Startup competition Halal Tech POWER Challenge , created by Malaysia-based technology startup incubator Halal Tech Venture Builder , has opened for applications. The challenge will take place as one of the events during the four-day entrepreneurial event GREAT2014 - which takes place from September 17-20 – and looks to empower aspiring entrepreneurs to build successful global technology ventures with the aim of positioning Malaysia as a global technology hub. MORE

Echelon , one of Southeast Asia’s biggest conferences for technology startups, has now expanded to its first full Malaysia edition and will take place November 24-25 in Kuala Lumpur. The one and a half day regional event, organized by e27 , will showcase selected Malaysia startups even as it explores Malaysia’s role in the global technology industry and help connect the Malaysia startup ecosystem with those from the rest of Southeast Asia and the broader Asia Pacific. MORE

Singapore-based technology startup incubator Joyful Frog Digital Incubator – better known locally as JFDI.Asia – today unveiled a lineup of eight technology startups set to participate in its 100-day accelerator program this year. FashFix , from Singapore and Malaysia, helps fashionistas turn their wardrobes into blog shops. In the News accelerator Asia incubator investor JFDI Asia Joyful Frog Di Singapore startup startup bootcamp MORE

By 2013, the NUS Enterprise-incubated company would have signed up car rental businesses like Avis, Sixt, Eurokars and 30 other partners to be on board their platform, to market and sell car rental services to drivers in Singapore. It will definitely make renting a car more efficient for me, which is useful since I rent a car 5 to 6 times a year, mainly for special occasions such as trips to Malaysia, when overseas guests visit or during the holiday season,” he adds. MORE

In the Q&A, Bill Gordon introduced himself as one of the principals of the Stamford Innovation Center, an incubator being formed in Connecticut. This is an interesting trend we're seeing as we connect with incubators around the world. We are successfully establishing partnerships with various incubators whereby 1M/1M is being viewed as a supplementary resource to the efforts of these organizations. MORE

Singapore-based accelerator Joyful Frog Digital Incubator ( JFDI Asia ) has revealed that over 300 digital startup teams have applied for its second accelerator program for this year, competing for just 12 places in this intake. Considering that the co-founders wasn’t too sure in 2011 when the incubator started if they could get enough quality raw startups in the Southeast Asia region to make the program work, this number seems astonishing. MORE

This week, I've had several meetings with venture funds, incubators, corporate accelerators and other significant players in the startup eco-system. The same applies to Malaysia, where our partner, the MAD Incubator, is in search of 10 good deals to put through the 1M/1M program. Incubator photo from Geograph. One theme seems to come up over and again, especially from geographies outside Silicon Valley: lack of a reliable pipeline of deals. MORE

Malaysia is trying hard to build a hub and finding it difficult. Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. I have thought a lot about the issue of how to stimulate a region's entrepreneurship over the years. MORE

Lazada Group (Malaysia): Vienna University. It is also a unique opportunity to contemplate start-up ideas with professors who are top thought leaders in their fields, leverage b-school resources to incubate ideas, and find co-founders. As a second-year Harvard Business School student and NextView Ventures MBA Associate, constantly keeping up-to-date with the start-up world, I have heard some skepticism about the ability of MBAs to found top companies. MORE

Automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software provider National Instruments has announced the opening of National Instruments Academy & Innovation Nucleus (NI-AIN), a shared services lab facility in Technology Park Malaysia comprising over RM20 million (~US$6.25 million) worth of hardware and software technology tools that’s developed as an incubation center for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) working on high-value design and engineering services. MORE

The startup last week announced that it landed a S$696K (US$560K) seed funding round led by TNF Ventures through the Technology Incubation Scheme under the Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) and supported by Singapore angel investors Ben Ball and Ben Chew, validating TribeHired ‘s concept. Prior to this round, TribeHired had received pre-seed funding from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd , a government agency under the Ministry of Finance, Malaysia. MORE

At this week's One Million by One Million roundtable, we announced a very important partnership with MAD Incubator, Malaysia for entrepreneurship development in the region. This is our first major partnership with an incubator whereby MAD will adopt the 1M/1M methodology to foster Silicon Valley-style technopreneurship in Malaysia. At today's session, therefore, all our entrepreneurs were pitching from Malaysia. MORE