Dr. V. Sivapalan

Dr. Siva has been an extremely passionate coach and mentor for technology startups since 1999 and has lived through the dotcom boom and bust and is really excited about the next generation of Entrepreneurs. Just over the last 3 years he has trained more than 300 companies and has found many talented and passionate Entrepreneurs. Yet he is puzzled that despite the talent, Malaysia has not created any global startups of note.

He truly believes that Malaysians have what it takes to make it on the global stage but need the right platform, mentoring and funding to make it big. He and his partners in AllStars are driven to make this happen … before he retires into a life of quiet exile to enjoy his other passions of reading, writing, investing and enjoying the countryside.

Dr. Siva is best known as the Founder & 1st President of the Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia (TeAM) and is currently its Advisor. He is also known for his candid and unconventional views on entrepreneurship, business and the economy and is a popular moderator, speaker, panelist and writer.

He holds a PhD in Venture Capital studies from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland; an MBA (with Distinction) from University of Hull, UK; an LLB (Hons) from University of London and is also a qualified Chartered Secretary. Dr. Siva is a certified Trainer for the Kauffman Foundation’s ‘FastTrac’ program.

Premesh Chandran

Premesh Chandran is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Malaysiakini.com, the leading online media in Malaysia. He also founded the Southeast Asian Centre for E-media, the training arm of Malaysiakini.

Premesh has served as a council member and deputy president of the Technopreneurs Association of Malaysia. He has coached APICTA winners, served on various grant review panels and as a judge on the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) journalism awards, the Young Social Enterprise Initiative awards and the Malaysia Effie Awards. He is a TED Fellow (2010) and a Chang-Lin Tien Fellow (2010). He speaks on the business of new media at various international fora.

Premesh has always believed that the challenge is to find practical ways to achieve your ideals and dreams. Entrepreneurs have to sustain their passion for their ideas while being a dispassionate critic of the business.

He believes that his degree in Physics and a Masters degree in International Studies, were helpful in molding his thinking but perhaps less so than the daily lessons of life.

B. Dhakshinamoorthy (Dash)

Dash sees himself as a Startup Catalyst and Evangelist. He is also a serial entrepreneur. Dash currently runs his third venture – Warisan Global (WG) Sdn.Bhd. which he founded in 1999. WG is both a Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Consulting company. The company designs and executes both Marketing and CSR campaigns for its clients.

In 2010 WG was awarded the Honorary Mention Award under the Prime Minister’s CSR Awards for its CSR Project in Sarawak.

Apart from WG, Dash has also recently started a Not-For-Profit organization, Global Entrepreneurship Sdn.Bhd. (GESB). The aim of GESB is to Inspire Startups and build startup communities around the ASEAN region through its programs. Dash, through GESB aims to partner and bring to this region some of the coolest entrepreneurship programs from around the world, especially the US. Currently GESB is the ASEAN representative for Startup Weekend (www. startupweekend.org). GESB is also the exclusive licensee of Kauffman Foundation’s Entrepreneurship training program, FastTrac – a suite of 30-hour programs that teaches and mentors first time and also experienced entrepreneurs the basics of starting and launching a venture.

Dash’s active foray into the entrepreneurship scene in Malaysia began when his company was selected in 2008 by the Kauffman Foundation in the US to be the Malaysian Country Host for their global entrepreneurship campaign: The Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW).  Under his leadership, GEW Malaysia showed young Malaysians Entrepreneurship is Cool and Startups can change the world. WG was awarded the Host of The Year Award by the Kauffman Foundation in 2009 for its exemplary work in running a successful campaign and for the 2010 GEW Campaign, WG won the Host Country of the Year Award for running the Global Clean Tech Open Ideas competition.

In 2010, Dash was selected amongst 250 other global entrepreneurs to represent Malaysia at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship hosted by President Barack Obama in Washington D.C

Dash is an Alumnus of the prestigious International Visitor’s Leadership Program (IVLP) organized by the US Government. Dash’s IVLP was in the domain of Entrepreneurship.

Dash is educated both in the Edinburgh Business School, Herriot-Watt University and the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.