Middle East: From Oil to IO

ConnectTechAsia [CommunicaAsia + BroadcastAsia + NxtAsia, June 26-28, 2018 @ Singapore, tix] features summits and complimentary exhibitions, opening plenary and talks with topics including:

• From Product to Product-as-a-Service - Seth Ryding, Telenor
• 2018: The Year of IP Video - Kieran Kunhya, Open Broadcast Systems
• New Generation of Visual Advertising - Vadim Tsitou, Kinomo
• AI Curation of User Generated Content - Kenjiro Murakami, Spectee
• Esports: Sports of the 21st Century - Frank Sliwka, ESL Gaming
• Monetising OTT (Internet TV) - Gareth Jones, Inview
• Retargeting and Measuring Gen Z & Millennials - Aaron Pinto, Astro
• Machine Learning in Broadcast - Baskar Subramanian, Amagi
• Smartcar as a Service - Beavan Chua, Quantum Inventions
• 5G is Closer than You Think - Dudy Cohen, Ceragaon
• Keep on Dreaming, Simply Streaming - Teresa Chou, Vas Creative
• Stop Watching, Start Touching - Craig Vezina, Realcast video
• Transformation of the Middle East: From Oil to IO - Craig Smith, DTVC title

Pick of Events (W5-Jun-2018)
Link Standardised Contracts @ KualaLumpur
Link CEO Forum @ KualaLumpur
Link Ecommerce Trends @ KualaLumpur
Link LinkedIn Meetup @ KualaLumpur
Link Prestashop Meetup @ KualaLumpur
Link AI in Startups @ KualaLumpur
Link Regional Scaling @ KualaLumpur
Link Human Library @ KualaLumpur
Link The Hurdles of Being a Women @ KL tix
Link Blockchain in Higher Education @ PJ
Link Blockchain Reading @ Singapore
Link Blockchain B2B @ Singapore
Link Startup Ecosystem @ Singapore
Link Deep Tech Startups @ Singapore
Link Cybersecurity Startups @ Singapore
Link EnergyTech @ Singapore
Link Hedera Hashgraph @ HongKong

Selamat Hari Raya 2018

Pick of Hari Raya 2018 videos:

• Mudah - Balik kampung
• Toyota - The passage of time
• PutatGede - Together again
• EcoWorld - Through thick and thin
• TnG - Raya biscuit challenge
• Namewee - A visit to the surau
• Queenzy - Selfie raya
• Zain - A wish for peace

Mudah is an online marketplace, Putat Gede is a village in Java, EcoWorld is a property developer, TnG is an epayment provider, Namewee is a rapper and filmmaker, Queenzy is a singer and actress, Zain is a Kuwait-headquartered, Middle Eastern telco. Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Fitri!

World Cup 2018 + SportsTech

World Cup 2018 kicks off next Thursday (11pm, June 14th, 2018) on Hari Raya eve with host Russia taking on Saudi Arabia. While sports has not changed much on-field, off-field it sees an emergence of SportsTech (beyond gaming and eSports). Sample:

Accelerators

• Arsenal - Arsenal Innovation Lab
• Barça - Barcelona FC Innovation Hub
• leAD - Adidas Sports Accelerator
• Dodgers - LA Dodgers (baseball) + R/GA (ad agency) Sports Accelerator
• Sixers - 76ers (basketball) + Kimball (office furniture) Innovation Lab
• HypeLabs - No-Charge No-Equity 16 Week SportsTech Acceleration
• SportsTechHub - Making London the World's Sports Tech Capital

Startups

• Spalk - Choose your commentator 
• Reely - Automatic sports highlights
• RC21x - Check whether your brain is working fully
• Meridix - Turn your smartphone into a broadcast truck
• Return2Play - Sports medicine for amateur athletes
• OpenSponsorship - Sponsorship network
• Blinkfire - Check how visible your sponsorship is
• GumGum - Use computer vision to analyse branding
• LeagueApps - Turn community sports into fun leagues
• Wingfield - Improve your tennis game
• FirstVision - Put live cameras on the player
• PowerBeat - Measure human output

Pick of Events (W4-Jun-2018)
Link State of Fintech @ KualaLumpur
Link Human Intelligence @ KualaLumpur
Link Ethereum Infrastructure @ KualaLumpur
Link Founder Institute's Founder @ IskandarPuteri
Link Blockchain Uncomplicated @ Singapore
Link Blockchain Adventures @ Singapore tix
Link StartupWeekend Reunion @ Singapore
Link GDPR Impact on IoT @ Singapore
Link The Next Unicorns @ Bangkok tix
Link Startup Week @ Bangkok
Link Going Global @ Manila

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody |  Royal Academy of Music Quartet

Violin Concerto No. 1 | Sara Trobäck  | University of Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Forthcoming concerts and sample videos:

• Link Wed Chamber Concert (@ KLCC first video
• Link Sat   Grammy Award Winner @ KLCC second video 
• Link Sun  Rhapsody of Emotions @ KLCC
• Link Sun  Marriage of Figaro @ Penang

CEBIT 2018: Man vs Machine

CEBIT 2018 [11-15 June @ Hanover, Germany] CEBIT 2018 is Europe's premier festival of digitalisation covering the digitisation of business, government and society. It runs from 10am to 10pm over 5 days allowing attendees to explore a broad specturm of topics (vs the usual tight parallel tracks). Tickets: €200 for 5 days | €100 per day | €15 per evening. Sample:

Topics

• Shape the Digital Now - Adel Al-Saleh, CEO, Deutsche Telekom
• The Importance of Humans - Janina Kugel, CHRO, Siemens AG [1]
• When Machines Judge People - Ralph Müller-Eiselt, Bertelsmann Stiftung [2]
• Man and Machine: Who's Programming Who? - Ranga Yogeshwar, Author [3]
• Future of Remembering: Artificial Memory - Julia Shaw, Memory Hacker, UCL
• Blockchain Explained as a Game Metaphor - Jeroen Van Hoof, Partner, PwC

Exhibitors 

• CarPay - Transform routine petrol filling with autopayment & e-engagement
• EasyGoing - Vending kiosk that does ads, printing and passer-by counting 
• FlyLa - Outsource plane ticket sales to segment experts top image
• HoloFil - Hologram screen that engages 5 times better than flat screens
• NexxtOne - Insurers bid to cover a crowd (eg. all Mini drivers in a city) 
• PreDesire - Product personalisation configurator eg. for colour, size
• Pixolus - Turn the smartphone camera into an industrial grade scanner
• TaijiElectronic - Cosmetic fingernail printer
• W3W - Intuitive global postal address system that uses 3 words only

Pick of Events (W3-May-2018) [4]
Link AI ML AR VR for Business @ KualaLumpur
Link Call for Fintech Partners @ KualaLumpur sc | as | sg | hk
Link From Virtual to Reality @ HongKong
Link Puzzles to Thwart Coordinated Mining @ Singapore

[1] Humans increasingly risk being abstracted into a number, a unit of cost or profit.
[2] A call center system may, based on how profitable you are, accept or drop your call.

[3] By acting on search results, a person could be thought to have been 'programmed' by search algorithms. Ditto with programmatic ads, automated trading, algorithimic news feeds etc.
[4] Events of interest are listed regardless of whether they are happening in the indicated week. 

GDPR Primer

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an EU regulation on data protection and privacy for all residents of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). Among the key features are:

Clear Language
Before: Privacy policies in lengthy, complicated terms.
Now:    Privacy policies must be in clear, straightforward language.

Consent From User
Before: Silence means consent, or consent is hidden behind obtuse legalese.
Now:    Silence or obfuscation means no consent.

Transparency
Before: Data is used for unpermissioned purposes (eg. sign-ups sold to marketeers).
Now:    Users must agree to any and all reuse of data, even in algorithms.

Stronger Rights
Before: Silent when data is pilfered; cannot transfer, get copy or delete.
Now:    Users must be notified, users can transfer, download and delete their data.

Stronger Enforcement
Before: EU authorities have limited means, coordination and sanctions.
Now:    New European Data Protection Board and fines to € 20M or 4% of turnover.

Notes

• GDPR references: Official | Text | Summary
• The GDPR is similar in intent to PDPA (MY) and PDPC (SG).
• GPDR Fintech Workshop  [Tue, 5-Jun-2018, 1:30pm @ SubangJaya, tix]

Co-Auditorium

The first Thursday of the month [June 7th 2018] is coming up. Since our last free coworking day highlight, the 'free-coworking-on-the-first-Thursday' collective has gained 7 members: CoHere, Settlements, Unionspace, Ikovert, Big Wheel, Found and BusinessHubs. Of particular interest is Big Wheel, located in Austin Heights, Johor Bahru, which offers an auditorium.

Big Wheel, Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Link

Ikovert, Surat, Gujarat, India. Link

Found, Singapore. Link

AI + IoT = AIoT

AI + IoT = AIoT info

• AIoT = Artificial Intelligence of Things.
• Machine learning by myriad IoT devices acting in unison.
• Move computing from the centre to the edge (from servers to IoT devices).
• Example use case: swarm CCTV surveillance.

Computex 2018 [June 5-9, Taipei, info]

• 5G Summit - AI + IoT = AIoT
• AIoT - Smart Computing
• Audi - Audi Innovation Award
• Computex - Supply Chain exihbitors
• Flex - Flexible Hybrid Electronics
• FutureCity - Visit to Future City
• Forum - Ubiquitous Intelligence
• InnoVEX -  Startup Platform exhibitors 
• InnoNEXT - Indie Band Show
• Siemens - Smart Sustainability
• SmarTEX - Internet of Vehicles and more

Innovest Unbound 2018 [June 5-6, Singapore, info]

• Automative 2.0 - BMW
• The Digital Consumer - WPP
• AI-Powered Transport - Nissan
• Electronic Silk Road - Walmart
• Zero Friction Future - Facebook
• Autonomous Mobility - Waymo
• Future of Money - GoldmanSachs
• A Mar(keting)Tech Revolution - R3 
• Generation Z Communities - eToro
• How Tourism Australia Won The Super Bowl - IPG

Pick of Events (W2-Jun-2018)
Link An Attention Span of 8 Seconds @ Singapore tix
Link The Tonkin Sub-Nose @ Singapore
Link Aerospace Excellence @ Singapore
Link Art Direction: Responsive Images @ Bangkok
Link Integrated Circuit Design Incubator @ KualaLumpur tix
Link One Founder Three Startups @ KualaLumpur
Link Handling 150 Years of Data @ KualaLumpur
Link Get Your Story Out @ KualaLumpur
Link Ungreen Meat @ KualaLumpur

The Next Web 2018

Embedded Facebook videos are muted by default. Volume controls are at the bottom right.

TNW 2018 is happening now and over two days (24-25 May) in Amsterdam. Join the conference live [ mainstage | multistage | TNW | schedule ] as the CMO of Huawei, Andrew Garriby, just finished his speech promoting Huawei's AI chipped phone, and telling the audience Europeans on average think about food 221 times a day. Other topics include [times in GMT+8, MYT|SGT]:

• 08:00pm Building a Stellar Tech Team - Eva De Mol, De Mol Ventures Thu
• 08:30pm The Future of Sports is Robotics - Nicholas Horbaczewski, DRL
• 08:45pm Building Compassionate Machines - Carolyn Rodz, Hello Alice
• 09:15pm The Emerging V-Cloud - Kevin Kelley, Wired
• 10:45pm The Brave New Digital World of Sport - Andrew Miah, Salford
• 11:30pm Chivas Venture Global Finals - Picha Project is in the last 5
• 04:20pm Why Email Wins in a Crowded Market - Len Shneyder, Sendgrid Fri
• 04:30pm Measuring the Intrinsic Value of a Token - Kary Bheemaiah, Uchange
• 05:00pm The Dangers of Investing in Coins vs Equity - K Gupta, Consensys
• 05:45pm The Evolution of a New Online Economy - John Collison, Stripe
• 07:00pm Investing in Blockchain - Tim Draper, Draper VC
• 10:00pm Music on the Blockchain - Benji Rogers, dotBlockchainMusic
• 10:25pm A New School of Consumerism - Richard Kelly, Fung Group

Blockchain Lottery

League of Blocks [Tue, May 22, 2018, 7pm @ KL, tix] Crypto-projects presenting:

• Quanta - Blockchain lottery using the Randao random number generator 
• ZCoin - 'Launder' bitcoin to make it resistant to network topology analysis
• Ink - To be the cryptocurrency equivalent of PayPal (popular in ecommerce)
• NEM - Uses proof-of-importance and delegated harvesting for coin minting

Bonus: Pick of Blockchain Week NYC 2018 info

• Longenisis - Mine this coin by providing your bio-data for research
• Sonm - Fog computing (even more decentralised than cloud computing)
• Enigma - Secret ICOs (current ICOs show their backers)
• CoolWallet - Hardware bitcoin wallet that uses Bluetooth (vs USB)
• Atonomi - Secure sensitive IoTs: insulin pumps, CCTVs,  switches etc. 
• IoTeX - Lightweight smart contracts for IoT
• VUToken - Token for a virtual universe

The Randao random number generator info

• Say, you are running a raffle draw at the office party. 
• Instead of picking the name of the winner from a box, you assign each party-goer a number 1, 2, 3...20 (up to the number of party-goers), and have each of them provide a random 3 digit number.
• You sum all the 3 digit numbers, divide the sum by 20 and the remainder+1 is the winning number (the remainder+1 will always fall between 1 and 20).
• With this approach, an auditor could mathematically verify the draw by asking each party-goer the number he or she submitted and re-calculating the remainder.
• Such a retrace wouldn't be possible if a lot was drawn from a box. 
• If the numbers submitted are recorded in a blockchain, the party-goers need not remember the number they submitted, the numbers are in the blockchain, tamper-resistant.
• Beyond gaming, lotteries have applications such as an alternative to first-come-first-served queuing for tickets for a blockbuster event.

Pick of Events (W5-May-2018) half the year almost done

Link Homegrown Walmart @ KualaLumpur
Link Online Business Expo @ KualaLumpur
Link The New Education Minister @ KualaLumpur

Link An Eclectic Mix of Artists & Activists @ PJ
Link Towards a Digital Paradise @ Jakarta
Link Story Telling Festival @ Singapore
Link Business Crowd Funding @ ShahAlam tix

Link Taiwan Creative Hubs @ KualaLumpur tix
Link Virtual & Augmented Reality @ KualaLumpur tix
Link Know Your Customer @ KualaLumpur tix
Link Mobile Photography for Social Media @ HK

Cognitive Neuroscience: What Our Eyes See

Learning Where To Look: [Wed, May 16th, 2018, 8pm @ Solaris, Link] What you see is not what is, but what you do and think. In other words, your eyes see not the flower, but what you intend to do with the flower. By Dr. Neil Mennie, Cognitive Neuroscientist.

Introduction to Fintech: [Tue, May 15th, 2018 @ Online, Link | Video] This free University of Hong Kong 6 week online course provides a survey of Fintech. Suitable for executives and anyone who want to gain a firmer grasp of Fintech if the term has just been a vague notion thus far. Topics include

• Fintech 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5
• Mobile money, cryptocurrencies, ICO
• The payment stack, Ripple at Stanchart
• Chinese TechFins: New models & products
• Regtech: AI in regulation & detection
• European big bang: PSD2 | GDPR | MiFID2
• Case studies: Alibaba, Aadhaar, Digibank

Pick of Events (W4-May-2018)
Link WeWork Founders Night @ KualaLumpur
Link Snow Musang King Buffet @ KualaLumpur
Link Coworking Forum @ Singapore
Link Restore Trust in Dating using Blockchain @ Singapore
Link Crypto-Mining Live Demo @ Jakarta
Link HR in a Dgital Era @ Jakarta
Link CaaS: Crime-as-a-Service @ HongKong
Link Radica Bigdatahon @ HongKong

[Blockchain Notes

• Blockchain is not Bitcoin. A previous post mentioned Bitcoin under 'The Case Against Blockchain and ICO'. While blockchain is more than Bitcoin, Bitcoin is a flagship app of blockchain, just as VW was a flagship marquee for diesels. 
• Blockchain is not just a marketing term. This refers to blockchain as used for marketing or by sub-prime ICOs, not the concept of blockchain itself.
• ICOs are fantasies. Some certainly look far fetched in ambition. Our listings give a glimpse of startup propositions from an ecosystem which is not the usual ones.]

Tachyon: Faster Than Light

Tachyon
[May 11th, 2018] ConsenSys Ventures invests in six companies and launches its Ethereum accelerator Tachyon [no website yet]. The 8 week accelerator program will see a cohort of 8-10 projects work towards building an MVP and work towards raising pre-seed/seed funding. [TC]. Sample investees:

• Ink - Transparent cryptocurrency (vs anonymous)
• RocketPool - Ethereum proof-of-stake (stake what you do/say)
• Dada - Digital art whose sale is limited by tokens top image

Token Foundry 
ConsenSys Token Foundry vets utility tokens. Sample vetted tokens:

• Aikon - Monetize your API for a $ 2.2 trillion API economy
• Colendi - Credit scoring and financial passport for a global economy
• Weeve -Turn IoT into EoT by monetizing data & services (E=Economy)

ConsenSys Labs

ConsenSys Labs is an Ethereum venture studio. Sample ventures:

• Benefactory - An economy of communities (vs of CEOs)
• Civil - Journalism as a marketplace (vs as a hierarchy)
• Variabl - Ethereum-based, trustless derivatives trading

Organic Purple Pan Mee

After three months of acceleration and an intensive bootcamp, 1337 Ventures will be hosting a demo day for their latest batch of startups from the Khazanah Nasional Entrepreneurship Outreach Program. Join us for the 1337 x KNEO’s Top 10 Demo Day. [Happening: Saturday, 12th May 2018, 6pm - 8pm @ Cyberjaya. Tickets for the demo. This is a satellite event of CSS2018. Startup descriptions below are guesstimates.].


1337-KNEO 2018 picks

• BESC - Make energy a marketplace instead of just a utility 
• GrubCycle - Food should not be thrown away top image
• HomegrownFarms - Fresh, organic vegetables 
• Unwrappd - Don't know what to give? Try giftcards
• Resermy - Reservation as a service
• Kravve - Organic, purple pan mee (and more) post title

Bonus: SITEC-TusStar 2018 picks via

• PicMote - Easy-to-use online 'Photoshop'
• Dropee - Wholesale ecommerce
• VentureGrab - Buy and sell businesses
• MyMata - IP camera with live streaming and cloud storage
• Coqnitics - Car park surveillance
• SarahShopper - Notifies you when the price of an item drops
• KarunHijau - Urban recycling 
• Vspire - Entrepreneur TV

Appworks Accelerator: $1.3 Billion Revenue

[Congrats to Malaysia on a new government]  From the event writeup: Appworks Accelerator is Greater Southeast Asia (Asean + Taiwan & Hong Kong)'s largest startup accelerator with an alumni of 323 startups, 780 founders, USD 1.3 billion in annual revenue and 5,696 jobs. Appworks is recruiting its 17th batch and will be at Cyberjaya on Friday, 11th May, 2018 6:30pm for a roadshow. Appworks alumni include:

• iChef - Multi design awarded restaurant point-of-sale and CRM
• IntoWow - Low-latency, premium, mobile video ads
• Migo - Big data company with partnerships with Alibaba, Tencent, Google
• MorningShop - Curated cereals, nuts, dried foods and jams top image
• NewsLeopard - East Asian Mailchimp/GetResponse
• TagToo - Ad platform that is more personal than media-buys and RTB
• Umbo - Autonomous CCTV where AI does the monitoring, not humans
• Patisco - Sales conversion after industry events
• 17Life - Offline-to-online ecommerce platform
• DeepSentinel - CCTV with AI-based surveillance
• Fandora - Taiwan's largest online seller of illustration merchandise

 [Update: Event postponed, interested parties can apply direct here, closing May 14th.]

GarfieldEats: Mobile Only Restaurant

ICOs take the stage again this week, via 1 2 3 4 5.

• GarfieldEats - Mobile only fast food restaurant [not an ICO yet | top video]
• DTube - YouTube alternative that pays by likes (vs via ads) [bottom video]
• MoneyTrack - Directed money (restricted money): giftcards, vouchers, points
• Perlin - Supercomputing from millions of idle smart devices
• SatoshiPay - Nanopayment which requires no login
• Bitwala - Blockchain banking for the Bitcoin era
• FPC - After privatised airports, roads and utilities, now privatised cities

Pick of Events (W3-May-2018)
Link DTube & MusicCoin @ KualaLumpur
Link AWS is Recruiting @ KualaLumpur fixed
Link Secret Startup Sauce @ HongKong
Link SexTech Hackathon @ Singapore
Link Digital Maker Marketspace @ Penang
Link Startup Weekend Anak Muda @ Bali