Skip to content

Feb 10

The startup scene in Penang, Malaysia

Penang is an island with a thriving commercial centre and a pro-commerce state government. Although it’s the second smallest state in Malaysia, it’s not letting that stand in the way of major economic growth and this tiny island is punching well above its weight when it comes to business acumen. In recent years the bustling business community has become a leading light in the country’s economy. Penang has the third-largest economy amongst the states of Malaysia, after Selangor and Johor, and also has the highest GDP per capita in Malaysia, making it an affluent location as well as a business-friendly one.

While manufacturing may be the primary driving force behind Penang’s economic success, it is also a great location for start-up businesses to get a foothold, especially low-overhead businesses such as software development. High-tech electronics are focused around the northern end of the island, which also ties in well with software start-up businesses. Over the years this has also encouraged a high level of international investment from companies like Dell computing, Motorola, Intel and Seagate.

Penang Malaysia

 

 

An attractive proposition for business

In the last few years there has been a slight decline in the amount of investment money coming into Penang, particularly when you take into consideration the lower labour costs of manufacturing in countries like China. However, Penang is still an attractive proposition for investment, and that makes it the place to be if you want to start up your own business.

The location of so many international banks in the region also makes starting a business in Penang an attractive proposition, as the opportunities for approaching financial investment firms is greater here than almost anywhere else. There are also a number of specialist recruitment firms such as Yellow Elevator, who marry up opportunities with potential employees. With such a highly trained workforce to choose from concentrated into such a small area, Penang is also rich in experienced businessmen and women, skilled software designers, accountants and financial experts – everything the small business owner needs to get started!

 

Who’s leading the way?

Currently in Penang there are a clutch of new businesses who are proving that diversification is the key to future survival. As many high-tech electronic firms move their manufacturing overseas to countries like China, it’s businesses such as software development that will ensure the continued success of this region. Companies such as Exabytes, Malaysia’s largest web hosting business, are based in Penang, as are infographics experts Piktochart. Web production company Netizens Media are leading the virtual charge, and the number of digital start-ups in Penang is growing every day.

While the high-tech manufacturing industry may be in decline in Penang, especially with the loss of Penang’s free port status, business groups such as The Penang Development Corporation and InvestPenang are doing everything in their power to bolster new sectors and encourage start-up businesses to make the island their home. With so much potential and a strong commercial sector already in place, it makes sense to do business in Penang!

Author:
Carlo Pandian is a freelance writer and management graduate. He loves sharing small business tips from the latest accounting software solutions such as QuickBooks to hacks for social media campaigns. When he’s not online, he likes volunteering at his local community centre.

Aug 21

[Public Service Announcement] Stop 114A – It’s Hurting Us All

Seriously, this hasty amendment to the Evidence Act 1950 is utter bull crap. Period.

OK, the language is pretty strong here and I totally mean it here: spend 10 minutes to read a summary about the law and imagine that you can be charged for just about anything defamatory posted online… even if you aren’t remotely responsible in the creation of such content!

Anyway, be educated about it and rally against this stupidity lest we get ourselves back in the informational dark ages – stop the hypocritical attitude of wanting growth in the IT sector but taking away the freedom for people to communicate with each other with the fear of being charged and sentenced.

– Seh Hui, co-organizer of Webcamp KL

Stop 114A Awareness WordPress Blog

Mar 4

WCKL February 2012 Crowd
1 Comment

Webcamp KL #12 – The Holy Cow Moment

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:32:22 — 36.3MB)

What do they say be careful what we wished for? Indeed we are in a big surprise when roughly 150 people showed up for the event and have outgrown the hall that we’ve started Webcamp from!

All we can say is: Thanks for making Webcamp KL a smash! We wouldn’t be able to reach such heights without your support and participation.

With such strong backup, we kicked off the very first Webcamp of the year with something special, something worthy to set the tone proper for future Webcamps to come. We are going to talk about the most common Archilles’ heel that most introverted techies have: socializing skill. If the very thought of talking to a stranger, even with Webcampers, sends shivers down your spine, we’ve got help for you!

We brought in a solid lineup of speakers to share their valuable experience and useful tips in socializing:

  1. Freda Liu, BFM Radio 89.9 – Tell Your Story — DIY PR
  2. Walter Heck, Olindata – “Can I please go to the toilet?” (and other questions I don’t want my remote freelancers to ask me)
  3. Raja Jesrina Arshad, Mindshare – The Art of Socialising in a Networking Event

Summary

Do you have a startup or business wanting to getting some media love and attention, but you’re a bit cash-strapped? Could it be possible that such PR can be done for free without doing advertising deals with them? We got an insider expert in the house: Freda Liu, radio host and producer for BFM Radio, and has extensive PR experience as a PR manager and TV newscaster. In her talk, she generously shares with the audience communication techniques and strategies in pitching the media to cover your story. She also shared some creative tips that would have your DIY PR engine all year round — so don’t miss out!

Next up is Walter Heck, an adventurous entrepreneur who happens to love to travel around the world. As you wondered how a global trotting entrepreneur keeps his business humming along smoothly — he spills his secrets on how would you hire remote freelancers, and later communicate and manage them effectively once you got them on board. If such Four Hour Work Week-esque is a dream of yours, spend some time to listen to this talk and soak in his wisdom and experience — with great hopes that you’re able to replicate his success and have some really wild adventures around the world while growing your own business.

To wrap it all up, Jesrina Arshad really goes down to the basics: imagine you arrive in a networking event like Webcamp and you want to reach out to other people, what are the do and don’t during the “getting to know you” phase. Acknowledging the majority of the audience that has a bit of a geeky bent, she prepared an organized bullet-point list of great networking tips you’d want to keep in mind when reaching out to a fellow group member whom you are getting to know for the first time. And from what we gather from the Twitter stream after the event, some people are actually applying what she taught during the talk and everyone are enjoying each other’s company. That’s the proof that you should listen to this talk: it’s that useful :) .

We also have a Q&A panel with all three speakers with great questions: ranging from how would you approach someone famous to handling (gasp) people who seemed to follow you around.

The WCKL Universe

Yes, WCKL is now no longer just a monthly event for professionals and enthusiast about the Internet and web technologies — we now have a host of small satellite events and programmes that enables the community to reach out, bond and getting help from.

Should you find that the 15 minutes icebreaker is not enough for you to find your next co-founder or soul mate, one of these events are going to whet your appetite to expand your professional network:

  1. #WCKL Open Coffee ClubThink of it as the icebreaker session expanded and focused to startup founders and founders-to-be. Whether you are established or just thinking about it, here’s the place to reach out to people who can help you to get your startup grow faster.
  2. #WCKL Mastermind GroupsPrefer a private support group? This one’s for you! We’ll randomly match you up with 5-7 people in a group and it gives you a powerful circle who would keep everyone in check towards achieving their goals.
  3. #WCKL Co-Working HeroesWant something hardcore and want to get some work done? Bring your own project and co-work with people who are the “getting things done” type — as they say, a supportive environment is a highly productive one.

With that, hope to see you around in any one of the events! :D

Feb 3

Partial Loss of Audio Archives and Recent Breakdown

Hello, this is Seh Hui and the current maintainer of Webcamp KL’s website and podcast. And I’ve got bad news: I accidentally deleted the entire audio recordings archive due to a careless mistake while fixing an issue in our WordPress installation (hint: rm -fr).

Currently the situation is partially remedied by restoring the older copies that I still keep. It is really unfortunate that I’m unable to restore the catalog as I’ve also experienced a mass loss of personal data recently (double whammy – learned my lesson that merely backing up to a NAS is insufficient, cloud-based backup solutions is now the future).

We still have a silver of hope though – as the raw recordings of all missing episodes survived my data loss aftermath. It’ll take me some time to re-edit all of them and have them restored. Rest assured that you’ll see all the back episodes up again.

I’m terribly sorry for the debacle and hope you’ll be patient while I get everything sorted out.

On a Happy Note

The very first Webcamp KL meetup is coming up on the 29th this February! :D (squeee!!!! *dances happily*) Event details are on Facebook and hope we’ll see you there!

Nov 22

Webcamp KL on BFM Radio

Podcast: Download (Duration: 13:37 — 6.1MB)

Finally! We are hitting mainstream!

Webcamp KL was featured on BFM Radio today with an interview of the organizers, Wu Han and Seh Hui. During the show, we talk about how Webcamp KL got started, what makes Webcamp valuable and our mission to nurture a community of great people who are passionate about technology.

Two of our sister groups are also highlighted during the show: Educamp KL and MyCocoaHeads.

Check out the full interview below!

(Source: BFM Radio – TechTalk: Webcamp KL)

Nov 3

Webcamp #10 – Spirits of Diwali

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:29:02 — 35.6MB)

As luck has it, we had our Webcamp during Diwali: a festival of lights celebrated by the Indian community. While we do miss our fair share of murukku, we have a great lineup of speakers who were kind enough to spend time with us and share their expertise:

  1. Yam Tong Woo – My Blind Sight: How Technology Empowers The Visually Impaired
  2. Patrick Lim, Founder of Greenroom136 – 10 Lessons I’ve Learned From Project ConcreteJungle Interviewees
  3. Mats Engstrom, CTO of ViA International – Tweet In, Tweet Out
  4. Tristan Gomez, MindValley – Meaningful Metrics
  5. Milad Rastian – Configure and Manage Your Servers in a FLASH with Puppet

Summary

The event kicked off with Yam Tong Woo, a visually impaired automative engineer who lost his sight due to a bacterial infection. With brimming positive energy and enthusiasm, he shared how the Internet and the mobile web transformed and empowered his daily life. During this talk, he presented a live demo on how the visually impaired access the Internet and offers his advice on the current state of assistive technology and issues he faced. As a bonus, he shared his passion for golf and how he’s able to continue to play the sport. He currently maintains a blog called My Blind Sight.

The Webcampers were in for a treat as Patrick Lim recorded episode 10 of Project ConcreteJungle podcast live. Check out his talk with lessons he’d learned from the nine highly entrepreneurial guests he had on Project ConcreteJungle, closing with one bonus lesson that involved the common trait he observed from all interviewees. What’s the common traits that they had in common? You have to listen in to find out!

Armed with a credit card terminal, Mats Engstrom presented his geeky little side project to make a credit card terminal print live tweets from Twitter. Dig into his adventures of exploring and using the Twitter API and the journey of making the tweet printing credit card terminal. For electronic junkies out there, you know you’d want to make one of these ;) .

For business owners out there who’s looking into seeing their ROI of their campaigns, we have the perfect talk for you: Tristan Gomez was in the house talking about meaningful metrics – and in 26 minutes he shared about what makes certain data and numbers in your report meaningful, how to craft your metrics and even a case study on how Mindvalley is able to harness its power to track sales and conversions.

Closing the event is Milad Rastian, a sysadmin talking about the importance of tools to automate the heck out of thankless jobs of configuring and managing your servers. In the talk, he shared his experiences in performing the task, open source tools available and specifically talks about he used Puppet to do his job. After all, it great to have fun back in the sysadmin world ;) .

Help Wanted

The WCKL team is looking for awesome volunteers to bring Webcamp beyond the confinements of Kuala Lumpur!  If you love what we are doing, ping our Papa Smurf, Wu Han and we’ll bring awesomeness to the world!

Help that #WCKL needed:

  • Networkers to make #WCKL newcomers at home during events :)
  • Event photographers
  • Graphic designers to spice up our site (and other promotional swag)
  • Audio/video editors to make our recordings awesome!
  • Event planners to organize more *Camps in Malaysia
Photo credit: Anil Wadghule [Source]

Oct 5

2 Comments

Videos from Webcamp #9 – WCKL All-Stars

Breaking news! Webcamp KL has a YouTube channel! Yay!

Not only that, we’re kicking off the opening season of our #WCKL video project starting from this month! Double yay!!

Not only that, all videos can be broadcasted in HD! Triple yay!!!

This means that if you missed an event, you can still catch the rerun at the comfort of your own home, at your own pace. Also if you absolutely loved what a presentation, you can also share it to your friends on Facebook and Twitter! How cool is that! :D

Without further ado, here’s the full listing of videos:

Again, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and tell your friends about it. They need to know what they are missing ;) .

Oct 2

Webcamp #9 – WCKL All-Stars

Podcast: Download (Duration: 2:02:26 — 50.7MB)

What if you bring in all the most active members on the Webcamp KL Facebook group to give talks for the night? One word: EPIC!

Yes, this month we have the all-stars lineup of experts and go on a full-on technical track, topics ranging from Google Analytics to blazing fast web development. Diving into this month’s agenda, we have:

  1. Ngeow Wu Han – Keynote: Tribal Leadership
  2. Michal Pietrusinski – Everyone Can Do White-Hat SEO
  3. Leong Seh Hui – Making the WCKL Podcast
  4. Kai Hendry – The Ikiwiki Web Platform
  5. Grey Ang – Blazing Fast Web Development with Jade and Stylus
  6. Arzumy MD — “I, Paul the Octopus”
  7. Brian Ritchie – Analytics on Steriods, Part 1

Summary

A fair warning before listening in: there are a couple of F-bombs and mentions of parts of a reproductive organs being and they are kept in-tact, so if you are easily offended even by mild references, stay away :) .

The event kicks off with Wu Han setting the tone for the event by sharing a five-point scale in the book Tribal Leadership, from “My life sucks” to “Life is great!” and shares the Webcamp KL vision of having a strong tribe of highly engaged and satisfied members.

Following into our first talk was Michal Pietrusinski sharing a great introduction to white-hat SEO and why everyone could do it. According to Michal, there is one very critical strategy in getting ranked on the first page of Google, and with that, the tactics will easily follow and adapt. Find out what that secret sauce is!

The second talk was brought to you by yours truly (as the writer of the blog post :) ) going through the steps of making a good podcast from a raw audio recording to a shiny entry in iTune’s podcast page. In this talk, I shared all the workflow, tips and secrets in getting up to speed in making your own podcast and what pitfalls you should avoid. If you want to explore a new channel to spread your message to the masses, tune in!

We also had a special guest all the way from the UK this month: Kai Hendry, who have contributed to the HTML5 specification (WOW!). In this talk, Kai shared about a project called Ikiwiki, which sports some really great features that geeks would really appreciate: it stores pages in a revision control system and uses Markdown as the editing syntax. Not to mention that you can edit your wiki pages from the command line.

The audience were in a roll when Grey Ang took the stage and demoed two great tools that greatly speeds up your web development efforts: Jade and Stylus, mainly due to the fact that Grey played along with Harrinder’s, umm, choice of word to be used in the demo. Get infected by the hilarious vibes from the Webcamp live audience :) . Due to the fact that you can’t see code through an audio session, you can grab the full source code from Grey’s Github account.

Arzumy was playing soothsayer that night with the title “I, Paul the Octopus” – sharing his experiences in using the Google Prediction API. In his demo, he shows how you could hook up with the Predictions API, feed it with a list of titles used in landing pages and the traffic received and have it predict whether our titles for our new landing pages will prove to be a smash hit based on historical data. Neat!

To wrap it up, Brian Ritchie go on deep in the first of a two-part talk on Google Analytics. In this technical session, Brian teaches beyond the basic of the pretty dashboard on Google Analytics: he dives deep to show you how custom variables and multi-channel attribution open up to a wealth of data to help you understand your website visitors better and how well does your marketing campaign perform. As a business owner, you should check out this great overview to this power tool.

Help Wanted

It is raining jobs since the beginning the year and everyone is looking for talent: among them are Mindvalley (Brian Ritchie), Quantips (Talat), InstantTaxBack.com (Mila) and CellKast (Johnson). If you are a web developer/web designer, feel free to contact them!

On a separate note, WCKL is starting up with a Jedi Knights Council, a.k.a. a mastermind group, where Webcampers can have face-to-face private discussions on solving problems and brainstorming ideas. So if you are keen on the idea, sign yourselves up.

In case you didn’t get the joke…

If anyone didn’t get the joke Wu Han made about mispronouncing Kai’s full name, Kai-lan (with an L; as opposed to Kai Ian with the I) is a vegetable used in Chinese cooking.

Sep 4

WebCamp #8 for the Homeless

Podcast: Download (Duration: 56:54 — 23.5MB)

The very thing that makes WebCamp KL awesome: rain or shine, WebCamp KL will go on – even on public holidays! Yes, while most Malaysians were celebrating our 54th Independence Day and Hari Raya, we’re really pleased that there’s a strong turnout and community bonding for this month’s event. (and having pizza and beer helps, too!)

Despite being a shorter WebCamp than usual, we are glad to have a solid lineup of speakers:

  1. Richerd Chan – How I went from being an iPhone developer to sleeping on the streets of Kuala Lumpur
  2. Mats Engstrom – Electronics design: from idea to market

Summary

While we didn’t intend to make it the theme, Richerd Chan kicked off with an eye-opening story of how does it feels like being homeless on the streets of Kuala Lumpur for several days: from being exposed to the elements (rain, in particular) to debunking the myth that Kuala Lumpur would be as quiet as a ghost town during the long holidays. And his story is bound to be really juicy when I had to bleep out certain words to spare unsuspecting listeners. Curious? Listen in! :D

Richerd previously lives as the principal developer for HootSuite’s iOS application, adventurous at heart and working on a stealth startup that would transform your Gmail to a support helpdesk command centre.

And do you have a passion for electronics? And would you love to design an electronic kit to fellow hobbyist? And what if you could turn your passion into a side business? Joining us in our second talk is Mat Engstrom, who shares his experience and the process of starting your own electronics side business. There’s some really solid nuggets you shouldn’t miss out!

Q&A and Help Wanted Panel

Finally, we have 20 minutes of solid community townhouse session where members can ask for help from the community. Two Q&A questions were raised:

  1. In a web application that has elements of HTML5, how do you maintain backwards compatibility with older versions of Internet Explorer? And is the effort of maintaining such support viable?
  2. What a website that sells dresses can do to solve an Adwords campaign which has seen clickthroughs but zero conversion?
Some resources mentioned in this episode includes:
Highlights of the help wanted session:
  1. Christina wanted to know a cost estimate of developing and maintaining a social media site for a niche market, as well as seeking for investment for her new startup
  2. Khalid from StyleKandi is looking for a frontend developer for their startup, contact AnticsMedia for details
  3. Nicholas Yip from Innity is looking for 13 experienced, hardcore web developers who is confident is handle large loads of data
  4. Joshua is looking for a technical co-founder for a mobile social media site for a niche market
  5. Daniel from Experian is looking for Javascript specialists
  6. A hackerspace in Multimedia Universiti, Cyberjaya is looking for volunteers to mentor the younger generation
  7. An experienced product developer is offering consultation services to accelerate your startup
  8. The same web developer who asked for help in the Q&A for his online store to sell dresses is looking for side hustles and offers his experience in PostgreSQL, accounting and ERP systems

Jul 30

1 Comment

WebCamp #7 – Pecha Kucha Night

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:35:21 — 46.4MB)

In the spirit of WebCamp, we are always eager to try new things to spice things up. In this meetup, we are trying out two new formats: Pecha Kucha (20 slides, 20 seconds each) and Powerpoint-Karaoke (impromptu presentations on random slides).

We are fortunate to have lots of brave first-timer taking up the challenge speaking on different topics from technical to a personal musings about technology and the world. And the audio recordings really doesn’t do justice to the Powerpoint Karaoke sessions – the audience are really on a roll laughing uncontrollably at the humour and the completely non-nonsensical slides that goes with it. You’ll have to wait for the videos to see what’s got the audience ROTFLOL.

This month’s agenda:

  1. Symbology – Chern Shue, Qnack
  2. 40square’s Git Workflow – Ruben Tan, 40square
  3. Hello World (I am a slidedeck) – Yang Jerng Hwa
  4. On Diving and App Ideas – Ngeow Wu Han, MindValley
  5. What the F**k is Wrong with the Game Industry – Bazil Akmal Bidin (aka BuZz), notaThing
  6. Powerpoint Karaoke: Presentations with Powerpoint, part 1 – Kal Joffres, Tandemic
  7. Powerpoint Karaoke: 25 Most Famous Bollywood Movies of All Times – Kevin Francis, Arcis Communications
  8. Powerpoint Karaoke: PPTK: So You Think You Can Present – Harinder Singh, Tandemic
  9. Powerpoint Karaoke: Using Google Forms; The Hidden “Secret App” of Google Docs – Aizat Faiz, Facebook
  10. Big Think: The Future of WebCamp – Ngeow Wu Han, MindValley

Summary

The session is started with Chern Shue sharing his knowledge on symbology: how symbols gives us a very helpful way to condense information that communicates meaning to people instantly. And that ties into how the invention of barcodes have completely changed the world that accelerates data input tremendously and his passion in QR code.

Ruben took over the baton and talks in-depth on the Git workflow in 40square and how this new source control workflow speed up development, avoid merging hell and get stuff deployed fast. Taking a random turn, Yang Jerng Hwa gives a very interesting monologue and muses about how he sees the world through computers and the advancement of technology and ponders about how the future can be changed for poorer parts of the world.

As usual, Wu Han stepped up the podium to share about how the seven steps of the diving procedure is almost like starting your own startup and a couple of his app ideas. He’s then followed by a surprise presentation from Bazil talking about how the game industry is totally screwed up and why he is still a game programmer despite all the tough challenges. What a great way to end the session.

In the second session, the audience was served with tons of laughter from the humorous impromptus from Kal, Kevin, Harinder and Aizat as they keep their lateral thinking muscles going on a overdrive tackling crazy and random curve ball slides being shown to them.

The night was ended with Wu Han sharing about his visions for WebCamp KL, acknowledging the need for more cross-pollination between tech and non-tech communities and calling out for help in implementing some web applications that’d greatly beneficial: from bookmark archives, job boards to organizing mastermind sessions among members.

Call for Help

Hakim Albasrawy from Weekend.my is now looking for mobile web and application developers. And Mindvalley is hiring PHP talent.

And did I mention that WebCamp KL is looking for volunteers to help with our website and developing web apps that enables communities? We need a broad range of different talent for our various initiatives: developers, designers, videographers, audio engineers, copywriters… if you lend some skills to the community, we’d love to hear from you – send a shout out to Wu Han or Seh Hui now! :)

Audio Editing Changes

If you have listened to recordings from the past, you’ll probably notice that I’ve changed my approach and cut out filler sessions more aggressively: portions like the usual introduction to WebCamp KL group, silences and occasional audience bantering are completely cut out to make it a tighter listening experience.

What do you think about it? Please share your comments on how we can improve the audio further.

← Older Entries