Dato’ Saifuddin AbdullahPatron, StartupMalaysia.org

StartupMalaysia.org is motivated by Global Entrepreneurship Week Malaysia Patron Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah’s active involvement in the field of entrepreneurship. The Deputy Higher Education Minister’s drive and support for Malaysian entrepreneurs is invaluable in catalyzing more high-growth startups and transforming the entrepreneurial landscape in Malaysia.

GEW was founded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which is aimed at connecting enterprise people globally as well as inspiring young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity.

DhakshinamoorthyFounder, StartupMalaysia.org

StartupMalaysia.org was founded by serial entrepreneur, startup catalyst and evangelist Dhakshinamoorthy (a.k.a. “Dash”), and co-founded by Rebeca Hwang of the San Francisco-based firm YouNoodle. Dash’s inspiration and drive for StartupMalaysia.org stems from his deep desire to see more Malaysian startups going global. This desire was further fueled when repeatedly told that “Malaysian startups don’t feature in global conversations.”

Dash leads the Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) movement in Malaysia as its host for the past three years and he was also an attendee of President Obama’s Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington D.C. in 2010; Dash is also a fellow of the U.S. government’s prestigious International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) in the domain of Entrepreneurship.

Rebeca HwangCo-Founder, StartupMalaysia.org

Rebeca is a global entrepreneur; born in Korea, raised in Argentina and educated in the U.S., Rebeca lectures on “High Tech Entrepreneurship” at Stanford University. She has also been invited as a speaker to many international sites around the world including the Ministry of Education in Denmark, the University of Zaragoza in Spain, the University of Porto in Portugal, University EAFIT in Colombia, EnterPrize Puerto Rico, IEEE Egypt, Tech de Monterey in Mexico, IIT India, and the annual MIT Global Startup Workshop in Buenos Aires, Norway, Spain, South Africa and Iceland.

Rebeca’s dream is to create a world where meritocracy is the governing principle of entrepreneurship.