NEM Association - a report from Malaysia 04/2017
[This post had been revised after initial publishing.]
Much of our work gets unnoticed, and yet deserves attention. Further, from time to time it helps to sort thoughts about what we have achieved and what lies before us.
The Malaysian NEM Association was started in late 2016, and since then, a lot happened. We're not 100% satisfied in which with the speed things are moving, but I guess that's natural in our field. Well, and we're learning how to run as an association as we are going.
Today we are sharing some milestones and events, as well as plans for the coming months. Please engage with us to support NEM in the region, email us using info@nem.my or leave a comment below the post.
- 10/2016 First NEM-focused events in Malaysia, hosted at MaGIC (“Malaysian Global Innovation Centre”, a Government-run Incubator and accelerator for Tech Startups in Malaysia) in Cyberjaya: “Demystify Blockchain”
- 11/2016 Officially registered Non-Profit NEM Association with Registry of Societies according to planning with Lon Wong and first Malaysian committee members
- 11/2016 Faeez M. Noor and Rene Bernard (NEM Association Malaysia) co-founded LuxTag.io with Jeff McDonald.
LuxTag is an application based on NEM technology for luxury item tagging. All of LuxTag’s promotions carried “powered by NEM blockchain” to promote both the application and the platform. LuxTag won the 1st prize at a pitch event in Seoul on 30.Dec.2016 and exhibited 8–9 April 2017 at BlokTex, a recent Malaysian Blockchain Conference. - 12/2016 Launch of NEM.my website
BTW: re-design due for Q2/2017; aligned with the coming huge nem.io web design revamp - 12/2016 Fintech Exhibition & Conference Korea
Promoted NEM, Rene spoke as well as organized the booth with support of Jeff McDonald - 01/2017 Establish Full-time NEM Admin Executive post (manned by our colleague Yafi) to support NEM International Foundation (SG) and NEM Association (MY)
- 26.01.2017 Talk about the job outlook for Tech Developers, with the scope of Blockchain in Malaysia - at Innovation and Entrepreneurship event of Richard Ker. NEM Association and LuxTag represented by guest speaker Rene Bernard
- 02/2017 French Master Students excursion to MAGiC Cyberjaya
Rene spoke to approx 60 students about blockchain and its future visions, introduced NEM and sought for international connections - 14.03.2017 Casual Blockchain Meetup Kuala Lumpur, organized by our friend William from Finnota. Participated: NEM Malaysia executive members Aaron Ting and Rene Bernard
- 28.03.2017 Participation at event “Mi-Mist March 2017” (organized by Mimos Bhd.) - Developer Forum for IoT technologies. NEM Association represented by Rene Bernard
- 29.03.2017 Participation at event “Fintech: The Inevitable Force” - Exec. Committee member Stephen Chia represented the NEM Association
- 02 and 04/2017 Dutch Students delegations to Cyberjaya
45 min discussion group with Dutch postgraduate delegations, intro into Blockchain and NEM. Most recent talk in April - with Aaron Ting, executive committee member of NEM Association of Malaysia and Rene
- 03/2017 Larger Russian NEM Community Interview with Rene Bernard http://getcoin.today/rene-interview/ (RU original)
http://nemflash.com/getcoin-interview-rene-glance-nem-future/ (EN translation) - 25.03.2017 NEM Association Malaysia participates at formal AGM of the “Malaysian Investors’ Association”- introducing the plan to conclude MoU with NEM Association in order to support protection & awareness of the public reg. so-called blockchain or crypto investment schemes. Representing NEM Association: Aaron Ting, Faeez M Noor, Rene Bernard
- 29–30.04.2017 (upcoming) NASA Space App Challenge
NEM Malaysia will be participating in the event and Rene is going to talk, mentor and is provided a booth for NEM Association and LuxTag to advise on the use of Blockchain technology. Visit http://spaceappskl.com/ to see more. Event held at KLCC towers, Kuala Lumpur - 23.05.2017 (upcoming) Future Fintech. Focus Exchange
Rene Bernard will participate as a speaker in the event representing NEM.
- 06–07/2017 (upcoming) Blockchain Hackathon Malaysia
Planned hackathon in cooperation with MaGIC and Joe Romero — where MaGIC shall fund 50% of the event. Joe was the organizer of Junior DevCon Hackathon in late 2016 at Cyberjaya. We plan to have the prizes in XEM currency and project support funds from NEM project support funds.
Rene is currently (04/2017) elaborating with Malaysian Professors’ Association (“Majlis Profesor Negara”) - a plan for a cooperation in order to establish a nationwide Blockchain-related education including lectures, talks, and workshops at universities. Starting with pilot with University Utara Malaysia (“UUM”).
- NEM Association is invited to join UAM Professor Suaidi to talk in Solo, Indonesia introducing NEM Blockchain Tech to students at a tech talk event in July 2017.
Doors are opened to several Colleges and Universities in Malaysia incl. University of Nottingham, UPM, UKM, UiTM, UUM, Uniten, Taylor, HELP Uni, and the German-Malaysian Institute. Preparations for talks and workshops are ongoing. In cooperation with NEM International Foundation we will provide trainers from the region or overseas to do in-depth classes for Blockchain App development.
NEM Association Malaysia contributes to the international NEM ecosystem being the first “organized NEM country chapter”, which still experiments with its approach and later aims to advise other regional chapters to adopt similar objectives and approaches. Rene Bernard actively participates in the NEM country groups Italy, Russia, and Poland - and he initiated the NEM German Telegram group in January 2017, which already counts 118 members. Recently he started partnering with enthusiasts from Bandung, Indonesia and started the NEM Interest Group Indonesia (so far Bitcointalk and Telegram Group, which counts 17 members, growing daily).
At the moment, NEM Association Malaysia is collecting pre-registrations from interested persons in membership with our association. We expect to open for ordinary membership from May/June 2017. Membership benefits will range from free/discounted educational events and networking opportunities to preferential involvement into Blockchain-related projects.
Rene F. Bernard
NEM Association Malaysia - President
Cybersecurity Expert (Member of ISACA Association, Malaysia Chapter)
Certified Bitcoin Professional (C4 Crypto Consortium Canada)
Faeez M. Noor
NEM Association Malaysia - Vice President
Project Management / Banker (Malaysia)
Master of Science (GB)
About NEM Association Malaysia
The NEM community had concluded in 2016 that with the NEM project growth, it requires improved organizational structure and local chapters as points of contact. NEM Malaysia is proud to be the first country chapter to adopt a locally registered association aligned to this vision.
NEM Association Malaysia is a non-profit society registered with the Malaysian Registry of Societies (“ROS”). It’s objectives are to promote Blockchain technology and NEM as a blockchain technology platform in particular. Collaboration with youth and educational institutions is one of its pillars, co-operation with government and industry is another important one.
About NEM
NEM is an innovative blockchain technology project, a peer-to-peer crypto platform. It is written in Java and JavaScript with 100% original source code. NEM has a stated goal of a wide distribution model and has introduced new features in blockchain technology in its proof-of-importance (POI) algorithm. NEM also features an integrated P2P secure and encrypted messaging system, multisignature accounts and the Eigentrust++ node reputation system.
NEM has gone through extensive open alpha testing starting June 25, 2014, followed by lengthy and comprehensive beta testing starting on October 20, 2014. NEM’s public blockchain launched on March 31, 2015, and is now running without interruptions for almost two years. The private chain project “mijin” is powered by NEM technology.
Today, NEM is undergoing development of an upgraded core technology called “Catapult”. Catapult will power mijin in the first phase and become implemented into the NEM public chain subsequently during 2017.
