, every time I hear it, never failed to inspire.

This is what will happen for GEW'09 : we plan to let a thousand flowers bloom. We want to see 1000 new enterprises begin this year - no matter in which area ! One Thousand Flowers Has to Bloom !

Come to the GEW Partners Meet tomorrow : 4 to 6pm, NSTP Office, Jalan Riong.

Share your plans to inspire Enterprise and we will share ours !

Cheers

TEDxKL & GEW

2009-06-10T07:34:00.011+08:00

I wish to take this opportunity to apologize to the organizers and attendees of TEDxKL recently for "shamelessly selling" GEW!

The event was on 3rd June, at the Gardens KL.

I was invited by the organizer, Daniel Cerventus when he was in my office for a meeting. As he was leaving he asked me if I will be available to speak at TEDxKL .

I asked him what I should speak about and he said, "GEW".

So, I registered in my mind that this will be a good opportunity to promote the concept of the Global Entrepreneurship Week.

It was a busy period for me as we were was busy with many proposals and tenders.

I then completely forgot about the event and carried on at my usual "feverish pace of working" - as my wife would call it.

One evening a few days before the event, I saw Daniel online and asked him when TeD was and he replied "Wednesday" !

I realized it was already Monday and typed "what do I talk about?" and he said "success stories about GEW".

I did not realize what this meant nor did I know what TEDxKL was about let alone Do's and Don'ts for this event. What I should have done is to do some research on the protocols of TED.

So what did I do ?

I arrived at the event an hour before my talk, finalized the standard slides and simply spoke about GEW, the success last year and our vision this year and happily invited the attendees to come for the 1st partners' meet on the 12th at 4pm at the NSTP office in Jalan Riong

What was I thinking of?

I was under the impression I was talking about the idea of "a global movement of entrepreneurial people" and promoting entrepreneurship. But what it turned out was that we were selling or pitching ! We were "shamelessly promoting" !

Actually I promoted all my partners shamelessly. I think they, those great people need to be acknowledged.

However, this ruffled some feathers and the host was not pleased. I should have known better.

I deeply regret and apologize for the goof up ! Lets move on..

On another note..

We are going to be having the 1st GEW Partner's Meet on the 12 June between 4pm to 6pm.

The Venue is the NSTP office in Jalan Riong. Come early to find parking.

Hope to see you all there.

Together , let have an awesome GEW09 and lets put Malaysia once again on the map.

Cheers

SIFE - UniTAR Visit by Emily and Vivian

2009-06-03T07:04:00.004+08:00

Here's is a contribution by Emily on her visit to Sife Unitar with Vivian :

"Today Vivian and I were warmly welcomed by Zul and Shafiq from SIFE's National Office and the team from SIFE UniTAR at their Kelana Jaya campus.

Zul heads Sife in Malaysia.

We introduced GEW to the participants. We shared successes of 2008 and our plans for 2009.

The students were a smart and already enterprising lot.

They were excited and was eager to be partner and plan activities - and they started enthusiastically coming up with ideas on the spot - fabulous!

SIFE UniTAR is making plans to create more awareness for GEW.

Sife, wants to see more students get on board and be involved in the exciting GEW activities being planned this year.

We're truly thrilled to have SIFE UniTAR on board.

We always look forward to engaging young people and in creating awareness of entrepreneurship in our institutes of higher learning.

A special thank you to SIFE for their support in introducing us to their campuses.

SIFE's National Competition is a GEW activitiy.

Thank you Zul and Shafiq - for joining us to help students in Malaysia become part of the "global movement of entrepreneurial people"

Cheers

Brewing !

2009-06-03T06:27:00.003+08:00

I admit I have not been very regular in updating the blog recently.

This is because the team and I have been working behind the scenes to put everything in place for GEW2009 in Malaysia to take off smoothly.

Once again this year, we hope to play a small role in helping to "push the awareness of entrepreneurship" and "to ignite an enterprising behavior" amongst young people towards its tipping point !

The important thing here is that we don't know where or what the "tipping point" of this awareness is !

This makes the journey all the more exciting because then we can only set ourselves stretch goals.

What are our goals this year, what the our aspirations are and what plans to we have for MyGEW 2009 - all this will be revealed in the coming blog posts and also our newly launched website www.gewmalaysia.com.

Senedi Sdn.Bhd (www.senedi.com) designed and hosted the GEW Malaysia site as their sponsorhip.

We once again thank Senedi for this.

Cheers and Here's to Rocking Entrepreneurship in Malaysia !

Facebook Hour with Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah

2009-05-07T08:34:00.011+08:00

It was 5.27pm - I was driving back to KL from Cyberjaya after a presentation to a client and I got an sms from Shamsul, the ever hardworking but always in great spirits like his boss - the aide of Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah, the Deputy Minister of Higher Education.

The sms read "FB Hour with Dato, today @ Pelita, Jalan Ampang, 11pm to 12 am" !

I thought I will wait to get to my destination to read the sms again - I need my reading glasses these days to make sense of anything written ! Must be the scorching sun !

I read the sms again at the traffic lights - yes 11pm to 12am !! I smsed Shamsul to say I will be there.

Apparently Dato' had to attend a function with the PM at the Mandarin Oriental earlier that evening and he could only do his fortnightly Facebook Session at this hour.

Dato Saifuddin Abdullah goes online every fortnight (Wednesdays) on Facebook for an hour.

During this hour, he chats with young people, university students and others who wish to chat with him for the entire hour.

I witnessed Dato on FB firsthand last night. He was chatting and answering questions himself.

There were at least 40 people on the queue waiting to chat with him online. To top it of there were at least 20 young university and college students around him - sipping their teh tariks and having their mee gorengs, roti chanai and thosais. The kids must have been between 20 to 25.

I sat silently and observed everything that was going on. Dato was earnestly answering questions. The questions too, where I could peek and read, were mostly relevant. Where he was not able to offer a solution immediately, Shamsul was there to give his mobile and email details for follow-up action.

I am not sure how many politicians are this net savvy and take the trouble to actually chat with youth. But this man had them eating out of his hands - his good nature and sincerity is unmistakable - no I am not polishing apples here. You have to know Dato and see him in action to see what I mean.

I then chatted with Dato's wife for a while. She is an extremely pleasant and simple lady. Always ready with a genuine smile - unlike many Datins we meet. She is an engaging conversationalist too - likes to chat on simple matters with the youth who take to her like ducks to water.

After about an hour and a half of pounding on the keyboard, with Maxis Broadband serving him unfailingly, Dato logged off to join everyone for teh tarik and to chat with the rest of the "gang". I looked around and decided I was contributing to the increase of the average age of the group and politely took my leave.

But before I left I took note of the conversations these young people were having with him - no they were not lobbying for projects etc like we jaded people do. They were all eager to solve problems, they had genuine interest in matters regarding higher education, the internet, knowledge etc.

I left, feeling good about the change that is slowly but surely happening in this country. Its beginning to take shape in mamak shops, in the pyche of the young and eager.

God bless this land !

Cheers

Announcing Cambridge University's Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship !

2009-04-22T13:09:00.008+08:00

Friends and readers, I know I have been rather quiet and have not updated my blog for a while now - I beg your pardon.

I have been traveling, been on a short break and also been preparing for this very special event : the Introduction of Cambridge Advanced Diploma in Entrepreneurship program for Malaysian entrepreneurs, students, researchers and aspiring entrepreneurs.

Yes, this is an online program with 3 face to face sessions in the prestigious University.

More information on this unique Entrepreneurship program can be obtained from the here.

I am pleased to announce that the program is now available to all Malaysians and they can register directly with Cambridge University.

The closing date to send in your registration is : 1 June 2009.

Warisan Global is proud to be appointed the Ambassador for Malaysia for this Program and the Strategic Partner to the Centre for Entrepreneurship Learning (CfEL), Cambridge University.

We are hosting an event tomorrow to "Inform and Introduce" the Advanced Diploma from the prestigious University to the Entrepreneurial Community in KL.

The guest of Honour for this event is our newly appointed Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah and officials from the Ministry.

The event details are as follows :

Date : Thursday, 23rd April 2009

Time : 10:30am-1:30pm

Venue : Pacific Ballroom A, level 2, Best Western Premier Seri Pacific Hotel, Jalan Putra Kuala Lumpur

Be there to hear about the program and to meet the young, dynamic and articulate Deputy Minister of Higher Education.

Cheers

Thank You Marck Ortmans & the Amazing People at MYM !

2009-03-30T23:51:00.008+08:00

Jeff Skoll was not the only extraordinary person I met during my week in London.

The people at Make Your Mark was awesome.

Marilise and Chris was extremely kind to gather this group of talented and smart MYMers around the table and gave us (Matt from Australia, David from Lebanon and me) a few minutes each to present GEW'08 in our respective countries.

I went first and showed our GEW08 slides, which, Vivian took great pains to prepare. The painful part in preparing slides is me, the one with ever shifting needs and ever increasing standards.

Thank you Marc Ortmans for these photos - if not for you, I would not have anything to show my team ;-)

Scott Cain, the breezy Deputy CEO of MYM is a man with the beat. Scott spent time, amidst his busy schedule talking to me about entrepreneurship and how to build a successful campaign.

Scott then introduced me to his team members, one by one. There was Phil Tubba of Social Enterprise, Tori James (the youngest British Lady to scale Mount Everest, check her out at www.torijames.com), Kate, Dr Dan the Digital Guru and many more extraordinary people.

I must have looked dazed and tired, the folks at MYM could tell. I was just exhausted from the travels but the mind was just taking in everything.

Finally, it was Oli, who came and spent time with us during dinner. Oli was also great, he came by the next day to attend the Young Brits Awards (more on it later) and walked me back to MYM office. We spent some time talking and catching up with things. Oli is keen to see Make Your Mark with a Tenner take off in Malaysia.

To all the folks in MYM and to Oli Barret : a huge THANK YOU for taking super care of me whilst I was there. Everyone of you deserve a huge hug ! I will do the same when you are in Malaysia...

Cheers

Meeting Jeff Skoll @ The Skoll World Forum

2009-03-30T23:14:00.007+08:00

I had the rare privilege of meeting Jeff Skoll at the Skoll forum this time. I was not able to do so last year as he was surrounded by too many people and security was too tight.

Moreover, last year both during the opening and Closing Planery of the Skoll Forum when Jeff usually makes his public appearance, either Al Gore or President Jimmy Carter were the special guests and the security surrounding these gentlemen was just crazy.

However, this time after the most touching Closing Planery, Jeff was standing around, meeting and greeting people who went up to him.

I decided I too did not want to give up on this rare opportunity. So I went up to him and said, "hi Jeff, I am Dash, from Malaysia and it was superb forum and congratulations"

Now what he said to me, though did not surprise me, showed he was savvy of the demographics of his participants...."from Malaysia? Wow ! I was just speaking to someone today and asking how come we are not getting people from that region and I have found you. How did you come to know about us and what attracted you to Skoll?"

This time, the security became a little relaxed and decided he will take my camera, examine it and decided to take these shots whilst I was having a time of my life.

"Well, I read quite a bit about Social Entrepreneurship and that's how I found out about Skoll and this is my second time here" and to that he said, "second time?" emphasizing the word "second" and asked the security man to "take 2 shots" and gave me a big smile and thanked me for being there.

But, the thanks goes to Jeff Skoll.

The man has given, according to public records, about US1billion to establish the Skoll Foundation which in turn supports the research and education on social entrepreneurship at Oxford.

There are billionaires, and there are billionaires.

May God bless this one.

Cheers Jeff ! It was great to meet you and have a few minutes of your time.

Congrats Dato Saifuddin !

2009-03-27T23:30:00.004+09:00

I got an sms from a mutual friend of Dato' Saifuddin and I - the sms just said said "he won" !

By just from reading it, I could feel the excitement of this friend.

So, I rang one of Dato Saifuddin's aides, Shamsul, to congratulate the Deputy Minister and also his team.

Shamsul was sounding exhilirated..

I then rang the man himself - he picked up the call and I said, "this is Dash, calling from London, Congratulations Dato ".

Dato Saifuddin is a humble man. He said "I know who is calling bro, thank you, thank you and thank you. Enjoy your stay in London" !

Dato Saifuddin managed to win a seat in the Supreme Council of UMNO.

One thing that differentiates Dato Saifuddin and his team is that genuine inescapable smile they all carry with them throughout the day.

I know the team, Shamsul and all work very hard, round the clock. The boss is an exacting and demanding man, on himself. He works hard, reads voraciously and is an engaging speaker.

Congratulations Dato. On behalf of the entire GEW Team, Partners and supporters we all wish you all the best and pray to the Almighty that you will continue to succeed.

We look forward to your support for GEW 2009.

Cheers - writng from the Closing Plenery of the Skoll World Forum.

2009 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship

2009-03-26T19:48:00.002+09:00

This is my second day at Oxford attending the Skoll Forum. This is my second time here. I attended the Forum last year too.

The Skoll Forum is touted as the Davos for Social Entrepreneurship

There are 785 participants from 60 over countries here. I am so far the only one from Malaysia.

Will be updating the blog as I go along and find time in between the sessions which are extremely interesting.

Cheers

A Day in Make Your Mark office, London

2009-03-24T19:19:00.006+09:00

I spent almost the entire day with MYMers at their vibrant office.

This blog entry, I admit is going to do gross injustice to all the people I met and the discussions I had with them. I will not be able to capture spirit of MYM adequately in writing. Hopefully the photos will do some justice.

The entire organization pulsates with creativity, fun and ideas. An amazing group.

Later in the evening, some of us went for drinks .

Chris and Marilise was kind to take me out for dinner. Oli Barret joined us and so did Matt Jones from Australia.

It was a fulfilling day. Every discussion, as I mentioned earlier was enriching and the individuals extraordinary.

I will write about one or 2 of them as I go along.

The Man Behind The Logo !

2009-03-24T15:20:00.002+09:00

Meet Marc Ortmans - the man who created the vibrant Global Entrepreneurship Logo.

You guessed right, Marc is Jonathan's brother.

Marc runs a brand communications company in London called Marc Ortmans Brand Communications.

I met Marc at the MYM office yesterday and asked him what inspired him to come up with the logo.

He gave me an excellent insight into the thinking behind the logo and has agreed to post an entry as a guest blogger here explaining the philosophy behind the logo.

Stay tuned..

23/3 @ Make Your Mark Office : What A Surprise !!!

2009-03-24T00:57:00.005+09:00

I walked into MYM office in London this afternoon and guess who was there ? Jonathan Ortmans !!!

What a surprise. He flew into London last night on his way to Cape Town and decided to drop in.

So, we had a mini GEW gathering - we also have Matt Jones from Australia and David from Lebanon.

It was indeed a pleasure to catch up with Jonathan. The GEW family is fun and exciting.

Seen here with Chris Spavin, Jonathan and Marilise.

Chris and Marilise are MYM team.

Make Your Mark, 172 Drury Lane, London

2009-03-24T00:53:00.001+09:00

Its a nice colourful office.

Lovely people.

Fun place.

Encouraging A Reading Society !

2009-03-24T00:51:00.003+09:00

I caught this walking to the Make Your Mark office in London.

Interesting way to promote reading !

Wish we had signs like this near our LRTs ;-)

Cheers

"Born Global"

2009-03-23T15:50:00.002+09:00

Many Malaysian university students aspiring to be entrepreneurs ask this question:

"Do we start here, make it in Malaysia and then become Global or do we start with a Global mindset?"

Some years ago, I attended a talk by Infosys Founder, Mr Narayana Murthi. This is what he said " Be global - have a global mindset"

Well, this is what a recent article in the Economist has to say about this:

"In fact, today’s smart entrepreneurs start global. They search for materials, talent and opportunities the world over and define their competitive environment globally rather than locally. This reflects the fact that entrepreneurs are springing up in every corner of the world, complicating the battlefield still further"

For more, read the article : go to my Facebook.

Cheers

Hendy Setiono

2009-03-23T11:35:00.003+09:00

This is Hendy Setiono.

I met him last year in Bandung. We had a good time together - talking and laughing.

So, who is Hendy and why am I writing about him now?

Well, when I met Hendy I knew he is a very successful young entrepreneur. He is only about 24.

So, why write now? Well, I watched a documentary called Million Makers on the MAS flight to London yesterday. It's about young entrepreneurs and how they made it. I was thrilled to see Hendy featured in one of the series.

Based on google records:

Hendy is the founder of Kebab Turki Baba Rafi -a food chain. He is said to have more than 65 outlets across 10 cities in Indonesia. Its kebab sandwiches, as well as chicken and beef burgers, are sold in a variety of restaurant formats from portable booths to shopping center outlets.

His company is also branching out to franchise business consulting. Setiono is the recipient of the Indonesia Small Medium Business Entrepreneur Award (2006) sponsored by the government.

Hendy's story was also featured in many magazines including the Business Week.

Hendy is inspiring.

GEW Malaysia plans to invite young Asean entrepreneurs around the region for a forum - targetted at our own young entrepreneurs. The forum will motivate many young start-ups to push on and university students to think about entrepreneurship as a career..

The forum is being planned as a GEW event. Stay tuned and do tell us who else we should be inviting.

Cheers

20/3 : Jakarta : Community Entrepreneur Forum

2009-03-23T05:41:00.005+09:00

Have you ever seen a concourse of a leading mall turned into an event venue to celebrate Entrepreneurship & Social Entrepreneurship where celebrity MCs announce leading social entrepreneurs and awards are given to those who have created an impact?

This event was co-organized with another social entrepreneur organization called Community Entrepreneurs.

This is an extremely interesting organization: aiming to convert at least 3% of the Indonesian population into entrepreneurs in 3 years, by 2012.

"If each of these 3% create 10 more entrepreneurs, Indonesia will have 15 million creative and enterprising social workers helping another 150 million people nationwide !", contends Community Entrepreneurs.

Speaking and sharing at this session were prominent social entrepreneurs – Silverius Oscr Unggul (Onte) and Mahrizal Paru.

Both these are amazing people. More about them later..

Entrepreneurship is thriving, even in a nation where almost 20 million people remain jobless.

Indonesians are definitely not sitting around mulling about the economy. A small group of them are taking matters into their own hands and are on the road to re-shape their destiny and the destiny of their people and country !

19/3 : Bandung : One Day Social Entrepreneurial Summit

2009-03-21T22:21:00.004+09:00

I arrived in Bandung on the evening of the 18th (March) with my team, Azul, Laila and Rassa.

No, definitely not for shopping although I suspect the ladies did indulge in some form of shopping therapy.

We were there, invited by the British Council, Indonesia for a “One Day Social Entrepreneurship Summit 2009” jointly organized by the British Council, Indonesia and the University of Padjajaran or UNPAD.

UNPAD is one of the best universities in Indonesia and they are leading the thinking on Social Entrepreneurship here. In fact I am told they have included a SE Course in one of their business curriculum. Apparently they are also planning to set up an SE Business Development centre soon.

The audience for the summit mainly consisted of various stakeholders – Government officials, NGOS, Social Entrepreneurs and also academicians from UNPAD and people selected by BC.

The keynote speaker was John Pepin, a Social Entrepreneur from the UK. John spoke on what SE is and shared his UK experience.

The Event was well attended – there were more than 150 people in the main summit and I had a packed room in our break out track.

I was there to speak about our experience in promoting entrepreneurial awareness in Malaysia especially in the universities and also my team’s experience in working on various projects promoted by the Governments and private organizations in Malaysia.

The organizers also arranged for various break-out sessions. I was co-leading a session on Strategic Collaborations which was well attended. The participants were extremely vocal, had many ideas.

We discussed how and why its important for strategic collaborations between government, organizations and civil society.

I shared some of our Malaysian experience.

It was great fun to see the energy and enthusiasm in entrepreneurship in the room.

Interview on Astro Awani

2009-03-17T16:09:00.002+09:00

I walked into the Astro Awani office at 7.40am. The personnel who was supposed to prep me and put on some make-up for me was already panicking : where is this guy !

I was Awani's first and only guest in their new season yesterday.

I arrived from the US on Sat, 14th and then went off to Singapore to spend the weekend with an uncle and aunt I have not seen for a while now. Got the sms about the interview on sunday afternoon. Arrived in KL on Sunday night and the next morning, off I went.

No time for jet-lag. The topic was about job losses and the Global crisis.

They wanted my view. I did not have any good news to share. Since the crisis began in end 2007, close to 5 million jobs are lost up to December 2008.

600,000 jobs are being lost every month since then.

More than 20 million jobs are lost in China and on an on I went giving the stats.

These jobs are NOT going to come back. My interviewers did not have anything to hold on when I made that statement.

"These jobs are gone forever". What can we do now is the question. The only way forward is the new F word : Be Flexible.

We talked about being flexible.

My interviewers - SangSuria and Zaiful - both intelligent and attractive asked what should policymakers do.

"They should change the employment laws - to make it easier for employers to fire !" Another controversial statement. I let it sink and then added " when they know its easy to fire, they will begin to hire"

We have to move to become better knowledge workers. Government should look at not taxing the small entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship should be encouraged. When the forest is on fire and when the old is dead, the new has to be born. These are entrepreneurs.

We talked about entrepreneurship and why the time for entrepreneurship is NOW.

My compere asked, how do we remove fear of the venture or the unknown? Knowledge is the best cure for fear.

I took the opportunity to announce the launch of FastTrac - an entrepreneurship program by the Kauffman Foundation. WG will be launching this program soon...

Stay tuned. The excitement is building on !

Host 2009, Malaysia

2009-03-17T07:01:00.002+09:00

One of the small ceremonies we had at Kansas City was signing of the Host MOU.

I did mention in an earlier blog entry that I will post the photos as soon as I get them from the Singapore Host, Sang (NUS) who very kindly took these photos.

The Foundation also had their own official photographer who took some shots.

Seen here with Jonathan Ortmans, GEW President.

Day 3 : No Goodbyes, New Beginnings

2009-03-12T21:47:00.004+09:00

The final day was a more open day for everyone to have separate discussions with specific people at the Foundation.

They were also forums on the Global Scholars Program etc.

Then it was nice sumptuous lunch.

The organizers took great pains to ensure everyone's dietary needs are met.

I am not a great fan of goodbyes. It always makes me sad. Spending 3 days with all the hosts from all the countries - people you have worked with but not seen was difficult..

Anyway, many of us met on the sidelines in the bar and restaurants the whole day.

Now, the time has come for me to say bye to Kansas City - catching the flight in a few hours.

Cheers.

Day 2 - Deep Dive and Fun

2009-03-12T01:03:00.004+09:00

The afternoon session was no let up. We were on our toes, literally.

There were many sessions. One key session was Jonathan leading everyone to think through setting up action groups or task forces around specific problems on catayzing entrepreneurship.

We had many suggestions for task forces - Asia Pacific Region Collaboration, Global Media and PR, Sponsorships, African Country Groupings etc etc. I also went ahead and suggested Small Business Cross Border Collaborations.

So, Scott Cain (Deputy CEO of Make Your Mark ) and I will be leading this initiative.

I will be in London sometime at the end of the month and will have a more detailed discussion with Scott on how we can do this for our partners.

We also had Host MOU Signing ceremonies where Jonathan was the gracious host : signing and taking photos with all the hosts. The photo of us signing is with the Kauffman official photographer and another was taken by NUS. Will post that soon when I get it ;-)

In the evening there was a gala dinner hosted at the National World War 1 Museum at Liberty Memorial.

The evening was much fun and laughter where everyone shared their lighter part of hosting GEW.

More soon...

Day 2: The Malaysian GEW Banner & Collecting Global Footprint.

2009-03-11T22:03:00.003+09:00

Just before I left for the US, Vani suggested I took some banner with me to enable all other hosts to sign on them. This will be good to remember the first ever GEW Host Conference.

Then Emily and her team improved on the idea and came up with this flag.

I left it on a table at the conference and Jonathan was kind enough to let everyone know about this..

You can see here how the signatures grew. People were fascinated by this idea..

Thanks to Vani for catalyzing the idea and for Emily and team to make it happen.

Arief and Jam : you did a wonderful job and made Malaysia proud. Thank you guys..

Day 2 : More networking..

2009-03-11T21:49:00.003+09:00

Day 2 : Deeper Discussions

2009-03-11T19:06:00.005+09:00

The morning session began with Jonathan running us through the agenda for the day.

It began with an important topic - Building A Successful Campaign - Building & Catalyzing National Partnerships.

Both Scott Cain and Brenden Cheney led this session.

They discussed the key distinction between "catalyzing" and "organizing". We all know about organizing.

Catalyzing - is about getting partners to organize activities. The partner need to understand the value of doing this. The value proposition is to grow the entrepreneurial mindset in the partners selected community. This brings benefit to all and for the partner, global brand recognition when he or she is part of this growing movement.

Once the partner understood this, activities just snowballs.

Many hosts from other countries shared how they catalyzed activities through their partners.

Its not an easy concept at first, but from the sheer number of activities it is clear to us that without catalyzing, its impossible for 77 hosts to have been able to put together or organize thier own activities.

Catalyzing is, i believe a social innovation.

We then moved on to discuss Leveraging Your Global Entrepreneurship Week Brand.

Here Singapore shared well and even showed a video. We too shared our flash presentation. It was well received and one gentlemen from the University of Amsterdam even wrote a not of congratulations to our design boys in WG.

After this was an interesting topic : Public Relations and Media.

This in an area a few countries excelled. We were one of them. The others were Uruguay and Brazil.

After both the ladies from these countries spoke, I had 1 minute to speak. I quickly went through our media stories. Thanks to the Malaysian media, it was a proud moment for Malaysia. Our media had the imagination to follow the GEW story and give us fantastic coverage.

We then went on to discuss web and digital media, event sponsorship and the Global and national website, metrics and evaluations.

These will be topics for partner meetings in Malaysia..

Day 1 @ The Kauffman :Dinner

2009-03-10T19:45:00.007+09:00

"Entrepreneurs birth the new" said Carl, CEO & President of the Kauffman Foundation.

Carl's speech was inspiring. Everyone listened attentively.

In fact those are his signature words.

This was at the dinner hosted by the Foundation.

The dinner was held at the Kauffman Centre's large auditorium.

I had the rare privilage to be seated next to Carl during the dinner. Carl was extremely interested and attentive in what Malaysia is doing to promote entrepreneurship.

Spent some quiet moments with the leadership of Kauffman - seen with both the leaders.

At the end of the dinner, I presented Carl with the Malaysian batik painting with the GEW logo.

I was asked to say a few words and I said "This privilage to me, is an honour - to be the host of such a movement, to be invited at the Foundation - an institution I have always respected and was inspired by. I am proud to be here - not just for me, but for my team and for Malaysia"!

I then thanked the Global Founders for GEW and others hosts for all jumping into the bus to make this happen - all for one purpose : Entrepreneurship.

We are at the beginning of something owesome : the movement that will seed the new plants, as metioned by Robert Lital earlier.

It was a fabulous evening- the wine and the jet lag was not helping either;-)

Day 1 @ Conference : Kauffman Fellows and Other Experts Share....

2009-03-10T19:31:00.003+09:00

This was a very interesting session. Kauffman fellows and experts from other organizations such as Stanford University shared their views.

Of particular interest to me was by Robert E.Litan.

Robert is the VP for Research & Policy at the Kauffman Foundation and co-authored the book "Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism" with Carl Schramm and William Baumal _ a professor of Entrepreneurship at Berkely Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies.

What Robert had to say about the economy was gripping. He said the crisis is like a "huge forest fire. The stimulus packages are like spraying water and trying to douse the fire"

However, he says we cannot spend our way to prosperity. Its time for policymakers to really look hard and make some difficut decisions.

When everything is being destroyed by the forest fire, new plants have to be quickly grown. And these new plants are entrepreneurs.

Governments should make it extremely easy for people to become entrepreneurs. Employment laws should change and not make it difficult for employers to fire employees. He says, employers don't hire when its difficult to fire. Employees should be allowed to move freely. He says tax laws should be reviewed and not confiscate wealth from start-up entrepreneurs.

It was a notion shattering talk by Robert.

The others were no less impressive.

Day 1 @ Conference : Meeting People, Sharing the Excitement !

2009-03-10T19:10:00.005+09:00

a

Met nearly all the hosts - who I have only been in contact with via emails and the GEW Hosts' group hub thus far.

We were no strangers - a shared vision like this unites everyone. No national boundaries were felt.

We spoke about the possibilities, the challenges and how to overcome them, and move forward.

On everyone's mind was : Cross Border Collaborations between partners of each country. The possibilities are immense.

With GEW, I believe, "Everyone Now Can Be Global' ;-) !

Seen here with Carl Schramm, CEO and President of the Kauffman Foundation.

Day 1 @ Conference : Sharing Our Stories

2009-03-10T18:50:00.011+09:00

At the "Your Stories" session, we were given about a minute to share our stories.

Many spoke about the success of GEW in their countries. Some had immense challenges but yet they made it all happen.

Many people were creative, they showed a short video clip and some had PowerPoint presentations.

I did my bit - showed off what we did in Malaysia: the BarCamp, Lemonade Stories, Connecting with Young Minds, Pecha Kucha, Young Guns, The Launch, Closing everything was shown.

Many hosts came up to me after the presentation and congratulated Malaysia for the great job. Apparently they were hearing so much news about Malaysia before and during the week that they were getting more and more interested in Malaysia.

Maybe the Tourism Ministry in KL need to jump in into GEW? ;-)

Day 1 @ The Kauffman :Welcoming Remarks : What We Did Together

2009-03-10T18:00:00.005+09:00

Jonathan Ortmans, President of the Global Entrepreneurship Week and Scott Cain, Deputy CEO of Make Your Mark give their opening remarks.

This is what the numbers say we did together:

*100 Countries with activities:

- 77 "Official" Countries

- 23 "Unofficial" Countries

*8,882 Partners

*25,022 activities

*3,064,937 participants

* 1 billion reached through web and media

Virtual Success:

* 13,000 members of GEW digital spaces ( Facebook, MySpace, etc)

*11, 057 Blog entries for "Global Entrepreneurship Week"

* unleashingideas.org traffic from 184 countries/territories

*208 blog posts on unleashingideas.org since December 2007

This is just the beginning...Lets make the planet smaller in 2009 !

Kauffman Foundation - Welcoming us !

2009-03-10T17:40:00.004+09:00

Welcoming us at the Kauffman centre were flags of all the nations represented there.

There are hosts from 60 countries here and about and 101 people from various other supporting organizations.

Proud to see the Malaysia flag in all its glory there with the rest of the nations' flags.

9/3 : Conference Day 1 : Leaving for the Kauffman Centre

2009-03-10T17:32:00.004+09:00

Everyone met at the hotel lobby at 7.45am sharp : as it was in the Agenda.

Seen here with Chris Spavin and Marilise from Make Your Mark, UK - just before we boarded the bus to the Kauffman Foundation.

It was a chilly morning.

Sunday, 8th March @ Kansas City

2009-03-09T20:31:00.004+09:00

Sunday, 8th March - the daylight savings time began at 2am.

Daylight savings gives people in this part of the world the opportunity to enjoy sunny summer evenings by moving the clock one hour forward during spring.

Thus, they will be rewarded an extra hour of sunlight at the end of their day..

It did not make much of a difference to me - I think i slept till 1pm Kansas time. Woke up, had a shower and off I went for a walk.

Spent quite a bit of time in Barnes and Nobles. Spent a few dollars there too ;-).

Can never resist bookshops.

Had coffee and some tortilla rolls for dinner..

Later in the evening met up with those who were already here at the hotel - Jonathan Ortmans was one of them.

Its 6am now, 6.40pm in KL. Did not get much sleep !

Arrived @ Kansas City, Missouri !

2009-03-08T16:52:00.006+09:00

I just got into Kansas City, Missouri. It was almost midnight when the plane landed.

It was raining and we experienced some turbulence before touchdown.

This is Steve - the chauffeur from Overland Services who was there to pick me and send me to the Intercontinental, where some of us are staying. We booked this service from KL - its cheaper than trying to get a cab at midnight.

Steve is a courteous driver.

Steve chatted with me all the way - he did not have any inhibitions towards a foreigner.

As we approached the hotel, Steve asked me if I would mind taking a quick drive around the city to get my bearings. Though it was dark and raining and I was craving for a nice hot shower, I obliged seeing Steve was eager.

Steve drove me around some nice affluent neighbourhood - we went by some mansions some nice houses.

Steve then went pass the Kauffman Foundation and pointed out to me the nice eateries.

Once the tour was done, Steve dropped me at the hotel.

Boy, was it a long day:

KL - Taipei - LA - Phoenix - Kansas City.

Flying almost the whole day.

I am looking forward to the conference. Meanwhile, I await my snack before I hit this comfortable bed.

Cheers

In Transit @ Taipei

2009-03-07T15:52:00.005+09:00

Arrived at Taipei around 2.20pm.

Its cloudy and apparently rained a little.

Security clearance was painless and smooth.

Internet access at the transit lounge is pretty fast.

Need to find a plug point to charge my mac ...

Stay tuned to this site...for updates on the Global Entrepreneurship Conference for GEW Hosts at the Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City..

Cheers

Packing me off.....with a thousand smiles...to Kansas City !

2009-03-06T17:03:00.006+09:00

The Team - who is secretly hoping the Global Entrepreneurship Congress will go on forever and I will stay in the US for months ! ;-)

Yes, Eliza, Emily and Vivian - the team prepared the slides, the photo CDs, the media files and everything I may conceivably need to be effective at the Global Entrepreneurship Conference in Kansas City !

They stayed many nights to ensure I am absolutely happy with their Powerpoint slides .

Thank you ladies, you are all awesome...

And yes, Rassa - our new babe on the block : trying to keep pace with all these entrepreneurship jargon and activities.

Rassa is hilarious : she is simply focused to ensure her PowerPoint slides will become not just slides but masterpieces in themselves !

All the best girls...see you all soon with new ideas and renewed energy from Kansas City !

Take it easy now...

The Super A Team who is helping me with my travels..

2009-03-06T11:37:00.008+09:00

Elinna and Vani are the A team who worked extremely hard to prepare all my needs for my travel to the US from tomorrow !

These two ladies helped me with the entire VISA application process and made sure I got everything I needed before I appeared in front of the consulate for my Visa interview.

Elinna even found out where I can park near the American Embassy.

Yesterday, I was given a file by Vani - very carefully prepared by both Elinna and Vani.

In it contained everything - my itinerary, my tickets, hotel vouchers, emergency telephone numbers, vouchers for the cab service that will be transporting me from the airport to my hotel in Kansas City.

Vani even had reviews of hotels etc and the climate in Kansas City printed out and filed in the "travel kit".

This sounds almost like the preparation the President of the United States gets he travels.

Thank you Elinna. Thank you Vani. You guys are simply great.

Thanks and cheers.

The Roadshow Begins !

2009-03-05T17:35:00.011+09:00

L

Last Saturday, 28/2 was a busy day for my team and I. Rassa, Emily and I left for UiTM as early as 8am.

I was invited by the Professional Accounting department to give a talk on Corporate Responsibility (CR).

There were at least 300 Professional Accounting students at the vast auditorium. They were from various professional bodies - the UiTM accounting students, CIMA, ACCA and some other universities as well.

It was a well organized event.

Sharing the podium with me was my good friend, Adelina Iskandar (Ad), GM of Syabas - the water supplier and Ms Sumithra Nair from DiGi - the mobile company.

Both Adelina and Sumithra spoke about their respective organizations' CR initiatives.

What was extremely interesting about Syabas was how Adelina articulated her company's "raison d'etre" or reason to exist : the entire business was, according to her a Corporate Responsibility : the way "we deal with our customers, the way we solve their problems and even they way we educate them about our product - water" !

Ad's presentation was peppered with jokes and many light moments. Her slides were slick.

Sumitra from DiGi was astounding. Sumithra spoke passionately about DiGi's CR initiatives. How their CR starts from their doorstep. How DiGi has designed their office space -the open office concept and how this contributes hugely to an innovative and creative environment.

Sumitra also spoke about their company policy on employees, their Deep Grees program which focuses on Climate Change and others.

One thing with DiGi - its not just a company selling a product. Its a company building a cult !

When my turn came - I spoke about the the importance of CR. I asked if in the current Global Economic Crisis should the CR budget be cut and nearly all the future accountants responded with a NO ! What a relief !

To me, CR is about Incubating Future Customers. Since the purpose of any business is to create the customer - its important to have a well thought through CR Strategy : at the intersection of business needs and social wellbeing.

I then spoke about The Global Entrepreneurship Week.

I gave a whole presentation on this amazing week and how I feel entrepreneurship is important - even in the current economic times.

Entrepreneurship is about being FREE ! Its the best CR you can give anyone.

With that I ended my session at UiTM. I had to leave almost immediately as I was speaking at another event 10 mins from UiTM : I was off to a SIFE event.

Michael Reyes from Money Tree was speaking about his programs when we arrived at Intekma. Michael is a passionate speaker and he has some very innovative programs under Money Tree.

We all then had lunch and Zul, Country Manager for SIFE then introduced me to the audience - mostly SIFERs and about 20 of them.

I spoke about GEW and encouraged SIFE to play a pivotal role in this years GEW.

Michael Teoh then spoke to the Sifers on how they should or could leverage on Sife, its name and network to promote SIFE and themselves.

A very engaging and enterprising guy Michael is. He is young and has many achievements to his his name. Will be speaking to Michael soon to have him profiled in this blog.

Thus, last Sat went by fast...

Next Sat, 7th will be different. I will be leaving to Kansas City ; for the GEW Host Conference.

Will report more from there.

Cheers

World Entrepreneurship Congress for GEW Hosts in March 2009

2009-02-25T12:19:00.005+09:00

The Founders of the Global Entrepreneurship Week, the Kauffman Foundation and Make Your Mark are hosting the World Entrepreneurship Congress in March.

The Congress is targeted at GEW Hosts throughout the world.

The Congress is hosted at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City and will be held between 9th to 11th of March this year.

I am delighted to be invited and am happy to participate in this Congress which promises to be exciting and highly educational.

This conference is designed to take GEW to the next level and is aimed to benefit partners through new programs that promotes entrepreneurship and connects partners globally.

Hosts will also be "trained on various capacity building skills - from Media and Fundraising to deepening and widening our campaign by catalyzing and leveraging partnerships."

The NEW "ready to go" Global Entrepreneurship Week core activities for partners to conduct across the world will also be presented.

I am confident the knowledge gained from the congress, if implemented in Malaysia will hugely benefit the entrepreneurial community here.

I truly look forward to the new learnings and new relationships.

To enable us to maximize on this opportunity and to ensure you benefit from this, my team has sent all partners a survey. The purpose of this survey is to understand what worked last year and the improvements you wish to see this year.

Please do participate in the survey and we look forward to your response by the 3rd of March.

Where possible, I plan to blog live from the US - during the conference to keep you updated on the new knowledge - to ensure you share in them too.

Thank you and Cheers..

A Day With SIFE Malaysia : A GEW Roadshow

2009-02-17T06:55:00.003+09:00

Emily and Rassa spent Sat with SIFE.

SIFE stands for Students in Free Enterprise.

Who and what is SIFE ?

Go to : their site.

This is what Rassa has to say about their trip:

"Last weekend, Emily and I spent sometime with a bunch of enthusiastic creative students from Student in Free Enterprise KL Metropolitan University ( SIFE KLMU) Entrepreneurial Workshop at the Motivation Camp Raudah in Gombak. The open air concept, jungle setting and bubbling river by the side was surreal for this type of workshop but it worked!

Before we started our introduction on GEW, the students got us to dance the Xi Shua Shua!( A bit like the Macarena!). There was a lot of laughter and funny movements all around. However, despite the atmosphere being fun and informal, the students were focused and started sharing and throwing big ideas for the form of their collaboration with GEW Week when we started our piece! Creativity was flowing!!

In the remarks from the President of SIFE KLMU, Fareez Shahfiqar “..This camp will be an opening act for numerous upcoming events that in turn will be the trademark of SIFE KLMU culture of successful events..” It was good to see this sort of passion from the future leaders of our country.

Rassa"

We look forward to SIFE's activities throughout the year - culminating in GEW.

Will update more after my meeting with their Country Coordinator on the 28th.

Cheers

Happy Valentine's Day to my Dearest !

2009-02-14T20:41:00.005+09:00

This is Vani - as the Indians would say " my better half". The emphasis here could be in the word "better"!

My association with her has, I believe, made me an individual - made me stand out from the crowd, if you may.

I met Vani 22 years ago - she "dashed" into the staff entrance door of the big 4 where I was working. It was her first day at work. No, it was not love at first sight - far from it.

We became good friends - even that took a long time. We were more "as a matter of fact" friends than anything else.

Anyway, we slowly got to know each other. For me it was more of an admiration for her sharp intellect. I slowly found out she had a good heart too.

She says she saw in me "some potential to amount to something" !

When it came to numbers and finance, she is a whiz kid. She is a trained accountant and a tax consultant

We got married 3 years after we met. Its been a great 19 years now.

Vani, rightfully should have her name beside mine in everything I do. She is the force behind all my ventures and endeavours.

However, I have always kept her name close to mine. Apart from being my wife and friend, she is COO and CFO in WG. No, she did not get the job because she is my wife. She is capable.

Happy Valentine's Day Vani !

Thank you for everything you have done for me !

Cheers

Senedi Sponsors GEW 09 Malaysian Website !

2009-02-13T15:11:00.007+09:00

SENEDI - their blog reads :

"Senedi helps businesses take care of the necessary IT matters so that they can focus on their customers. Senedi also helps nonprofits achieve greater results through quality solutions at affordable prices.

We are a company based in Kuala Lumpur that offers professional IT services including IT consultancy, software development, website design, and many more. Contact us for more information."

They can be contacted at : www.senedi.com

The consultancy is run by 2 very capable and friendly women : Ching Yee and Karyn Mak.

Both women were IT geeks in their past life and to an extend they still are. They are passionate about what they do and they show a lot of care for their work.

I have gotten to know both Ching Yee and Karyn Mak during GEW08. They were some of the key people driving the Social Entrepreneur track at the Bar Camp.

Recently, both Ching Yee and Karyn came to see me. They offered to design the GEW Website. They recommended some very cool improvements and today they came by WG's office to show us what they have designed. Stunning !

"This is our sponsorship for GEW09", both said. I was overjoyed and thanked them.

With a bit of tweaking, and migration to another host, the GEW Malaysia website will be launched soon. Cooler and more user friendly.

I thank Senedi for coming forward to sponsor the site development. This makes Senedi the second Partner to sponsor their business skills for GEW and for the entrepreneurial community as a whole. The first was the British High Comm - by sponsoring the launch.

Thank you Senedi. We look forward to the site.

Cheers

CRADLE FUND's CNY Gathering

2009-02-13T09:21:00.006+09:00

Rassa and I attended Cradle Fund's Chinese New Year high tea and networking session yesterday. It was held at one of the leading hotels in the Golden Triangle.

According to the invite, the gathering was from 2pm to 5.30pm. The invite also said there will be 1 speech and 1 presentation. The speech was by Nazrin Hassan, CEO of Cradle Fund Sdn.Bhd. and the presentation was by David Lo, Principal Consultant from Six Brands - a consultancy services firm.

David's presentation was titled "Capitalising on Luck" - an apt topic in interesting times like this.

Due to some prior commitments, I was only able to get there by 4pm - fighting KL traffic. When I got there, David was in the midst of his presentation. From the little I heard of what he said, it seemed interesting.

Anyway, Rassa and I mingled and stayed till the end. We left when almost everyone has left and the hotel staff was stacking up the chairs and giving us dirty looks - "the function is over guys, get lost"!

This is the problem with functions like this. You meet your friends and comrades. Its almost always like a family get together. You can't just say bye and leave. The bye's are like "bye's" in Bollywood movies...minus the tears of course ! They take an hour and the host usually talks to their guests until the guests get into the elevator and the doors are closing...even then they try to put their hands in between the closing doors to shake your hand one more time with a broad smile !

You then get an sms or email to say "thank you for coming to our party - we enjoyed your company" !

This is what makes Malaysia special when it comes to the Rakyat (her people) - we have strong bonds. We love to party. We love to have gatherings and people are always dressed in vibrant colours. When it comes to food - we never short-change our guests. We freely let them add a few more inches to their waistline and to top it off give them a door gift ;-)

The culture of kenduri (feasts in villages) has not gone away. We have brought it with us to our five star hotels !

Nazrin, thanks for organizing such a bash. It was truly great to catch up with everyone. I love to attend other people's gathering as it gives me time to actually talk to people and appreciate them for everything they are doing to make Malaysia and the entrepreneurial community fun, exciting and worth its while.

The usual suspects were there at the do : Andrew from MIRC, Stephen and Lee Ching from TeAM, Prem - Malaysiakini, Peter Tham - Microsoft, Daniel Cerventus - Malaysian Entrepreneurs, Keng Yew from Social Walk, Azim - Alpha Catalyst and more..

I also had the pleasure of meeting some new people.

All in all, a great evening. Thank you again Naz and team at Cradle - as usual, you guys always out do yourself.

Cheers

Rassa Ramli Reinvents.....Herself !

2009-02-11T00:03:00.007+09:00

Read law at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Worked at a Big Four both in London and in KL.

Legal Eagle for the last 18 years - reached the pinnacle of her career as Partner in her legal firm.

She is now, General Manager, Special Projects and Business Development at Warisan Global - a "for profit social venture" !

" Why in the world ?" - she tells me her friends are asking her!

I asked her the same question when she first told me she wanted to give up her legal practice to join us.

"We work in rural communities where access is difficult. Your Lexus can't reach some of these places dear" I warned her.

We also work with young and start-up entrepreneurs. You have to do a lot more with a lot less.

Rassa is not someone who is intimidated by these threats. I have known her for the last 8 years.

We meet - after some long intervals to chat and have coffee. When we meet, its as if we never did lose touch.

If you know Rassa, you will know she has panache and her zest for life is quite infectious.

After a few discussions on joining us, I thought to myself "Temporary insanity - is what she must be going through". I put off the discussion for a while to see if she recovers.

No, luck. She had made up her mind. She wanted to help the community and entrepreneurs with her skills. She wants to find herself through this calling. I believe in this approach. To me, entrepreneurship is a calling and connecting them is something i truly enjoy.

Whats wrong if after so many years, one decides to throw all caution to the wind to embark on one's calling. A move like this needs guts and you need to trust life to be able to take the plunge...

However she is not here to experiment. She is driven by results and wants to see things happening. She has already taken the bull by the horns. She is going through all the work we have done. She is meeting people and is ready !

Warisan Global welcomes Rassa. She now joins the rest of our Head of Departments who CARE - Capable, Approachable, Responsible and Enthusiastic.

I am sure the entrepreneurial community will benefit a great deal from her experience.

Rassa is in charge of sponsorship for GEW and will be taking on other projects as well.

Welcome Rassa !

Cheers

Saturday Creative Corner Launch by Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah

2009-02-09T22:53:00.003+09:00

On Sat, 7th, Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah launched the Saturday Creative Corner initiative at the Mara Building in Kuala Lumpur.

The purpose of this initiative is to promote the products of these entrepreneurs and to encourage them to network amongst themselves and various people who will visit the exhibition.

The idea is to have a full day event every 1st Saturday of the month.

From what I understand from both his speech and a discussion with him after the launch, Dato' Saifuddin expects to see an exhibition where creative designers, t-shirt makers such as the Young Guns and Pop Rina and many others are converging every 1st Saturday of every month to network and to promote their wares.

Dato' says he got this idea after seeing what the creative entrepreneurs were capable of after visiting the Young Guns' exhibition during GEW.

I am keen to see this project become a success and to see more creative entrepreneurs converging in the location.

In my view, one key success factor for this to happen is a clear value proposition. I think we need to invite all these entrepreneurs for an hour with Dato so that he can share his vision and why they should be there and how this can help them.

Once we have gotten the message across, we need to ensure the entrepreneurs are motivated to be there every week. Most of these creative entrepreneurs - be it designers, t-shirt makers, artists etc are usually not very business savvy. They are driven by passion. There has to be some hand holding and guidance and help in these area too is not difficult to come by.

Dato' has taken the first step to make these entrepreneurs come forward. This is awesome. They now need to take this opportunity and come forward. What more can the entrepreneurs ask for when they have such a mentor and a leader who is sincerely willing to help?

Thank you Dato for taking this bold step. We will support this noble initiative of yours and your Ministry.

This is one clear way where GEW has helped to plant the seed towards the promotion of entrepreneurship in an area usually overlooked by policymakers.

Cheers

Murals from Lim Kok Wing University of Creative Technology

2009-02-09T15:04:00.005+09:00

These were taken from my I-Phone..

The photos does not do justice to the glorious murals.

Lim Kok Wing University of Creative Technology - Shaping Activities for GEW09

2009-02-08T19:15:00.009+09:00

The University, known for its creativity and innovation is keen to play a significant role for GEW2009.

When I walked into the campus, I was greeted by a vast open space - with chairs and tables. It looked like as if the entire campus was a cafe !

"We call this the plaza and all visitors are greated by our hammer head bird " - said Mr Tee, pointing at the steel structure of a huge bird at the entrance - with 4 huge gongs lining the pathway.

The plaza itself was surrounded by all sorts of businesses - from a hair dressing saloon to a retail shop.

"All these businesses are run by the students - together we manage the business" - Dr Abdul Rahman confirmed later.

The founder and leader, Tan Sri Dato' Dr Lim Kok Wing is a visionary of no small measure. He is building a Global Malaysian brand !

They have campuses in the UK, Botswana, Cambodia and Lesotho.

Their Malaysian campus, when you drive past it is quite a sight to behold. With giant sized murals with bizzare colours.

When you are inside the campus, you feel every corner and stone pulsating with innovation and imagination. This is what i call, culture in every fibre.

The students, they tell me come from 130 countris.

LimKokWing University of Creative Technology was a partner last year and plan to do more this year !

I got a mail from Dr Abdul Rahman, expressing this intention soon after the launch.

We made an appointment to meet and talk and we did just that last Fri, 6th Feb,

I was met by Mr Tee and Mr Zahir both Principal Lecturers. Dr Abdul Rahman joined us soon after.

Azim Pawanchik of Alpha Catalyst - a firm specializing in Innovation joined us at the meeting. Alpha was one of our most active partners last year.

I was impressed with the plans they have outlined. I informed them that they are free to plan year long activities to promote entrepreneurship and culminate these activities in a bash during the GEW Week. They wanted to know if the year long activities can be counted as GEW activities and branded as such. "Most definitely", I said.

We want to build Entrepreneurship as a culture. So year long activities are definitely encouraged.

The same evening I got a mail to confirm our discussion. The team's plan is to send "the activity road map" for the University's management approval before its unveiled and rolled out.

The University has also launched their own Entrepreneurship Club. "We run our own businesses. Entrepreneurship here is not just theory, we do", said Dr Abdul Rahman.

One such business is the Wings Cafe - where we had our meeting. I was served their signature Durian Smoothie. Boy, it was simply fabulous. Its made of pure durian puree.

"Anyone can come and have their food here, even outsiders", said Mr Tee. I was then given a tour of the university. "We treat all our visitors like VIPs" said Mr Tee and meant every word of it.

They are building a global brand and culture and I can't wait for them to unveil their plans for GEW 2009 !

Congrats LimKokWing University of Creative Technology !

Cheers

The Elevator Pitch !

2009-02-07T23:35:00.007+09:00

On Jan 20th, the day before the GEW Malaysia 2009 Launch, I was invited to a very unique and special event.

It was the launch of a book titled "New Politics - Towards A Mature Malaysian Democracy" by none other than the Deputy Minister of Entrepreneur & Cooperative Development, Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah.

I say unique because as one reviewer said in the book " it is rare in Malaysia, as far as I know, for a Member of Parliament and Deputy Minister, while in office, to write a book critical of the very people in the group that he himself belongs and depends on and the practices which, normally, he might be a party to".

But Dato' Saifuddin is no ordinary MP. The man's intellectual courage is astounding ! His vision is not incremental, but quite revolutionary.

Dato', requested to meet me 2 days before his book launch to brief him about the GEW Launch.

During this meeting, he gave me an autographed book of his and invited me for the launch.

For a man with his stature to extend a personal invitation, I was honoured.

The launch ceremony was at the Shangri'la Putrajaya. The book was launched by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

After the launch there was lunch and some networking.

After the lunch, as the Deputy Prime Minister was leaving, I was standing with another friend at the pathway. We planned to greet the DPM and congratulate Dato Saifuddin.

As they were walking on the red carpet, Dato Saifuddin spotted my friend and I.

I heard Dato' saying to the DPM, "you have to meet these guys" and he went on to introduce me as the guy who is the host for GEW Malaysia.

I had to give an elevator pitch to the DPM and I did that as best as I could - I had less than a minute. The DPM was quick and grasped the key points and said, "good". He then moved on to have a quick word with Michael.

This was one of the most swift elevator pitches I must have attempted.

Thank you Dato for the introduction. You are a good man.

Cheers - looking forward to your support in GEW 2009.

The Ever Inquisitive Rishi !

2009-02-03T23:17:00.003+09:00

This is Rishi. He is 10.

He has now become a blogger : http://www.rishid15.blogspot.com/

This boy loves technology and is perpetually thinking about or exploring new ways of using his notebook.

Rishi is also an extremely soft-hearted boy.

As his dad, I am proud of him.

One of my goals for GEW 2009 is to look for and highlight champions - Where else to start, but home ;-)

Cheers

Rich Resource on Entrepreneurship

2009-02-01T18:45:00.003+09:00

Hi everyone,

The Kauffman Foundation has a new weekly newsletter called the Policy Diologue on Entrepreneurship.

This newsletter is associated with its new online resource Entrepreneurship.org.

If you are looking for material on Entrepreneurship, both has excellent resources.

Enjoy !

Cheers

"D. Its Written" ! Slumdog Millionaire..

2009-01-30T01:35:00.004+09:00

I just watched Slumdog Millionaire. Boy, what a movie !

Slumdog Millionaire was directed by Danny Boyle and its based on an award winning novel, "Q & A" by an Indian author, Vikas Swarup.

The movie is about a man who is uneducated and from the slums of Mumbai taking part on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire".

I must say the entire story is woven together extremely well.

Apparently, Slumdog has won many awards already.

Its a positive movie and can be quite inspiring. I recommend you to watch it and come to your own conclusions.

Cheers

GEW'09 Malaysia Launch Photos

2009-01-29T11:41:00.006+09:00

Hi everyone, here are some of the photos..

For more, follow this link :
http://www.flickr.com/groups/927830@N21/pool/

Please send us yours too, if any.

Cheers

Back Home ! India was fun !

2009-01-28T22:44:00.008+09:00

First - wishing all my Chinese friends a Very Happy and Prosperous Year of the Ox ! Gong Xi Fa Chai!

I guess the GEW Malaysia Launch was one of the first celebrations to welcome the New Year - with the Lion Dance and all !

To the rest of my non-Chinese friends, I hope you all had a good break. I know some of you are still on leave- till next Tuesday?

Malaysia - we seem to have too many long weekends, let alone holidays. Perhaps its good for family unity ? For some, its time to catch up on chores and maybe some reading.

As for me, I was away in India. I left with my family the day after the launch of GEW Malaysia on 21 Jan and returned last evening.

It was more of a private trip - I took my kids along. They were rolling their eyes when we mentioned India !

Visiting another country is always fun - though unsettling. You need to pack and unpack and also more importantly you are away from your usual creature comforts. This alone is enough to put your patience to test. Thank god, my kids are good travellers - they did not pose any problems.

Chennai was buzzing with entrepreneurial activities. The retail shops were jam packed with people. Not sure if these people were aware of the economic crisis. So were the other 2 cities we visited - Madurai and Trichi. People were all buying and visiting eateries as if there is no tomorrow.

The story of Manmohan Singh, the Indian PM being admitted in the hospital for a bypass was hogging the headlines for a few days. News magazines were carrying stories of Satyam.

However, one thing that struck me during this visit was that the cities (at least the ones I visited this time) are all looking increasingly dirty. There were rubbish everywhere.

Though this phenomena is not unusual in India, I think this time I just became too aware of it.

Many thoughts were running in my mind - why are people careless about cleanliness? What do we make out of a person who keeps their private living space in a mess?

I was reading Malcom Gladwell's Blink where he talks about "thin slicing" : taking a quick glimpse of a person and accurately making an observation without thinking !

In life, I always believed CLARITY is Crucial. Clarity arises from an uncluttered mind. An uncluttered mind is, usually a result of an orderly and neat environment.

Sometimes I wonder how some people can work on an untidy table.

Coming back to India - Does poverty justify messiness?

I was recently in Hungary and visited a few rural communities. I don't think they are in poverty but they are relatively poor. However, the streets in these villages were clean and the homes tidy...

I asked a professor of mathematics in India, "what if the government outsourced the cleaning of all villages to their villagers themselves, do you think the country will become neater? " - This may give jobs to the poor people and help them educate their children. The good professor was thinking but I think he has given up too.

India, is a great nation, no doubt. She has a great history and deep culture.

However, she is a paradox !

I wish they do something about cleanliness lah..its not soothing for the soul !

GEW 2009 Launch !

2009-01-22T07:04:00.003+09:00

There were at least 150 people in Bon Ton, Kuala Lumpur last night.

The traffic was bad and it began to rain. Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah arrived at 5pm.

Boyd McCleary, the High Commissioner arrived at 6pm. He was held up by another launch.

We forgot to apologize to those who came that Gareth Thomas, MP had to return to the UK from Saigon. He did not make the trip to KL. I apologize for not apologizing and his absence.

The launch was a blast ! All in all, people who attended told me: it was awesome. Great networking, fabulous event, good food.

Dato and His Excellency was on top form. Their support was total.

Those who attended are excited about GEW 2009 ! We will be NO 1 this year - somehow !

I returned home late last night and I leave for India in a few hours. I have not had the chance to get the photos for this posting. My team I am sure will upload them on flickr and provide everyone with the link.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who came. Thank You to Dato' Saifuddin and MeCD for their support. Thank you to HE Boyd McCleary for his support .

Thanks to all my friends ! Lets make GEW 2009 happen.

Collaborations. Champions. Capital.

Congratulations !!!

2009-01-22T07:01:00.001+09:00

Congratulations !

Ah..at least there are somethings in common ;-)))

2009-01-18T15:43:00.005+09:00

What's Hot For 2009 !

2009-01-18T14:39:00.005+09:00

Nope, I am not referring to the sizzling Deepika Padukone, though I wish I was !

We'll discuss something though not as juicy as a topic on Deepika but equally exciting and important here:

If you are to read NetValue2.0 of the Edge this week, this is what the headlines say.

The article refers to a Cradle Fund event held recently at the the PlugNPlay Centre @ The Gardens, MidValley.

The PnP centre, as its known among technopreneurs in KL is run by Kumpulan Modal Perdana.

Kumpulan Modal Perdana was our largest venue sponsor for GEW 2008.

The 'What's Hot.." event was organized by the Cradle Fund Sdn.Bhd. helmed by her smart, dynamic and articulate CEO, Nazrin Hassan and co-organized by Malaysian Entrepreneurs.

I was briefly at the event and I agree with Karam of the Edge - Entrepreneurship is hot in KL. The room was jampacked !

I enclose a photo I took using my iPhone.

For more on the event, get the Edge or click the link to DocSiva's blog (linked to this blog) where you will find what was discussed. You can see what the Malaysian technopreneurs and ICT players think and predict will be hot in 2009.

So, whats my point? With GEW 2009 approaching fast, I thought it would be a good idea for everyone to be familiar with what our technopreneurs, and players in the ICT area think and predict.

However, I would like to share with you what Mark Andersen, CEO of the Strategic News Service thinks will be hot for 2009. You can then see where the views of our players are similar and where we differ.

According to Mark Andersen in his article titled: The Top 10 Predictions for 2009 :

"The first two calls play from one larger trend, inherent to a declining economy: less money will be spent on platforms, which cost a huge amount of money to develop, and more will be spent on what goes onto platforms.

(Predictions per se are in bold font; additional comments are in regular font.)

1. “Games Look Great on 52-inch Screens”: Entertainment software has a great year. Less money goes into new platforms, and more goes into what goes on those platforms.

Now that many people have made major investments in home theaters, big screens, Surround Sound, etc., it makes sense that they will look at ways of leveraging that investment. The simplest is to add gaming, other entertainment, and other large-screen content; for a few hundred dollars, you double the value of this system.

This also helps keep the legs on sales of these hardware units, for those who have yet to buy large screens.

2. iPhone Applications: “Mobile Apps by the Billions” spread beyond Apple, even as Apple applications climb dramatically. Mobile apps becomes the industry mobile ads was supposed to be. In some cases, the apps become the Trojan horse for the ads.

This is where almost all the action is, to my mind, when it comes to applications. Yesterday, software meant Microsoft Word at $150. Today, software means AroundMe on my smartphone, and things like it, priced from free to $10. There will be many billions of these sold, as smartphone penetration continues to rise above 30%, and as users get the hang of having plenty of them on each phone.

3. “The Blush Is Off the China Rose,” with the country facing political chaos: Chinese GDP dives below 7.5%; and we see the real cost of slave/no-load labor.

Stories of construction workers not being paid after a year of promises will be replaced by increased difficulties for China, as exports drop, GDP growth falls perhaps into the 6%-7% range, and violent confrontations between unemployed workers and government troops increase.

4. Flash price-drop accelerates diskless computing: “Finally, No Moving Parts!” (a dream of decades): The PC shelf life doubles, providing immediate benefits to many sectors, including education.

One person’s loss is always another’s gain. The technology industry is used to the cycle that begins with a drop in memory pricing (in this case, Flash) that sets the table for drops in consumer electronics pricing and opens the door to the design of new products. Computers with no moving parts is a serious step forward, and we should see these at reasonable (not super premium) prices this year.

5. “Wall Computing: The First Installation”: Using big screens goes beyond display functions to small-team collaboration.

SNS Members have just read my proposals about Wall Computers (“SNS: Beyond Touch Computing,” 12/3/08). This is a prediction that the first implementation, not just of big display, but of big display backed by complete compute and storage power, and driven by touch, gestures, and perhaps voice, will be shown to the public. Imagine an SAP management dashboard, with instant access to companywide data, available to a small working team in a conference room. I can’t wait.

6. “CAPCs Take Off,” called UMPCs, netbooks, minis.

I suggested that last year would be the year that CarryAlong PCs, designed in these pages, would start their path of commercial success, and that is just what happened, thanks mainly to ASUS and HP, with Dell following later and Apple getting close. This year, we will see an explosion in these devices, all in the CAPC format (9 inches by 7 inches, approximately), as the fastest-growing sector of computer types.

They are getting ready to become the fastest-growing computers of all time. Geez, that took a while.

7. “LTE Takes the 4G March”: The European broadband wireless standard takes a dominant global position.

The Long Term Evolution (where do these names come from??) version of 4G looks as though it will succeed in getting more installations first, with more long-term support. This is probably one reason that Qualcomm, long a Euro-adversary, threw in the towel a month ago and espoused LTE.

8. “Bandwidth Spreads to ‘The Rest of Us’”: Wireless broadband provides key footprint expansion into Asia and other emerging nations and locations.

Broadband wireless is a critically important enabling technology for many sectors, and will provide “last mile” and “middle 50 miles” connection, in both the developed and developing world. Users everywhere from West Virginia to West Africa will benefit from the low cost and high bandwidth of modern WiFi, WiMAX, and LTE.

9. “Voice Recognition Comes of Age,” thanks to the integration and convergence of data centers, technology, and handsets: Google, Apple, Nuance, and vlingo will be in the lead. By the end of 2009, after decades of talk, more than one-third of mobile users will be using voice recognition regularly.

How long have we all been waiting for this one? The time has finally come when we will expect, and get, very high success rates for untrained, continuous speech, using mobile phones hooked up to server farms running Nuance and vlingo software.

Wow, that took a long time, too.

10. “The Internet Assistant Is Born”: The time has arrived for integration of voice-driven, cloud-based personal service applications into a natural-language interface, with deep access to historic personal data, tailored to you. The IA saves time, saves money, and travels with you via phone, CAPC, or any other access device.

Everyone is now used to the idea of pulling out the iPhone and asking for a nearby Italian restaurant. Now is the time to integrate and personalize these services. You should be able to tell your IA (with name and voice picked by you), “Frank, book me for a (business, personal, vacation) trip to New Orleans from the fifth through the eighth.” The system will know which hotel chain to use, which frequent-flyer mile number, which airline, and buy either symphony or baseball tickets, depending on your profiles.

This isn’t hard, but it does point up the step away from tech for tech’s sake, and toward integration of existing services and technologies to provide better and deeper services to customers."

Hope you find this helpful and together, both views, I hope will help you stay ahead of the game.

Cheers..

MACRI's New Year Party !

2009-01-17T17:48:00.007+09:00

Uncle Bugs invited me to the MACRI New Year do at their office in Centrepoint Damansara, which was held this morning.

The program started at 10.30am. I was there at about 11.15am.

There were at least 30 plus people in the room. There were introductions and talks - in the usual MACRI style - open and informal.

I was then invited to say few words on GEW.

I spoke about last year's success - the number of partners and events and then went on to share my vision of reaching more people for the GEW'09.

I also announced the launch and urged everyone to get INVOLVED! I briefly shared how they can participate and also directed everyone to our site : www.gewmalaysia.com

After me, there were some other speakers, but one particular speaker truly impressed me.

He was none other than Keng Yew of Social Walk.

Keng Yew's company, Social Walk recently won the RM150k pre-seed fund from MDeC. Congrats to Keng Yew, his partners and the Company.

What really impressed me about his presentation was its simplicity and brevity. Keng Yew, from his physical appearance does not seem to have an ounce of unwanted fat ! His presentation too followed his physique - lean and effective ;-)

Keng Yew shared the lessons on applying for a grant. The 10 points he shared, (based on my notes) are:

When you apply for a grant:

1. Idea - Keep it Simple.

2. Application Form - write clearly, know what you want to say, and again keep it simple.

3. Revenue Model - have one. Show them the money.

4. Competitors - know who they are and your strategy. Don't say something silly like " we have no competitors".

5. Technology Innovation - remember MDeC and Cradle funds Technology !

6. Commercial Innovation - have a "go to market strategy" ;

7. Interview - Present your ideas in a simple language and keep it all brief. Follow the 3 2 1 strategy:
- 3 Sentences
- 2 Minutes
- 1 phrase they can easily repeat

8. Time and Pace yourself : you will have 10 mins to impress the interviewers who are savvy and sharp. Keep to time. Plan. Pace don't be a talking machine.

9. Letter of Support - give evidence of your potential customers if you have any. It helps.

10. Memorize a few key facts. Don't stumble. They will see through everything.

If you are thinking of applying for a grant, I personally think, following this advise will stand you in good stead.

Cheers

Support from Make Your Mark, UK for GEW Malaysia Launch !

2009-01-17T16:43:00.005+09:00

We have yet to recover from our excitement from the support given by the the British High Commission to Malaysia for the GEW Malaysia Launch when we got many support mails from the GEW Global team at MYM & the Kauffman Foundation expressing their support for the launch.

To add to the spirit of fun and to help us make the Launch event truly memorable, MYM is sending us some promo items - all the way from the United Kingdom !

As you know, MYM is the co-founder of the Global Entrepreneurship Week along the Kauffman Foundation.

So, what are these items ? Well, come to the launch and find out !

Thank you to the GEW Global Team, Chris and Make Your Mark. The items you are sending will definitely help make the event, in your words "really shine"

Cheers

Congrats to our own Innovator : Uncle Bugs of MACRI !!

2009-01-17T00:48:00.006+09:00

Yesterday was another day of traffic jams ! I wonder whats happening in KL that is causing all these traffic jams..

Anyway, after a long day, I was sitting down late in the evening to check my emails.

I saw Uncle Bugs of MACRI online on gtalk. We gotten on to chatting and after the greetings, Uncle Bugs informed me that this blog is linked to MACRI's site: www.macri.com.my !

"You mean the Malaysian Association of Creativity & Innovation is following my blog !", I asked.

That's an honour.

I then visited the MACRI site and guess what I found : a blurb by the president of MACRI, Dato Ghazi : that Bugs Tan won the International Excellent Innovation Award !

The award was conferred by the Indira International Innovation Summit.

Congrats to Uncle Bugs and MACRI on bagging the award !

Well done sir ! Uncle Bugs is no ordinary man ! Continue innovating Uncle Bugs !

May the young get your bug !

Cheers

"Steve Jobs Takes Leave" - SNS News Alert

2009-01-15T10:01:00.006+09:00

I am a subscriber to the Strategic News Service : http://www.tapsns.com

The news that greeted the SNS Subscribers this morning was about Steve Jobs and it was not a happy one.

Mark Andersen, the CEO of SNS wrote:

"To All SNS Members:

Steve Jobs took a leave from Apple, announced this afternoon. In his email to employees, he said:

"Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

"In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June."

SNSers will recall my past Alerts on this subject. I don't see an Apple, the way we would define the company, without Steve.

Our members were already warned about the serious nature of all this, going back to issues and Alerts last year. Anyone who thinks Steve is Apple will now be recommended to look at Apple as Apple Without Steve.

This is extremely unfortunate, and I wish the best to everyone at the company, and to Steve and his family.

Mark Anderson
CEO, Strategic News Service"

Steve Jobs is no ordinary man. He is an entrepreneur and innovator par excellence.

An avid fan of his killer apps - the mac and the Ipod, I felt a strange feeling of sadness reading the news. Strange because I have not had the privilege of seeing this man speak even from afar, though I try to see all his new product launches.

However, people like Steve has a ripple effect on others - they touch the world through their outrageously innovative but simple products.

Recently, when I bought my kids their notebook (computer) I felt deep inside me that I was short-changing them.

This is how, Steve and Apple has touched the lives of people around the Globe.

We wish Mr Jobs a speedy recovery and Apple all the best. May the company continue to change the world of computing and technology.

Dates for GEW 2009

2009-01-13T08:23:00.003+09:00

Hi everyone,

News from the Global Entrepreneurship Week team at the Kauffman Foundation & Make Your Mark :

GEW 2009 will be from 16-22 November.

Get Ready ! Get Involved & Unleash It everyone !

Its time to Make Your Mark !

Cheers

Craftsmanship or Survival ?

2009-01-11T08:29:00.008+09:00

I was driving along the busy Jalan Bukit Bintang yesterday when I saw a truck delivering the New BMW 7 Series : obviously it looked like the truck was going to turn into the Auto Bavaria showroom along the road.

I decided to put my indicator and follow the truck. The intention : to gawk at the new edition of the Ultimate Driving Machine !

The 7 series looked sensational ! Boy ! Lucky is the man or woman who gets to drive or ride in it !

But that car is another matter altogether.

There was another sight that totally impressed me: This kid, merely 12 jumped out of the lorry, gave instructions to everyone to move whilst the driver was lowering the lever to drive the RM800k plus beast out.

Apparently he was the driver's son who helps out during the weekends.

The boy removed some safety valves that kept the car intact on the truck whilst his dad jumped into the driver's seat to slowly reverse the stunning beauty out. The boy then gave the instructions to his dad until the car was resting safely on the tarmac.

The boy was a pro. Quiet, concentrated and confident. No unnecessary dramas : just like the way an able nurse helps a doctor in the surgery room.

Suddenly, his mobile phone rang - the boy took it out of his pocket whilst holding some lever, answered it briefly and slid it back in his pocket :oblivious to all the people who were watching this entire process. I think he told the caller, the mission was accomplished.

The boy must be regularly helping his dad during the weekends. He had the confidence, and the self-assurance. More importantly his dad had confidence in his son who was not even a teenager.

I am sure the kid must be ahead of many kids of his age in the area of confidence and survival techniques.

Though this is not the first time I have seen kids helping their parent's in their work, it does always impress me when I see one.

I personally believe engaging kids and also helping them understand what we do in our working lives helps them understand the world better.

Perhaps, this is one way to sow the seeds of entrepreneurship? Something to think about.

What happens if we had a "kids day" at the office every quarter where parents will share and explain to the children what it is they do.

Remember, Connecting with Young Minds Program during GEW 2008? Its recorded in this blog somewhere earlier...

Cheers.

Jonathan Ortmans on Air on bfm89.9..

2009-01-10T17:01:00.004+09:00

Want to know what The President of the Global Entrepreneurship Week and Senior Fellow of the Kauffman Foundation, Mr Jonathan Ortmans has to say about GEW 2008, Entrepreneurship and other related matters?

Tune in to bfm89.9 on 13 Jan about 7:45am : you will catch him on air !

The phone interview was conducted by Noelle Lim of bfm in Malaysia whilst Jonathan was back in the US.

Cheers

Mark Your Calendars ! Get Involved !

2009-01-09T00:39:00.005+09:00

Time : 5pm to 7pm

Venue : Bon Ton Restaurant, Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur

Dress Code : Smart Casual

Friends, Partners, Prospective Partners, Sponsors, Potential Sponsors, Media, Entrepreneurs,Institutes of Higher Education....basically everyone who is hooked on ideas, creativity, innovation, new ventures, entrepreneurship etc, are invited.

Be there. Official invitations will be sent out by the secretariat soon..

Given the current, Global Financial crisis, it does not hurt to network as if your life depended on it ! So, come and experience the one and only global event that connects entrepreneurs and ignites the spirit of the enterprise : The Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009 is already here !

Cheers

The Launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009

2009-01-02T01:33:00.008+09:00

A couple of weeks ago, Mr Trevor Lewis, Director of Trade & Investment, British High Commission visited Warisan Global's office in Jalan Ampang.

We were honored to have this very special guest in our office.

Mr Lewis brought news - he conveyed His Excellency Boyd McCleary, the British High Commissioner to Malaysia's support for the Global Entrepreneurship Week and that the High Commissioner was pleased with GEW 2008.

Mr Lewis did not just stop there, he went on to deliver another exhilarating news : he proposed that GEW 2009 be launched in January when his Minister of Trade from the UK is visiting Malaysia around the 20th. "The High Commission will be happy to sponsor a simple function to commemorate the launch in a creative style. We have a small budget which we have allocated for this purpose", said Mr. Lewis.

Boy, were we thrilled ! We pinched ourselves to check if we were dreaming ! We thanked Mr Lewis and the High Commissioner profusely for their generosity.

I wrote to both the Kauffman Foundation and Make Your Mark to get their views and approval.

The approval came within 24 hours from both the Global Founders of GEW. They too were thrilled !

Thus, The Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009 will be launched in Kuala Lumpur on 21 January 2009 ! Mark your calendars.

More details on the Venue and agenda as soon as we have run it through the High Commission.

This may mean, Malaysia may just be the FIRST Country to Launch GEW 2009 ! I thank the British High Commission for this great honour and the Global Founders for their ever willingness to support us.

Thank You . Thus Begins 2009 ! Lets ROCK 2009 !

Cheers

Back to Basics - Happy New Year !

2008-12-31T10:59:00.006+09:00

Wishing everyone a very Happy, Healthy & Prosperous New Year !

May we be blessed with "new eyes" to be able to see things afresh and deal with them in a more creative and innovative manner.

Don't worry about the financial crisis - there is opportunity wherever there is danger or crisis.

The Economist magazine in an article published on 7th March 2002 entitled "Back to Basics"has this to say and we in WG have internalized it since it first appeared. I think the advise is still very relevant especially now.

This is the excerpt of the article :

"IF BAD times make good leaders, America is due for a host of them. The recession that began in March last year and the terrorist attacks on September 11th made 2001 an unforgettably awful year. At such times people react strangely. Some are frozen in indecision while others act with unnecessary haste. Across large corporations, such behaviour, multiplied many times, can be disastrous. At times of crisis, having the right people in the right place is vital. In a boom there is enough fat to absorb some bad judgment; in a recession good management becomes a survival issue.

Dave Young, head of the Boston Consulting Group's Boston office, maintains that for many companies the downturn will turn out to be a blessing. “It means that, increasingly, value in the capital markets will accrue not to ‘irrational exuberance' or to sector hype,” he says, “but to good management.” But what, in such circumstances, constitutes good management? It is certainly not something that can be conjured up out of the blue. Companies that have it now had it in good times too, and found it useful then; the difference is that in today's harsher climate it has become essential.

This survey suggests that the core of good management is a set of three old-fashioned virtues that were often forgotten in the bubble years, when anything seemed to go. At a minimum, good managers have to meet the following criteria:

• be honest;

• be frugal;

• be prepared. "

Hope that helps you a little in dealing with 2009..

Cheers

So Did Warisan Global make any money from GEW 2008?

2008-12-31T02:07:00.009+09:00

Friends,

I had a ball of a time hosting GEW2008 and look forward to hosting GEW 2009.

I made new friends, met a lot of interesting people and hopefully contributed a little to the entrepreneurship landscape in Malaysia.

Both the Kauffman Foundation and Make Your Mark was hugely helpful and supportive. I thank them for their support and guidance.

In Malaysia - to all my friends, partners and sponsors.

I am sure many of you benefited one way or another from GEW.

However, I was asked this question a few days ago..and I thought I might as well make everything known to everyone - although I believe its nothing wrong in making some money if value is delivered to the sponsor.

However, you can judge for yourself if we profited from GEW - I am only recording what was given to WG. IF costs were incurred by partners for their events, this will not be reflected here as that is the spirit of GEW - all partners are responsible for thier own activities.

Here you go..

1. We were paid RM9,800 by MSC Malaysia as a project management fee for event management of the launch - which we used RM2,500 to pay Yawa and the rest was for the launch gimmick and incidentals. This is not our usual fee for event management - it was part of our contribution to the launch of GEW. MSC Malaysia picked up the entire cost for food etc. They also sponsored the venue for our first partners' meeting.

2. TeAM sponsored RM5,000

3. The Media Shoppe sponsored us RM1,000 - for the 2nd Partners' Meet

In total we got RM15,800 in cash, which we used for each of the central event's related expenses and any surplus was used for the costs of the secretariat - printing button badges, buntings, banners etc.

In terms of Sponsorship:

1. Giordano - 104 t-shirts

2. Graduan Bersatu - 400 t-shirts

3. The Kauffman Foundation : 85 t-shirts

4. Make Your Mark - costs of Oli Barret's travel and stay in Malaysia

5. MIRC - food and beverage and venue for the Speed Networking with Oli Barret event;

6. Kelantan Delights : Venue & tea for the Soft Launch and lucky draw prizes for the closing

7. Magic Gamewerks - 10 sets of games as lucky draw prizes for closing

8. Enak Restaurants - prizes for lucky draw

9. Ecoparadise spa - 150 vouchers for lucky draw

10. MeCD - venue and lunch for MOU signing

11. Brabons - entertainment for Cocktail party

12. Showcraft - PA system for Cocktail party

13. Erduo - some video and photographs.

14. Datuk Ahmad - media contacts

During the entire GEW, WG bore the entire cost for the Secretariat ( travel, staff salaries, office costs etc), the merchandize (buntings, banners etc) and part of the costs for the coctail party (the balance was paid by the attendees -RM40/pax) and the entire costs for the closing ceremony.

We spent more than we got. Not because we could not get any sponsorships or because we were discouraged by the Founders, but because we made the decision not to actively get sponsors since this was the First time ever GEW was being held globally, we wanted to ensure success and decided we will first invest in this innovative campaign on Entrepreneurship and see for ourselves its impact and reach.

We are truly exhilarated we made that investment. The benefits to us was immense and so it is with our partners, I believe.

Trust the above clarifies.

Having said this, I wish to reiterate here that WG is a 'For Profit Social Venture". We exist to design, develop and deliver projects with a Social Focus and we do need to make profits from our business to ensure we continue to exist.

Where we can, we will not hesitate to reinvest some of our profits in projects that may have a long term benefit to society and the country - especially if it benefits the young ones.

We believe in "doing well by doing good".

Cheers

p.s : anyone, if i have forgotten to include any one or mention your contribution, please leave a comment here or buzz me and I will be happy to make good the omission.

When The Sheikhs Arrived.....

2008-12-31T00:25:00.008+09:00

Wonder whats tickling these Sheikhs ?

Firstly these are no Sheikhs from Arab...but my good friends : Datuk Ahmad and his buddy Juhaidi Yen Abdullah.

Where are they and what are they doing ?

They were in a blast of a Party on 23 November 2008 at the Sahara Tent : where the finale of entrepreneurship was celebrated with friends - old and new, delicious food and music that soothed the ears and belly dancing that was a treat to weary eyes !

Visit my Facebook here to view the album. You will get an idea of the entire event.

Cheers

Doc Siva enters the ring !

2008-12-30T11:30:00.004+09:00

My good friend and in some cases, mentor has started blogging AGAIN !

I have emphasized "again" because he tried his hands on it before and now has returned to the ring!

Personally I have always enjoyed talking to Doc Siva and reading his biting and interesting articles in the Edge.

Doc has been a personal friend for many years. He was instrumental in bringing me into TeAM or Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia. I joined as an ordinary member in 2003 and retired this year as the organization's Honorary Secretary. Doc was the Founder of TeAM.

Apart from his many contributions to the induscty, Doc contributed hugely to GEW by hosting the Lemonade Stories with his other partners in Proficeo Consultants. Doc Siva organized and lead the Roundtable Dicscussion with Mr Jonathan Ortmans during GEW.

Visit Doc Siva at http://docsiva.wordpress.com/ and see what he has to say about the economy, politics and most importantly his passion : Entrepreneurship.

Welcome back Doc. Happy New Year !

Cheers

Merry Christmas !

2008-12-25T01:13:00.001+09:00

Wishing ALL my friends and their loved ones who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas.

For the others, Happy Holidays !

May you be blessed with the best in life.

Cheers

Featured in RTM and a New Year Resolution !

2008-12-22T22:43:00.009+09:00

Dear Friends,

I was informed by one of my staff today that apparently this blog was mentioned in an RTM programme recently.

This staff said it was mentioned as a exemplary blog where the "owner does not have a PhD but is knowledgeable".

Not sure if I should take that as a complement but I am pleased nevertheless since the blog got a mention.

If anyone has any further information on this, please don't hesitate to let me know.

I don't want to know this for the purpose of any self-glorification but just to know and learn from it.

I believe failure is not the only teacher - success can be too and success must be celebrated no matter how small.

We do that a lot at home - where even little successes are celebrated in simple ways.

Most of us have grown up in an environment where our successes are not acknowledged and we hardly get a pat on the back. We don't tell our kids enough of how well or how appreciated they are. We don't celebrate our friends and their successes enough. When we become bosses, we carry this habit along and make people around us feel unappreciated.

For us to become a successful nation, I think we also need to add the skill to be candid in both our appreciation and admonition in our repertoire of things to do and skills to acquire.

In my company, when someone has done a good job, we say it openly. We tell them there and then and not wait for a performance review. I personally think we need to improve on this acknowledgment bit a little more though.

However when someone screws up, we also tell them where, why and how they have screwed up.

We then move on. No grudges. No regrets. Most importantly no gossip. We state our point of view and then we move on.

But many people don't and that's sad. They live with their burden and see their own frailty in others. They never move on with renewed faith and energy...

I think, one has to constantly die to the past to be able to reinvent oneself.

I think we need to be each others' cheerleaders in the pursuit of finding relevance..

I wish every one of us can make one additional resolution for 2009 : to appreciate people around us?

Image : Courtesy Tao_YinYangEarth

Cheers

Moving Art !

2008-12-22T06:01:00.004+09:00

I managed to capture this sight a few days ago at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

Apparently these workmen are transporting a Masterpiece by a famous artist. The art piece, the museum guide assures me is definitely worth millions of sterling pounds.

The mastery of these men to move this huge block was a sight to behold.

Particularly interesting was how they were communicating with each other - through movements and whispers.

This was itself a work of fine art !

The Museum of Fine Arts was built between 1900 and 1906. It is a beautiful building with magnificent architecture .

I guess knowledge work begins with the harmony of hand, head and heart ?

Cheers

Good To Be Back !

2008-12-22T04:47:00.004+09:00

After a week in Europe, its good to be back !

From KLIA I went straight to the stall that sells my favourite vegetarian nasi lemak - to "lepas geram" - i.e quench my desire for the delicacy that is uniquely Malaysian.

Looking at my last blog post, "Will Be Away", I realize how absurd it is. So what if I was going to be away, why not continue blogging?

You see, the first mistake I did was to make the decision not to take my mac along ! I am not sure what drove me to make that silly mistake.

There were reasonably good opportunities for me to update on what I was doing there - though not big chunks of time as I was there on work and on the client's money.

Anyway, that's water under the bridge..now that I am back its time to roll !

Watch out everyone, GEW 2009 is around the corner !

But for now, my mission it to get back in shape, and try to quickly recover from jet lag !

Cheers - lets connect !

Will be away !

2008-12-13T20:33:00.003+09:00

Hi everyone,

I know I have been very slow in updating the blog ! However this will not be for long !

I will be away in Europe for the next one week.

See you all soon !

Mark the DATE : 21 January 2009 !

Selamat Hari Raya Haji

2008-12-08T11:15:00.004+09:00

Wishing all my Muslim friends Selamat Hari Raya Korban/Haji.

May the Almighty bless us all with greater peace, harmony and prosperity.

It is very sad to read about more landslides in Kuala Lumpur - lives are lost and families displaced.

To me, there has been a mind-slide and integrity has been eroded to cause all this mishap.

When will we learn?

This magnificent structure is the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. My family and I stayed just behind it for a week whilst we were there. We chose the hotel on purpose to take in the beauty of this structure everyday ! It is a sight to behold - all day long.

Once again, Selamat Hari Raya Haji.

An Evening with AEISEC and then friends..

2008-12-07T12:04:00.007+09:00

Last evening I attended AIESEC's dinner at the Putrajaya Convention Centre. It was a celebration of AIESEC Malaysia's 40th and AIESEC Global's 60th Anniversary Celebration and Awards Night - RACE 2008.

The function was from 5.30 to 11pm.

There were at least 600 people at the convention centre. I met many young and eager your students from the local universities.

What was most striking about these young people was their keen interest in entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. Some of them came up to me to introduce themselves and to speak about their vision to start their career in the area of social entrepreneurship.

It is heartening to know that though still at university the young people these days are concerned about social issues and problems and are willing to do something about it. They care less about making money and more about solving real social problems.

However I had to tell them the bad news - profits and cashflow are important in business or any enterprise. This gives the business model its legitimacy. They need to think about building a business around the social problems they are thinking of solving. Many are keen to learn on how they can do this.

Will be talking to them more on Tue at their fair.

I am seen here with the lovely Elaine Zhang - AEISEC Malaysia's Non-Corporate Relations Manager. She can be reached at elaine.zhang@aiesec.net. Elaine is from China. The young man beside me is James Loh, President of AEISEC Malaysia.

As soon as dinner was served, I had to leave to another gathering that was starting at about 9pm.
I had to apologise to the organizers as I had also agreed to attend the other gathering.

I drove down to Kelantan Delights to meet this other group of friends and new friends. They have all gathered in Mr.Juhaidi's rustic restaurant for some excellent food and a good yarn..

The gracious host was as usual in his jovial mood.

There was Datuk Ahmad, my old friend Dr Parmjit of APIIT and some new friends - Harbhajan from Malaysian Reserve, Carolyn from The Singapore Straits Times and this handsome Azlan from Sapura.

"Why haven't you blogged on the closing of GEW yet" thundered Datuk Ahmad as we were leaving..."do it quickly" !

Yes sir...I will. Soon..

Good day - Connecting .

Big Man, Low Key

2008-12-07T00:30:00.002+09:00

Recently whilst I was in Kuching for a Pustaka Sarawak event, I got to know a little about this man of few words but great achievement: YBhg Tan Sri Amar Hj Hamid Bugo.

We gotten into talking whilst I was at his home for dinner and subsequently at the event and later at the airport lounge.

I must admit, I was impressed with his demeanour and his sharp mind.

Tan Sri, I understand was an entrepreneur before he became a government servant. Tan Sri was the State Secretary of Sarawak. A Powerful position.

He is now the Chairman of the Pustaka and also many Corporate organizations.

Whats striking about him is, he is soft spoken, humble and hardly speaks of himself - at least from my observation during the 3 days we were together.

We don't see many people like this these days - self evasive but hugely successful.

Tan Sri is also an avid reader.

Day 6: The GEW : 22/11

2008-12-05T07:50:00.005+09:00

After Penang, I flew into KL and went straight to the Red House - behind Pelita in Jalan Ampang, near KLCC.

This was where the Young Guns were putting up their show.

I actually met Izham and Shafiq earlier in the year in Bandung - at the Creative Entrepreneurs Forum organized by the British Council.

They are the creative entrepreneurs - designing t-shirts as a passion but working somewhere else. Two timing !

Why not bring them into GEW and showcase their talent and if some funders get interested at least they can go into this business full time.

With this idea in mind, I invited the boys to become a GEW partner - which they did with enthusiasm.

We at WG sponsored the event and they did put up a great show despite the heavy downpour.

Dato' Saifuddin Abdullah was there to give his moral support. The Deputy Minister arrived at 5pm and stayed almost till 8pm.

Some of the events Pop Collective are:

1. Buy my thoughts

This is the highlight of the event, an informal pitching session where participants were selling their ideas to potential investors that would be present for this activity. A participant is given 10 minutes to present their ideas to the investors on that day. The session is made informal to give a friendlier laid back environment.

Only problem was there were very few potential investors and the boys were a little dissapointed.

2. Something to talk about

It is an inspirational talk session featuring young entrepreneurs and personas from various backgrounds of the creative disciplines. Music performers, retail merchandiser, designers and those who had been through the rise and fall of business were invited to share their experiences and insights to the public.

3. Creative exhibitions

Exhibitions or promotional booths from local rising entrepreneurs consisting of entrepreneurs from music, fashion and arts genres.

4. Indie fashion showcase (outdoor)

All kind of designer from street wear to avant garde designers showcased their masterpieces with models doing the runway along with runway background tracks played by DJs.

There were other events going on too..

I think the guests were walking in and out and the boys may have had about 100 participants despite the heavy downpour.

I would personally like to see how Pop Collective can play a more prominent role in GEW 2009.

Anyway, it was a long day - was up since 4am. We left as soon as the Deputy Minister left at 8pm.

I crashed once I got home !

Brainstorming in Cat City !

2008-12-02T23:34:00.006+09:00

I arrived in Kuching, Sarawak yesterday.

I know I have a few more entries to make to complete my journal for "the Week".

Life has been hectic - I had to be back in office the very next day ! Anyway, will complete the story of the Week in due course.

Back to Kuching...I am here at the invitation of the Pustaka Negeri Sarawak or Sarawak State Library to be part of the team to help formulate the "Blueprint for Sarawak's Information Management & Utilization".

The workshop proper began today. Last night we (the invited delegates) were treated to a lovely dinner at the palatial home of Ybhg Tan Sri Datuk Amar (Dr) Hj Hamid Bugo - Chairman of the Library Board. I am seen in the table with Puan Rashidah the CEO of the State Library of Sarawak and beside her is the MCMC Chairman, Dato' Dr.Halim Shafee (also pic below). The gracious host is beside Dato Halim and Prof Rafidah Baba and Dato Ghazali.

The waitress was not used to the iphone - so her hands was shaking and she was also nervous - so many people are hidden in this photo.

Dr David Jones (pic above) from Australia, Mr Johnson Paul from National Library Board of Singapore, Mr Edan Puritt from Canada are some of the people roped in to give their ideas for the blueprint.

On the local front I am privilaged to be in the company of Tuan Adi Badiozaman Tuah, Associate Prof.Indahsah, Dato Ghazali Yusoff, Prof Abdul Rahman Deen and a few others.

Today was a power sharing session by these intellectual giants. Tomorrow we will be in break-out sessions to formulate the strategy for libraries.

Apparently I am invited because of WG's work in rural communities in Sarawak and also to provide an entrepreneurial perspective to the discussions.

I am all geared up to help in whichever way I can. I thank Puan Rashidah and the State Library - their hospitality is simply impeccable !

I went for a long walk along the riverfront. I wish Sarawak and Sabah don't destroy their greens !

As for the Blueprint - can there be one in a rapidly changing world? Or do we need something more dynamic or what I would call a "living document" !

Anyway, we will see tomorrow.."uproar will be the only music" !

Request to ALL Partners

2008-12-01T10:07:00.002+09:00

Dear Partners & Co-Conspirators,

Many initiatives fizzle out. We don't want to see this happen as far as our collaboration goes - we want to continue the spirit of GEW - to connect, to nurture, to mentor, to inform and to share the spirit of Entrepreneurship.

In line with this, I request you, all of our partners to send us a document - talking about your events, the audience, how you have managed to ignite the spirit of entrepreneurship. If you have photos/videos please send them too. We want the description on the events in your own words.

At WG we plan to compile all your stories and photos in a form of a book - like the Life magazine. This will become OUR document on how TOGETHER we have, in the words of Carl Schramm, President & CEO of the Kauffman Foundation, helped to "birth the new".

The timeline for this is 31 December 2008.

We have no funding for this book - its our own initiative. Any help is welcome.

Thank You.

Dash

Day 6: The GEW : 22/11

2008-11-30T23:02:00.007+09:00

On day 6, 22 November, I flew into Penang to support my friend and GEW Catalyst for Penang - Nas Sobri. The event was held at USM - we were honoured to have the Deputy Minister of Science YB. Tuan Hj Fadillah Yusof as our guest of honour.

Nas and Azmi (Chairman of ICT Penang) were the perfect hosts - inviting people and ensuring all the details were taken care of.

ICT Penang arranged a whole day event - talks, sharing sessions and games.

There were about 100 people in the auditorium. After the speeches, the minister held a brief press conference.

I left soon just before lunch break - to be in KL by 5pm for the Young Guns !

All in all Penang was taking the entrepreneur community by storm ! Congrats to Nas and his team.

Day 5 - Cocktail Party with Chris Chan - CEO predicts - not with spreadsheet, but Feng Shui !!!

2008-11-25T17:02:00.006+09:00

My good buddy and spa partner, Chris Chan is the founder and CEO of the Media Shoppe - a MESDAQ listed company. We have known each other for almost 8 years now.

Chris is a quick learner, articulate and a shrewd entrepreneur. What is most striking about him is his ready laugh and his broad brash style in dealing with issues.

I invited him to the Unleashing Cocktail to talk about his new found passion : BaZi.

Apparently BaZi literally means "8 characters" in Chinese. It is a system of metaphysical knowledge for predicting the future of an individual.

The practitioners claim it is "a very accurate and popular method used for fortune telling."

So, my friend Chris has been learning this ancient art and at the Cocktail he showed of his prowess. Quite impressive I must say - he read the BaZi of some of the IT Moghuls - the likes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. He also described some of our politicians using this method.

Chris also read some of the local entrepreneurs' BaZi. We had some surprises here.

Cool Chris is in his element again ! A Chris we have not seen for a while now. He was becoming a typical Chinaman businessman ( serious lah - always chasing deals - nothing wrong with this though) - until this new bug bit him ! He is on fire again!

Congrats buddy...i loved the reading ! Steve Jobs Yeay ! May you be right about the money !

Oh yes...check out Chris' blog here.

Still on Day 5 ...Cocktail & a talk by an entrepreneur !

2008-11-25T15:48:00.010+09:00

Friday, like the other days of the Week, was long and exciting !

After Nur Salam, I attended a talk organized by another partner, Skali. The title of the talk was - Entrepreneurial Evolution. 3 Entrepreneurs from various organizations, including Skali were there to share their journey. Target audience : students and grads. I had to leave early as I had an urgent matter to attend to. I later heard the talks went well and was well received .

On Friday night we also organized the Unleashing Cocktail Party @ Modestos, Desa Sri Hartamas.

It was for the young, by the young. We were entertained by Mia Palencia (pic) - fabulous voice.

We also had Ganesh Kumar Bangah share his entrepreneurship wisdom. Ganesh is quite a guy. According to the EY site, Ganesh ventured into the IT industry at the age of 15, providing IT training, software and web development, and PC sales and services.

Soon after, he co-founded a company which operated commercial internet-hosting infrastructure and cybercafes. In 2000, he co-developed an innovative first-mover business model for the global affiliation of cybercafes, the rapid success of which led to the listing of MOL Access on the MESDAQ and made Ganesh the youngest CEO of a listed company in Malaysia.

Today MOL Access’ cybercafe affiliation programme engages more than 14,000 cybercafes in 180 countries. MOL Access also operates numerous innovative e-commerce and internet programmes, including online game portal, and the MOLePoints payment system which enables non-credit cardholders to purchase products and services online. The Company has received prestigious awards for its products and is set to achieve greater success with the international expansion of its business model.

Always generous with his time for social community projects, Mr Ganesh served as the project promoter of an initiative through which 1,200 rural students were successfully trained in IT modules. @ Sept 04

We were fortunate to have Ganesh share his wisdom with us.

But the next guy was the highlight of the evening ....

Making Music !

2008-11-25T15:24:00.005+09:00

@ Rumah Nur Salam, we were also treated with music by these not so amateur music makers !

What was really special about this is : these kids were performing - they were not shy at all - cameras and videos where whirring around them with people clapping...but they went on impressing everyone with their dexterity and familiarity with the instruments..

Astounding !

Day 5 of the Global Entrepreneurship Week @Rumah Nur Salam

2008-11-25T13:40:00.007+09:00

It was a sunny Friday and I was dropped off near a shop-lot in Chow Kit ! It must be almost 30 years since I have actually been to this area - except driving past it - Jalan Chow Kit !

Famous for its drug peddlers, sex workers and other crime. But the place has changed - there are some nice shops there now.

I was attending a GEW activity - at Rumah Nur Salam.

What was happening ? See the news report here.

I met some of the women you read in the report - it was simply an inspiring story : how a small loan from a large organization has impacted their lives.

No amount of impact analysis can capture the real impact here : when hungry stomachs are fed through sheer grit and determination to succeed, with a helping hand that shows the way and is not giving alms !

Well done Hong Leong Foundation. May God Bless you and the volunteers.

Taking a Short Break !

2008-11-25T00:21:00.002+09:00

Hello everyone,

I am taking a short break and will return to update the blog from 21/11 to 23/11 happenings...

No, i have not gone on a holiday : just catching up with other non-GEW matters in the office which I have been ignoring for awhile now.

Please bear with me ya.

Also catching up with some reading.