Malaysia is not renown for its technology entrepreneurs, but we are certainly creative in coining the term "technopreneur". If you don't already know, technopreneur is only widely used and recognized in Malaysia, even Google can prove this.



Go For Broke: Tales of Technopreneurship is an initiative by TeAM in partnership with MDEC and edited by Onn Yeoh. This book aims to share the success stories of 21 Malaysian technopreneurs and hopefully serves as an inspiration to encourage local technopreneurship.

I have to admit this is one of the better locally-published books I have read in a while, perhaps due to my personal interest in this area. However, let's be honest that not all stories are that impressive, and I am not benchmarking against those in Silicon Valley, or even Japan, Korea and China. Hey, not one of the 21 technopreneurs having an entry in Wikipedia, even Paul Tan has one! Still, hats off to all of them for their accomplishments, big or small.

Following is the list of all 21 technopreneurs (with their company and core business). If you are interested, grab the book to find out more about them. You can also read my own shortlist of Malaysia's internet entreprenuers.

Ashran Ghazi
Asia Stream Digital TV - video streaming

Chris Chan
TMS Asia - knowledge management etc.

Mathavan Chandran
InfoValley - bioinformatics, biotech and medical informatics

Stephen Chia
BizSurf MSC - internet service provider *

Wei Chuan Beng
REDtone - IPTV, mobile and internet service provider *

William Du
Ingenious Haus - advisory, private equity and venture capital

Datuk Wan Mohamed Fasil Wan Mahmood
Mesiniaga - ICT solution and service provider

Ganesh Kumar Bangah
MOL AccessPortal - online payment service provider

Irman Nawawi
MYGO Solutions - online game developer and service provider

Leo Ariyanayakam
Scicom - offshore business process outsourcing

Norbik Bashah Idris
Scan Associates - ICT security solution provider

David Oh
Mindvault - IAM and IP consulting

Rais Hussin
The Red Snapper - wide area wireless broadband solution provider

Rajen. M
Holista Biotech - natural supplement R&D and distribution

Ritakamal Sadiman
Technology Innovation Resources - ICT solution and service provider

HY Sia
Ionnex - mobile transaction and content delivery platform provider

Harres Tan
HT Consulting - ICT consulting and outsourcing service provider

Edwin Tay
Netinfinium - IT marketing solution and service provider

Teoh Eng Kee
EKTECH Consulting - advanced CCTV product and solution provider

Harald Weinbrecht
ISS Consulting - SAP consulting

David Wong
Ship'n Track - e-fulfillment business process outsourcing

* awarded WIMAX spectrum by MCMC.

I rate this book at 3/5.

If you are interested in IT-related books, do visit my Amazon aStore to check out my favourite books. You too can share and recommend your interesting readings in the comments.