Disclosure

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Earlier today, I posted an article regarding Apps Foundry acquiring MakeMac. It didn’t get any great reaction, perhaps the opposite. But since I’m not the one doing the investment, I can’t say anything towards this investment. I say, you, the avid readers of MakeMac be the judge.

Now move on to the East Ventures & Penn Olson status, especially me as an employee in both company. Jon Russell, as quoted on his blog, said that:

There’s no doubt that investment of some form was needed to get the blog to the next level, bring on permanent staff etc, but there is valid question as to why an East Ventures associate is onboard and writing about stories with conflicting interests?

To put this straight, I am hired as Penn Olson’s writer [this post is even linked by TechCrunch]before I’m an Associate at East Ventures. Even before Penn Olson getting an investment by East Ventures. Hence, I can safely say it’s not that East Ventures is putting their employee to control or putting content into Penn Olson’s mouth.

I am a blogger, I love writing.  I was actually trying to write my own blog before I’m doing this gig for Penn Olson. But then East Ventures planning to build an incubator and offered a chance to work together, then as a 19 years old looking for experience in the startup scene he loves, he accepted it, wrong? I believe anyone would accept the once in a lifetime chance. If you’re talking about people my age in Silicon Valley, this might not be surprising. But until this day, I’m still thankful to be able to do this.

Regarding me posting East Ventures related articles. What different does it make if I’m the one writing it then it got posted with other accounts/authors? There will still be skepticism regarding the EV-PO connection, another note, all of my posts get through 3 editors and Willis himself, so there is no room for error and bias. And in the past couple of months, probably from November, I have been the sole contributor for Penn Olson covering the whole nation of Indonesia. I am trying to find more writers to accompany me, but it is hard, ask DailySocial. Blogging in English isn’t easy, tech blogging? :-)

I guess I can call it a day and sleep now. The fight and the debate won’t be over, but I’m done talking about it over and over again. Thank you for your attention and time reading this. And yeah:

Full Disclosure : Joshua Kevin is an Associate at East Ventures and Contributor for Penn Olson covering Indonesia

2011, My Best Year Yet!

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2011 is really the best year ever in my life, yet. A lot of things, I mean great things, have happened. Met a lot of inspiring people, make a lot of new friends, all because of the Internet and social network specifically. I love my job and I’m passionate about what I do. So here’s the breakdown of things that happened to me in 2012 2011(thank you Ivana for correcting me!) (well, at least of what I remembered, will try to add more if I suddenly remembered something important. And yeah, thank you Facebook Timeline!)

January – March 2011:

  •  I’m finally done with the Forum Member Event 2011 for HIMSISFO which took a toll on me and made me take a rash decision to cut my hair into a bob style! Yeah, i’m doing the impossible and brave things!
  • Celebrated the New Year over at my cousin’s place in Ancol, which is a great thing because his rooftop is the highest among all the houses, saw a lot of fireworks!
  • Starting to come to #StartupLokal meetup after failed to do so in November and December. Attended the iMULAI workshop by Microsoft Indonesia too.
  • Chosen as #StartupLokal 1st Birthday Project Manager (which is the turning point of my career & year)
  • Got into Applied ERP (in Bina Nusantara University, you have to choose a specialization if you’re majoring in Information System. Applied ERP(SAP) and Applied Database(Oracle) is both the ones that has limited class(90 people each out of 1k students)
  • Got the 4.0 GPA for the first time (WOOHOO!)
  • All of the hollywood movies are banned from showing in the movie theatre (OMG right? There goes our weekend)
  • Started writing for Penn Olson at the end of March.
  • Met Valentcia Trifonia for the first time! Whom will be one of my bestest friend over the year.
  • Watched 2PM for the first time in Blackberry Live n’ Rockin (with Lius Steven, Fredy Jingga, Valentcia Trifonia and Amelia)

April – June 2011:

July – September 2011:

  • AKSI 2011 (Acara Kebersamaan Sistem Informasi) – basically an event where we welcome new Information System students, attended by more than 500 people.
  • East Ventures finally has an office in Jakarta and it’s renovated! Ready to move in!
  • IDBYTE held with Bubu Awards inside of it. Penn Olson writers in Jakarta finally had a dinner together with Willis Wee and Minghao!
  • East Ventures Alpha launched! and incubated 6 companies for its first batch.
  • Summer holiday fulfilled with tech events and meetups (Investor IdolRamadhanFemale Founders)
  • Blackberry 9900 and Torch 9810 launched (I have the 9900 as my second Blackberry now, yeaaaa!)
  • Starting my ‘adventure’ with Minor Project (Minor Project is sort of a preparation for the final project but has quite similar characteristics, you have to analyze a business’ workflow, provide analysis report in Microsoft Visio, and code an App to help the business at the very end you will be ‘judged’ by a lecturer)
  • Had a first date with JOSENT! (Joshua – SevianValentcia)

October – December 2011:

  • LDKK – Leadership, Togetherness and Competence training for the newly accepted HIMSISFO members (freshmens!) – for days I yelled quite a lot, burnt my skin and at the very end had a lot of laughter!
  • Second date with my JOSENT (polaroids ftw! and say no to Han Gang!)
  • Watched 2PM’s full concert on 11.11.11 – totally worth the wait(4 hours!) and they performed even better live! Accompanying Monica Corina and Diana Citra (Thank you for Diana’s sister we’re able to stroll around for hours before queue-ing)
  • Bought So Nyuh Shi Dae – Girls Generation Asia Tour Concert tickets (Thank you Kevin Kho!)
  • Travelled to Singapore on 8th December 2011, Joash (Community Manager for e27) kindly provided me a place to crash for a few days. Had a great time flying with Jetstar, on the 9th came to Singapore Indoor Stadium queued from 11AM to get the tag, ended up queing all the way until the concert started(9 hours!) – but it was totally worth it! Seeing the 9 girls live and upclose(second man from the stage) and getting HD fancams :-)
  • On the 10th, I spent it visiting my uncle(in Busan) who’s working there so his family is all there. Quite surprised of their eating habit(they eat quite a lot!) and at the end of the visit got a pocket money for the Chinese New Year(thanks uncle!) – and then spent the entire day left shopping around 313 Somerset and ION Orchard(UNIQLO and Topman being the top contributor of emptying my wallet) and in the night meeting up Sabrina after 6 months(been missing you, party girl!)
  • 11th December 2011 – doing nothing except lying back at Starbucks chair reading Artemis Fowl – The Opal Deception and at the afternoon Joash introduced me to his girlfriend Dung Nguyen – talked a lot about kpop and k-drama and to sum it up I had a plane to catch at 6AM in the morning so I woke up on 4 and then grab a taxi :|
  • RIM launched Bold 9790 and Curve 9380 (and everyone attended the launch got the Bold for free, thanks RIM!)
  • An all-time busy month because of the Minor Project, visited Starbucks even more regularly to meet up with the team and pulling a couple all-nighter, barely finished all of it (more than 800+ pages) and we will have our judgement day on 7th January 2012!
  • Telkomsel through its program Telkomsel School Community Smart Camp invited #StartupLokal to speak in 10 cities, this month I got Manado as a destination. It was quite good in terms of how enthusiastic the students are, how they adopted the technology already and overall it was a fun trip! (too bad I didn’t get to go to Bunaken)

So there goes 1,000 words to sum up what a humbling, fantastic and simply mind-blowing year. I really hope for more of the same, getting to meet more inspiring entrepreneurs, travel more, and learn more. And of course, to finally start-up my own company. Thank you 2011, Thank You God for Your blessing all year. 2012 is gonna be even better!

Inspiration. Inspiring. Inspire.

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Everyone can be an inspiration, well why don’t we inspire people? With inspiring one,two,seven,one-hundred, to thousands of people – we can actually make a change to people’s lives. How?

Imagine your idols, the person you look up to, or the person you want to be. What they are like? They are enjoying what they do. They are doing their passion every single second of their life. They are smiling, maybe you thing it’s because they got paid a lot, but no, money doesn’t actually give you much satisfaction once you get to the top.

So, how can we do it you say? Start from small steps, start by finding things you love to do, what you are passionate at. For me, I love being an entrepreneur, I love the startups scene, I love reading & writing hence the reason I joined the local startups community #StartupLokal (an Apprentice now) and East Ventures(as an Associate) also a contributor for Penn Olson(one of EV’s portfolio)

I believe when you’re doing what you do, even if people are dissing you or you kept finding dead-ends, in the end you will get out of it and fulfill your dream. Money will and are going to follow great works. Believe it.

April, April, APRIL!

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It has been three months since I updated my blog. Yes, I know I have promised to update this blog regularly, hey, I even promised myself I would update it at least three times a week. Well, life caught up with me and so am I, but now I’m back and this time hopefully will be different. Once a week, at least.

So, what has been going on with my life?

  • I’m 19! I’m getting older, and hopefully more mature. A little bit different this year though, I didn’t blew my candle with my own family but my second family. Which is my friends! Here’s one of the picture(thank you Jeanette Jusuf, Fenny Natalia and Valentcia Trifonia !) :

Me and My beloved ‘sisters’

  • Academically, last semester which is the third semester i got the 4.0 GPA which is quite a surprise to me as I felt like it was going to be my worst semester to date. Yet, life surprises you! This semester, I’m in the Applied ERP class which is full of people that are far more dilligent than me, and now I’m having such a difficulty to catch up!
  • Profesionally, it is super great! Ever since I said yes to be the Project Manager of the #StartupLokal birthday, I get to meet the initiators quite regularly more than the others, which is a privilege to learn more from the four inspiring people. Then, i get to the point where Sanny Gaddafi, one of the initiators asked me to manage startuplokal.org because of my work at Inageek, and so I did, and people are quite satisfied with it. Time goes by and Willis Wee from Penn Olson approached me to write for them, and again so I did. Recently, Penn Olson got an investment from East Ventures and so I get to meet Willson Cuaca of EV a couple of  time and we got something in the motion!

So, these are what i can compile in the last 3 months. It supposed to be a lot more than this but hey, I probably can make a book out of it! Talking about a book, I do co-curated a book with Rhein Mahatma#StartupLokal Kita. Do visit the site and buy it! See you all on the next update! :)