We are celebrating 4 year anniversary today! We launched Asiajin officially on December 12, 2007, 4 years ago. Here I announce two new Asiajin blogs, Spanish version and Japanese version.

The new Spanish version, Asiajin en Español is supported by Tokyo-based ShakingAsia, whose business is bringing oversea services into Japan and Asia.

If you are interested in opening Asiajin in other language, please contact us.

We also began Asiajin日本語(=Asiajin Japanese) last month, which is not a Japanese translation of Asiajin, which does not make much sense, but introduce what Asiajin is doing to Japanese people, to find potential contributors and sponsors.

Please share these sites to your Spanish/Japanese speaking friends who should be interested in.

Tags: Announcement by Akky Akimoto
1 Comment »

The so-called Mashup Awards have a relatively long history in Japan's web world, with the 7th event scheduled to be held in Japan next month (here's Asiajin's report on the last event from December 2010).

It has been organized in Japan every year so far, but now the Mashup Awards 7 (MA7) event is coming to Silicon Valley, too: on October 19, there will be some sort of sub-event in Palo Alto called "MA7 Ninja Challenge".

The organizers explain:

At the event, up to 10 startups interested in the Japanese market will be presenting in front of industry experts in the market to get professional advice.

At this event, developers in the US (including CTOs in startup companies or engineers who are interested in the Japanese market/ Asian market) will give a presentation (pitch) about their products, services or technologies they have developed.

In contrast, for the companies which participate in MA7, the experts who are familiar to the Japanese/Asian markets will participate in this event. Expert advisors will give advice through Q&A of each participant and discuss about how to expand as well as support the product's growth into the Japanese market . Also, this event becomes a great place to meet developers and partners in Japan.

What's cool is that the winner of the contest in Palo Alto gets the chance to move to the 2nd Round of the so-called "Mashup Battle" and win MA7 as a whole, too.

The call for presentations ends on October 12. All US-based startups/individuals interested in entering the Ninja Challenge can apply here (in English).

Details of the MA7 Ninja Challenge event:

When: 6:00pm, Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Where: DOCOMO Innovations, Inc.
Map: 3240 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304
Tickets: http://ninjachallenge1.eventbrite.com (the event is free)

More information about MA7 in English can be found here and here.

Tags: Announcement, Japan, USA by Serkan Toto
No Comments »

[Update] Meetup has been changed to afternoon at Suria KLCC. Two local Asiajin readers who contacted me preferred during daytime.

Asiajin's chief editor Akky AKIMOTO is visiting Singapore/Malaysia for 3 weeks, that is mainly for family vacation but thinks having a chat with local Asiajin readers who are interested in.

This Wednesday, starting around 19:00 August 17, Tappers Caffé in Capsquare (No. 8 Jalan Munshi Abdullah 50100 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia)

I have never visited this place, just picked up one randomly from search. You are welcome to suggest another place near there. Starting time is also flexible for me.

If you are interested in, please contact me at my surname plus gmail. I will send you my Maxis number here.

See Also:

Past Asiajin events at Singapore, Taipei, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo

Tags: Announcement, Asiajin Event by Akky Akimoto
No Comments »

Picture courtesy: Flickr user edwin.11 (used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

Singapore is very hot on tech throughout this week, since Echelon 2011, one of the largest tech conference in South East Asia, will be taking place at the National University of Singapore, where the region's best start-up companies and services will be chosen by well-known authorities. We will join it as a media attendee and bring you live coverage.

Following the event, on the Friday evening (June 17), a Singapore-based blog covering the Asian tech scene, Penn Olson will host a meet-up, and they give Japanese four tech start-ups a chance to pitch their innovative ideas to tech geeks, Internet celebrities and investors who will have come from all across Asia.  Applications for the meet-up have been already closed, but we're expecting to bring you a live streamcast or a live blogging from it.

Participating start-ups are:

• Fashion Style Japan: Yoshio Narita, CEO & Founder of Qomune (See this for more)
• Compath: Hiromichi Ando, CEO & Founder (w/ his colleagues)  (featured in this story)
• Moso: Shinji Murakoshi, CEO & Founder of Moso (featured in this story)
• Cacoo: Shinsuke Tabata, Managing Dir. & co-founder of NuLab, Inc. (See this for more)

Furthermore, on Saturday at 7pm (Singaporean time), at Hackspace.SG which is located at the heart of the country's Arabic district, we will have a casual meet-up with people of the hackerspace and the four start-ups mentioned above. I'm intended not to create an agenda nor time schedule.  But if you are interested in talking with these guys in person, please come and join us. (Plancast)   I'm looking forward to tasting great meals by Meng Weng Wong there, who is the hackerspace's director and also known for being very good at cooking.

See you all there.

See Also:

• Update: Asiajin To Host Reader Meet-up In Singapore On Saturday
• Echelon 2011: Applications For Asia’s Leading Launchpad Program Closing In Two Weeks
• Event Wrap-up: Asiajin Readers Meet-up in Singapore

Tags: Announcement, Asiajin Event, Community, Japan, News, Singapore by Masaru IKEDA
No Comments »

We have just switched to Disqus comment system from another comments service. So this post also serves as new comment system test.

All registered users and Disqus users can write comments. Tentatively, now guest users can post comments, too. Please help our test by leaving any general questions, requests, suggestions, applauds, complaints, whining, etc. for Asiajin staff on this post's comments.

# article-related comments should be posted on each article

Until now, we intentionally made commenting difficult by demanding Asiajin registration. That was because we wanted to concentrate on writing new articles, though we of course knew discussions with readers would also help us. We are not sure if this change goes better, or regret soon. If this goes really bad, we will turn off anonymous guest comments, but Disqus users' comment will be kept.

# most Asiajin-s are living in Japan Standard Time so you cannot expect immediate reply during when East Asia is sleeping.

Tags: Announcement by Akky Akimoto
4 Comments »