Neoteny Labs

Innovation in Open Networks

James Chan — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 15:18:38 +0000

Joi gave a talk at TEDxDubai 2009 on Innovation in Open Networks. In his 30-minute presentation, he talks about venture capital, open networks, Creative Commons, Agile, virality and the startup ecosystem. An important point he made was that the success of any startup ecosystem would not be dependent on one brand name or one person, but a bunch of things that has to happen at about the same time.

Here’s the Prezi slides Joi used:

I’ll leave you with the vimeo vid, hot off the press.

How S’pore can become 3rd Silicon Valley of the world

James Chan — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 04:12:14 +0000

Earlier this month, Eyal Gura, founder and CEO of PicApp gave a talk titled “What do they put into the water, and how can Singapore become the world’s 3rd Silicon Valley” on 12 Dec 2009 at Neoteny Singapore Camp 1. Eyal provided us with some good insights into what has helped Silicon Valley and Israel become key innovation hubs, talked about chutzpah/hutzpah, and left us with plenty of food for thought on what Singapore needs to do to position itself as a leading entrepreneur hub of Asia.

p.s.: watch out for Eyal’s really funny joke somewhere in the middle of his presentation ;-)

Eyal Gura is the CEO and Co-Founder of PicApp, the world’s leading source of professional visual content for bloggers with over 20mm photos and strategic partnerships with the leading blogging platforms. Formerly Eyal Co-Founded PicScout , which became the world leader in copyrighted content tracking. As PicScout’s CEO Eyal led the company from a bootstrap operation into a profitable company ,a Forbes’s E-gang member and a Deloitte Fast10 company. Previously to PicScout, he founded the first online video recruiting hub – TheScouter.com. Eyal is a graduate of the Zell Entrepreneurship Program of IDC Herzliya and earned his MBA from the Wharton Business School. Eyal is also the Co-founder of IEC , the first entrepreneurship club in Israel. Gura served in the Israeli Navy Submarine Flotilla in various command positions and despite his workaholic habits, he enjoys scuba-diving , aikido and is a keen karaoke singer.

Source: Profile of Eyal Gura on Crunchbase

Starting up Startups

James Chan — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:53:11 +0000

Panel discussion at the Neoteny Singapore Camp 1, moderated by Joi Ito (CEO, Creative Commons), and with Rob Mee (CEO, Pivotal Labs), Andrew ‘bunnie’ Huang (Head Engineering, Chumby Industries), Sean Bonner (Founder, Bode Media) and Samir Patel (Cofounder, SearchForce). Much of the discussion between panelists and the audience revolved around the theme of “failure”, following on from Eyal Gura’s prior talk.

Product, Process & Software Agility

James Chan — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:45:03 +0000

Panel discussion on 12 Dec 2009 at the Neoteny Singapore Camp 1. The panel was moderated by Joichi Ito, and with Ian McFarland (CTO, Pivotal Labs), Elisabeth Hendrikson (Founder, QualityTree), Diego Rodriguez (Partner, IDEO) and Jay Dvivedi (CIO, Shinsei Bank).

Neoteny Labs selected for NRF TIS

James Chan — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:31:09 +0000

SINGAPORE, 31 DEC 2009 - Neoteny Labs is pleased to announce that it has been selected as one of seven technology incubators to participate in the S$50 million National Research Foundation (NRF) Technology Incubation Scheme (TIS).

The recent successes of global platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Apple iPhone and Google Android, coupled with the advent of the Internet, open standards and advanced software development methodologies such as Agile, have significantly lowered the cost of product development while accelerating the pace of innovation. Entrepreneurs innovating on the Internet are now able to bootstrap with less and get further along than before.

Founded by entrepreneur and venture capitalist Joichi Ito, Neoteny Labs intends to harness these trends in the course of incubating and investing in early-stage startups across Asia, and has selected Singapore to set up its first incubator. The incubator is on track to commence operations in Q1 2010.

“Singapore – with its multi-lingual, multi-cultural society and pro-talent and pro-business government policies – is perfectly positioned,” said Mr. Ito. “We are firmly committed to building an ʻInnovation Ecosystemʼ that will trigger a critical mass of investors and entrepreneurs focusing on Singapore as a leading entrepreneur hub in Asia. This will in
turn spur the growth of technology commercialization in Singapore.”

-END-

NRF TIS Press Release

View more documents from James Chan.

Hello, World!

James Chan — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:43:37 +0000

In case you’re wondering, not everything on our site is completely in place. Do pardon us for our lack of hospitality and slow progress as we may be caught neck-deep in setting up Neoteny Labs and the fund, as we zip past X’mas and hurtle head-first towards the New Year.

I’ll be posting some videos from the first Neoteny Singapore Camp soon – do stay tuned for those. We had a blast over Dec 12 and 13 earlier this month, and were joined by diverse crowds from across Europe, Asia, Middle East and of course Singapore and its neighboring Asia Pacific countries. The level of exchange and discussion was extremely high, and encouraging for what is to come.

Some of you may ask us, “why Singapore?”. With its multi-lingual, multi-cultural society and pro-talent and pro-business government policies, we believe Singapore is perfectly positioned to enable us to build an innovation ecosystem that can trigger a critical mass of investors and entrepreneurs focusing on Singapore as a leading entrepreneur hub of Asia.

Oh and before I go; on behalf of Neoteny Labs, I’d like to welcome our esteemed mentors and advisors onboard – John Seely Brown, Jun Murai, Tim O’Reilly, Shawn Fanning, Cory Ondrejka, Dave Morin, Lawrence Lessig, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Reid Hoffman. We look forward to working with you on some really cool startups in the year ahead.

Have a good one.