500 Startups

Ironically, in search of a “real job” to help support my wife and two children, I created BrainControl, hoping to find employment with either Mozilla or Automattic. Instead, by finding its way onto the front page of Reddit, I caught the attention of 500 Startups and was offered a place within Batch 9 of their prestigious accelerator in Silicon Valley.

After three months in Mountain View, the team I’d assembled finally launched our first product, BlockStrap at TechCrunch Disrupt in London.

Batch 9 of the accelerator ended with a Demo Day presenting to an auditorium full of investors. VentureBeat proclaimed us as one of five startups that caught their eye that day. We went on to raise over US$300,000, which lasted us for five years.

We was also featured by TechBuzz:

Notes

Date: 2014

Skills:
Fund Raising
Leadership
Marketing
Pitching

TL;DR:

The grass is not always greener

Association: Neuroware

Other Achievements

CoKeeps

The culmination of Project Castor brought about the introduction of regulation surrounding Digital Asset Custody within the Malaysian capital markets. This put my company, R1 in a unique position to capitalize upon its intimate knowledge of the Securities Commission’s requirements. Instead of applying for approval under the R1 brand, a new company was formed and a more appropriate team was assembled. R1 helped to fund the early development of the product for two years as well as the first three years in which the company needed to be operational but was unable to conduct business due to not being approved to do so. Our five years of perseverance paid off when it was announced that CoKeeps had become the first company in Malaysia to be[…]

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HRDF Trainer

R1 is a registered training and consultancy business approved by both HRDF and MoF. I am one of the qualified trainers attached to R1.

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Deloitte – Top 50 RegTech Companies

Included within Deloitte’s inaugural top 50 global RegTech companies, Neuroware was the only company from Malaysia to be included. The list has since gone-on to evolve into a directory of impactful companies, where Neuroware remains the only Malaysian company.

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Digerati50

First featured on Digital News Asia in 2014, I have since provided comments for several articles. In 2018, I was added to the inaugural list of Digerati50, which is reserved for the top 50 individuals in Malaysia who are making an impact to the nation’s digital economy. Featured alongside founders from Catcha Group and Grab, it continues to be an honor to find myself among fellow Digerati Alumni.

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Project Castor

FinTech News Malaysia introduce Project Castor as the Securities Commission’s blockchain blueprint, which helped lead the regulators toward the introduction and requirement for Digital Asset Custodians within the Malaysian Capital Markets. This eventually led to the formation of CoKeeps.

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Financial Crime Summit 2017

The International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism Financing 2017 was a collaboration between Bank Negara Malaysia and Securities Commission Malaysia. I was honored to not only provide a keynote speech on Future Proofing Compliance, but also being featured on multiple panels across the private two day event. On the first day, I spoke alongside the Depart of Justice (USA) on a panel discussing crypto-currencies. On the second day I shared the stage with the central bank of Malaysia to debate AML and compliance. This was an important event as it eventually led to Project Castor.

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Finnovasia

I took part in both Finnovasia 2016 and 2017. Finnovasia 2017 was the larger and more serious event, spread across two days with over 500 attendees. I was invited to take part on several different financial and regulatory panels. In 2016, I gave an hour long introductory presentation to non-financial use-cases for blockchains at the same event as Vitalik Buterin:

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TEDx Sarawak

Having grown-up in Sarawak, this was an extra special occasion for me as it was the first TEDx to be held in Sarawak and the government reached out to me to ask me to speak there. This was my first public presentation within a more formal setting, with many important dignitaries in attendance and a spotlight blinding me. The pressure was high, but the experience was invaluable and gave me a huge confidence boost moving forward.

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IFN

I have worked with the Islamic Finance News group on several occasions throughout the years as well as conducting a number of different training seminars under their RED Money Events arm. From Applying Blockchains to Financial Services in Malaysia to The Impact of FinTech on The Future of Islamic Finance in Indonesia as well as countless Blockchain Masterclasses from 2017 to 2019.

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BlockChain Embassy

BCE Asia was the first registered blockchain consortium in Malaysia with members from several banks and financial services such as Maybank, RHB, Capital Bay and ATA Plus. R1 helped to launch and operate a private proof of authority EVM network that was used to explore various use cases for blockchains:

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BFM

BFM is an English radio station in Malaysia that specializes in business, technical and financial topics. They have invited me on the show two times, on both occasions to discuss the topic of blockchains. The first was a pre-planned casual introduction to blockchains: My second appearance was live – a proper Breakfast Grille:

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NoSQL Asia

After having spent 18 months organizing 13 meetups around Malaysia that were specifically for MongoDB, it was time to search for other forms of data storage. Little did I know where this would eventually lead me. During these 18 months, I was also also consulting with organizations throughout Malaysia to help them adopt NoSQL technologies. One of those projects was between Maybank and Perfectsen where we helped the first bank in Asia to use MongoDB for their PFM module. Some important presentations from those days can be seen below:

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WebCamp KL Presentations

My first presentation at WebCamp KL featured MongoPress and took place during a special CMS battle. In truth, this was my first real public presentation. after which I returned to present several times on different topics at WebCamp over the years. The slides I used can be seen better below: My (mostly) visual guide to crypto-currencies took place at WebCamp KL in 2013, and was the first time I publicly discussed blockchain technology. It went on to receive over 30,000 views on Slideshare:

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Open University

By this time, I was already living in Malaysia – having arrived in Sarawak on my 18th birthday. I was by then a freelancer developing customized CRM and ERP solutions for the financial service industry. However, in my heart – I always wanted to be a writer. I figured the first step towards this would be digging a little deeper into the English language and some of it’s literature beyond the limited scope I learned at school. As luck would have it – about three weeks after receiving my two year course material for an A-Level in English Language & Literature, I was informed that A-Levels were to be replaced by AS-Levels and that if I did not want to pay for new material and[…]

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Silver Duke of Edinburgh’s Award

As a Sergeant in the Air Training Corps, I completed my Silver Duke of Edinburgh Award when I was 15. I spent 3 days and 2 nights navigating across The Moors. An experience I neither regret nor hope to forget. These were days before our digital footprints begun. Alone in the wilderness with nothing but our thoughts to entertain us. The downside is having no record beyond my fleeting memories and this reminder.

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