Guest Seminar, Summer 2010

A video dede made: click here

Summer 2010

It was an exceptional summer for me in many ways. This is the first time I've ever heard of Year 0 students: students who have yet done any course in SMU. This becomes an interest task for me, and an usual one. My first responsibility in this class is therefore more than just delivering lectures. I told myself I must create an exceptional atmosphere for the students and ensure their introduction to SMU is a good one.



Yet, we have a few graduating students, doing their final course and final term in SMU with me. For these students, I hope to give or two into their working life. From the university to the real world - it just seems like yesterday.



This is possibly the busiest summer I've ever had, but the two wonderful classes made it a special one as well. I appreciate your enthusiasm, kindness and responsiveness in class. Your class participation is something I have yet encountered in SMU.



Thank you, for making this a memorable month for me. You are one great bunch and possibly the most technical classes I have ever taught! I will also remember this as the summer I launched this site. Something I wanted to do as a project this summer.



Just as it has been for me, I hope that your Technology and World Change course will be a memorable one for you for years to come!



Keep in touch, guys, and I do hope to see you in other classes! If you need a referee for exchange programs, just quote my name. I remember all of yours! :)

Speaker 1 - XMI CEO Ryan Lee
Speaker 2 - A*STAR Research Officer - Kalyan Takru
Speaker 3 - Leong Lau Kheng Janice from NCS Pte. Ltd.

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Ryan Lee, XMI Pte Ltd

In August 2006, Ryan Lee had to make an office out of a home. Today, he has made a home out of his office. When he first founded Xmi Pte Ltd, Ryan had little choice but to work out of his brother’s living room because he could not afford to rent an office space. Now, he works out of a three-storey shophouse in the heart of the city which has enough space for him to partition a comfortable bedroom that provides convenient sanctuary as he continues to live and breathe his dream.

Ryan’s passion for his work has not diminished over the years. His admitted poor command of the Chinese language is somehow miraculously enhanced when he is over the phone with Chinese suppliers pushing them to ensure that the stocks are produced in time. As witnessed by his colleagues, the pitch and volume of Ryan’s voice always seem to match the escalation of his language prowess.

Born in 1977 in Singapore, Ryan pursued his tertiary education in Australia and surprised everyone by somehow managing to achieve a Bachelors Degree in Economics and Finance from RMIT and a Masters Degree in Economics from Monash University in 2002.

XMI Introduction

Founded in Singapore in August 2006, Xmi Pte Ltd started with the simple objective of trying to create the smallest pocketsize speaker with the richest sound possible. The team at Xmi Pte Ltd had identified a void in the market which was lacking in affordable good quality portable speakers with the growing trend of small portable multimedia players like mobile phones, MP3 players, portable game stations and laptops in the last decade.

Resources/Links

· XMI website

· Monash Youtube interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EROiCD41E1Y

· Straits Times Article
http://www.asiaone.com/Business/SME%2BCentral/Prime%2BMovers/Story/A1Story20090506-139718.html

· Business Times Article (Google Cache)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UOkv2OIo-8wJ:www.businesstimes.com.sg/mnt/html/btpre/registration/redirect.jsp%3Fdlink%3D/sub/supplement/story/0,4574,341259,00.html%3F+ryan+lee+xmi&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a

· Action Community for Entrepreneurship XMI profile
http://www.ace.org.sg/Site/Page.aspx?id=AAF2C7BF-8218-43DF-B567-48D14C5A345C

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A*STAR Research Officer - Kalyan Takru

Kalyan Takru is a Research Officer at the Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR. Kalyan’s work in the institute follows two general directions:

(1) To establish and maintain detailed Engineering plans for R&D projects and

(2) responsible for identifying new enabling technologies and applications on various platforms for the institute. Currently, he is leading a group of researchers for a new product innovation, iTwin, in which he is responsible for product development activities. Founded in 2008, he and his partner, Lux, have taken a lead role in defining the direction of iTwin, a Plug & Play Remote File Access device. This home-grown innovation was recently invited to TechCrunch 50 Conference 2009 at San Francisco, California, to compete with more than 1000 innovators from Silicon Valley and abroad to gain exposure leading venture and angel funders and bring iTwin to the market. Kalyan is passionate about embracing new technologies and during his talk, he will share with us how to build innovation energy and confidence and share some of the market launch and development issues, both technically and economically as a local start-up.

Links:

1. iTwin – A novel consumer device (temporary website) itwin

2. TC50: iTwin Remotely Connects Two Computers Via USB Drives (TechCrunch 50) techcrunch

3. iTwin closes Series A Funding from IDEAS Ventures (e27: Web Innovation in Asia) funding

4. Interview with Kalyan Takru, Co-Founder and COO of iTwin video link Read our forum's interest to buy the iTwin. Kal, you get the picture?

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Leong Lau Kheng Janice from NCS Pte. Ltd.

Home-Fix was first established in 1993 by two brothers, Low Cheong Kee (CK) and Low Cheong Yew (CY). From its humble beginnings at Siglap Centre, Home-Fix has since grown into a chain of 21 stores with an additional 7 in Malaysia and 1 in Indonesia. Through pure hard work and perseverance, both brothers can be credited as pioneers in shaping the local DIY retail sector as we see it today.

Ms. Leong is responsible for the delivery of outsourcing services for the telecommunication infrastructure and services and multimedia services from technical sales, presales, to project to manage services for NCS. She also holds the concurrent appointment of Program Director for iN2015 program, responsible for spearheading the coordination within NCS in response to the Infocom Authority of Singapore blueprint to transform Singapore into an Intelligent Nation, A Global City. She is also managing the NBN, Fibre to the Home project for SingTel and OpenNet.

Her Pesentation:

Ms. Leong will be talking to us about her involvement in the National Broadband Network and what we as consumers and would-be entrepreneurs can look forward to in the near future. She will also be sharing with us her experiences making and marketing an innovative product of NCS – Mapps, or as we SMU students know of it, Virtual Canvas – in countries such as Hong Kong.

Links:
NCS Homepage
http://www.ncs.com.sg/
iDA’s site for Nex-Gen National Broadband Network
http://www.ida.gov.sg/Infrastructure/20060919190208.aspx
Mapps a.k.a. Virtual Canvas
http://www.ncs.com.sg/service2?page=mapps

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