Making Money & Making The World A Better Place

Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) Malaysia is happening this week, and Elevyn will be involved in Startup Camp, an “unconference” for the startup community.

It will be held at the Plug and Play Center at the Gardens Midvalley, Kuala Lumpur.

The “unconference” features a host of informal talks and discussions by entrepreneurs and technopreneurs. On 22nd November 11am, our very own Devan Singaram will be speaking on “We Got Pre-Seed”, where some of the recipients of the MDEC Preseed Grant will share some tips on what applicants should and shouldn’t do in their submissions and presentations.

On Sunday at 3pm, we will be presenting on “Making Money & Making The World A Better Place”. Find out more about social entrepreneurship, the work that Elevyn is doing, and how we can all fit in the pieces together to combat poverty.

Participation is free, and the full list of events scheduled for Startup Camp is available here.

The Star: Making Ideas Work

When Devan dropped me an SMS on Monday afternoon saying that a reporter from the Star would be dropping by at 4pm, I knew that I had to shelve whatever plans I had for the day to do the interview. After all, it’s not often that the nation’s most widely read English daily would be knocking on the door!

Wednesday came, and what a shocker it was to discover that we were the main feature in Section 2! A big many thanks to The Star’s journalist Ms Yam Phui Yee and photographer Azman. We hope that this feature will help put the word out on the work that we do and encourage more sellers to join us in time for the Christmas sales.

Here’s the online version of the article, and the scanned copies below (thanks Glenn!)

Note:
Some corrections in regards to paragraph 5:

The conditions in Mangkuwagu inspired the idea. Malina & Mazeline Soning are from Kg Tinangol whom are friends with Sze Ning from before.

On Air, and Online

Eleventh of November 2008 marked a significant milestone as we quietly released Elevyn.com. There were no fancy launch parties, nor were there any ribbon-cutting ceremonies. We may yet do an “official launch” event somewhere down the line, but for now we’re all glad to have reached the landmark.

Nine months of development, and over two months of beta testing was about how long it took for Elevyn to evolve from idea to launch. The past few days have been frantic, as the team spent many waking hours putting on some final touches to the site and shop. Hats off to Sze Ning, Wilson and Shahrul for the great work.

We gladly invite your participation on www.elevyn.com . We’ve made a lot of updates based on your feedback during beta – including cheaper shipping options, gift certificates, and direct donations to Causes, amongst a few other things. Please have a look at our first newsletter for details.

As always, we are open to new ideas, thoughts and suggestions, so feel free to drop us a line or join our Facebook Fan Page!

Cheers & beers,

On behalf of Team Elevyn,
Mike Tee & Devan Singaram

Plugged on BFM

Dr Reza Azmi, founder and director of Wild Asia was recently interviewed on the new radio station BFM 89.9. In it, he spoke about the company and some of their recent projects.

Surprisingly, the interviewer then asked Reza about Elevyn, and “the boss” graciously gave us a good plug on the show. Yay!

The interview is available online as a podcast if you’re interested. Elevyn is mentioned in the 2nd clip.

Sidenote: I was already a fan of the station prior to this and had it on permanent dial in the car. So when the show came on during my drive back home in the evening, I was floored and had to stop by the road side to give it my full concentration! It was a strange, weird sensation to actually hear our own project on the airwaves.