PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MYEG COMMITS TO SUPPORTING MALAYSIAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH ABAF 2012
Leading E-Government Services Provider Extends Support For Innovation through Region’s Leading Conference for Angel Investment
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA – 16 APRIL 2012: The Asian Business Angel Forum 2012 (“ABAF”), Asia’s premier angel gathering and conference for emerging and growing businesses, today announced its partnership with My E.G. Services Berhad – the owner and operator of MYEG. MYEG together with its group of Companies serves as a community-based information and services centre for the public to access information, execute transactions and interact with the government and government-related institutions.
“MYEG has always been a keen supporter of innovation and entrepreneurship as we ourselves started out with an entrepreneurial background,” said TS Wong, Co-Founder and Managing Director of My E.G. Services Berhad. “We have been supporting this spirit most recently through our television program MyEG Make The Pitch which is in its second season in Malaysia. ABAF represents a unique opportunity for us to take our vision of supporting entrepreneurship to the next level and we are very happy to support it in any way we can.”
ABAF 2012 will be held from 23 May 2012 – 25 May 2012 at the JW Marriott in Kuala Lumpur. Seats for the conference can be secured at www.abaf.asia. Attendees will also be able to claim for the cost of attending event from the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF).
“30 top business leaders, revolutionary angel investors, policy making venture capitalists and proven start up specialists from across the world will come together on one stage to dialogue, address and train 500 of Asia’s top entrepreneurs and angel investors. This is the first time that we have seen a gathering of this kind happening in Malaysia and we are very excited at the possibilities that it offers. We will also see up to 60 local businesses pitching their ideas directly to these world class gathering of investors, visionaries and leaders,” said Jonathan Lee, co-chair of ABAF 2012 and Vice President, Commercialisation and Ventures at Cradle.
ABAF 2012 is jointly organised by Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (“CRADLE ”); an agency under the Ministry of Finance that manages the Cradle Investment Programme, Malaysia’s first development and technology commercialisation funding programme; and the Virtuous Investment Circle (“ViC”), an independent not-for-profit angel investment group.
Unique Opportunity To Learn, Invest and Impress
ABAF offers entrepreneurs a first of its kind programme as they will get to meet, mingle, learn from and pitch to angel investors from around Asia and venture capital organisations from around the world.
Some of the latest confirmed speakers to date include:
- Tan Swee Yong: A Malaysian success story, Tan created an organization that is today part of a listed entity in the United Kingdom. He is today one of Malaysia’s leading angel investors and spends his time evaluating investment proposals hoping to find the next star start-up to invest in.
- Anthony Clarke: A leading European angel investor, venture capitalist and an advisor to the British Prime Minister on investments. He is a co-founder and currently sits on the advisory Board of the UK’s first Enterprise Capital Fund, Seraphim Capital.
- Wong Thean Soon: Co-founder and Managing Director of MYEG, Malaysia leading provider of E-Government services and community-based information and services for the public to access information, execute transactions and interact with the government and government-related institutions.
- Timothy Tiah: He is the co-founder and executive director of Netccentric, the holding company for his and business partner Ming’s various web ventures. These include the blog advertising company Nuffnang that has led to a network currently comprising of over 1,000,000 bloggers in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Philippines ,China,Hong Kong and Thailand. Timothy was nominated by Businessweek as one of the 25 best young Asian entrepreneurs in 2007.
“This is an exciting and rare opportunity for Malaysian businesses as we are providing local entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase themselves and their products to a global audience!” said Lee who is also a founding member of ViC.
For more information, a full list of confirmed speakers and registration to attend ABAF 2012 Kuala Lumpur, please visit www.abaf.asia. Early bird conference packages with savings of up to 15 percent are available until 21 April 2012 and include a sign up benefit of an Android tablet worth RM 1,000!
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ABOUT ABAF 2012
The Asian Business Angel Forum 2012 (“ABAF”) is Asia’s premier angel gathering and conference for emerging and growing businesses. It will be hosted in the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, from 23 May 2012 – 26 May 2012 at the JW Marriott Hotel. This is the first time the three-day training and conference is being held in Malaysia and also marks the largest such gathering to date. ABAF – previously held in Singapore and Shanghai – will see 30 top business leaders, revolutionary angel investors, policy making venture capitalists and proven start up specialists from across the world coming together on one stage to dialogue, address and train 500 of Asia’s top entrepreneurs and angel investors.
ABOUT CRADLE
Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (Cradle), an agency under the Ministry of Finance, Malaysia is the organisation that manages the Cradle Investment Programme. The Ministry of Finance had allocated RM100 million to Cradle for this programme since it began in 2003. An additional RM50 million was recently added to the allocation for the 2011-2012 period, under the 10th Malaysia Plan.
With the launch of the Coach and Grow Programme, Cradle now runs two programmes, the Cradle Investment Programme for funding development and commercialisation of technological ideas and companies, and the Coach and Grow Programme, a market driven programme to train entrepreneurs.
The Cradle Investment Programme (CIP) is Malaysia’s first development and technology commercialisation funding programme that enables Malaysia’s budding innovators and aspiring entrepreneurs to transform their raw technology-based ideas in the ICT, non-ICT and high growth technology industries into commercially viable ventures or local start-up companies to attain commercialisation. Cradle offers two types of conditional grants – pre-seed (CIP Catalyst & U-CIP Catalyst) and seed (CIP 500). The pre-seed grants offer funding of up to RM150,000 to teams of individuals to develop their innovative technology ideas into prototypes or proof-of-concepts; whilst the seed grant offers funding of up to RM500,000 to help Malaysian start-up companies with innovative technology products/services to attain commercialisation. To learn more, please visit Cradle’s portal at www.cradle.com.my. Applications for the grants are also submitted online via the portal.
The Coach and Grow Programme, meanwhile, is a market driven programme intended to bring together key players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem to train existing entrepreneurs to grow their businesses to greater heights, via coaching, networking and showcase events. For more information, visit www.cgp.com.my.
ABOUT ViC
The ViC is an independent not-for-profit angel investment group set up primarily to educate and grow the angel investment community in Malaysia. It comprises a small band of technology and business savvy individuals with the financial capacity to invest. Ranging from their mid 30s to 50s, the members are focused on investors with domain knowledge. ViC’s role will be to actively endeavour to match the right investors with the right deals. The group’s efforts attempt to plug up the early investment gaps within the current ecosystem. The core of ViC’s energy is focused on sourcing good deal flows that are commercially sound and financially viable for investors.
For more information, please log on to www.vic.org.my