NEM Foundation Update – July 6, 2018

Kristoff Van de Reck NEM Update

TLDR; Cryptodus joins the NEMsp Network, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Blockchain Center officially opens, Tapscott Institute signs MOU, Geens will be developing their global ID on NEM, Russia adds VK social media, XEM gets added to KUNA exchange and soon will be added to the Denarii Cash Wallet, JIT Group in talks with NEM and NEM Middle East is finalizing a partnership with Dubai Blockchain Center.

“This week we announced two major milestones for accelerating the adoption of NEM. The first being that the Kuala Lumpur Blockchain Center is officially open and now provides incubating and accelerating startups and companies who need information and expertise on blockchain technology and NEM integration. The second milestone is that we unveiled that Cryptodus joined the NEMsp Network as the first official NEMsp Network partner. This pilot program marks the first of many companies that are leveraging the NEMsp Network as a way to get trained, tested and certified by NEM.” – Kristof Van de Reck, Interim President

Ongoing Planning Efforts:

• No updates to last week’s blog post on Tech/Marketing/BD documentation. Strategy plans are still being reviewed and approved by the Council.
• New partnership proposals were voted on this week by the Council. Outcomes/announcements from this meeting will be shared in the coming weeks.

Partnerships

• NEM signed on Cryptodus to the NEMsp Network program. The NEMsp (NEM Service Partner) Network provides qualified partners like Cryptodus with the technical skills and business benefits to integrate clients on the NEM Blockchain and scale regardless of industry, specialization or experience. More NEmsp partners will be announced in the coming week.
• NEM EU is finalizing a collaborative initiative with Geens, who will be developing their global ID on the NEM blockchain. The goal is to open source the tools to create W3C Verifiable Claims and provide an API with the Geens application for the benefit of the NEM ecosystem. More info will follow in the coming weeks. Geens – operating from Belgium – is a nonprofit membership organization that provides information technology services to individuals, governments, and businesses, governed by a legal and ethical data protection control. The platform lets the users save their private digital information securely and share the information with anybody else only on their own will and benefit.
• Stephen Chia, Regional Head of NEM SEAsia, presented to one of the largest ICT solutions companies, Just in Time (JIT Group), at the JIT Solutions Day held in Sri Lanka on July 4th. His focus was on how blockchain technology can change the way Sri Lankan businesses and government may evolve.
• The NEM EU team heads to Vilnius, Lithuania for the Pillar Project’s “Unconference” to collaborate on next steps for the Pillar/NEM partnership 1.
• NEM has signed an MOU with the Tapscott Institute in Toronto Canada for research.
• Klim Geran, Head of NEM Russia, met with representatives of the RA Ministry of Economy and Russia State Investment Agency regarding prospects of cooperation with NEM.
• XEM has recently been listed on the biggest Ukrainian exchange, Kuna.
• Shin Tatt Wong, NEM Architect and Lead Trainer, is currently in Dubai to do on-site assistance to the Bistox Exchange and a Dubai Government Office. Bistox is a crypto exchange being built on the NEM Blockchain official partnership is yet to be signed between Bistox and NEM. The Dubai Government office is yet to be named until the MoU is signed. The MoU is currently being drafted by the ministry.
• Pedro Guiterrez, Head of NEM LATAM, met with a top Colombian franchise consultancy regarding future projects with NEM.
• NEM Middle East team is in partnership with Heriot Watt University in Dubai to launch the first university-level blockchain challenge in UAE. The challenge aims to bring around 12-14 universities to participate in the event. MoU is under review by Heriot Watt and to be signed by two parties upon finalizing the details.
• NEM Middle East is finalizing a partnership with Dubai Blockchain Center. Details of partnership to follow. The second NEM Technical training in UAE was held in the Dubai Futures Accelerator and was a collaborative effort between NEM Middle East and Dubai Blockchain Center.
• Denarii Cash Wallet, a mid-east based multi-currency wallet, added XEM to the currencies they support. It will be available on the next version of Denarii Cash Wallet. The wallet gives way to users the ability to purchase XEMs using fiat.
• NEM Middle East is in discussions with Bahrain FinTech Bay to finalize a partnership agreement.

Product Updates

• The iOS wallet is testing a release on the testnet that will allow iPhone users to automate Supernodes to delegate harvest. This will simplify the process of harvesting for mobile users.

Global Expansion, New Hires, Notable Events

• Australia & New Zealand – Amanda Au has recently joined the NEM team in Melbourne as Admin & Content Co-ordinator. She will also be looking after the ANZ Medium Publication. Gordon Christian has also come aboard to help educate and promote NEM in Regional Queensland.
• Europe – The EU team is exploring cooperations with 4 universities. They also just signed a MoU with Blockchain Research Accelerators which taps into the talent pool of multiple top universities in Europe.
• Japan – Hiroki Koga, Japan Lead, continues education, outreach and event planning.
• LATAM – Pedro Gutierrez, Head of Nem LATAM, culminated an agreement to hold an event called BootCamp Medellin in August in Colombia. Pedro also recently ran the first meetup in Cancun Mexico. He formed an alliance with Blockchain Summit Bogotá that will be held in October in Colombia and NEM is a Platinum Sponsor.
• Malaysia – The Kuala Lumpur Blockchain Center is officially open! The 11,000 square foot (1022 sqm) Blockchain Center houses the NEM Blockchain Innovation Lab, a headquarters for research and development as well as regional support for organizations interested in using the NEM platform within their IT infrastructures.
• Middle East – The NEM team is currently in talks with community representatives from Turkey and India to expand and establish NEM in those two countries.
• Nigeria – Austin Martins is leading NEM awareness and education by running seven meetups and 101s in Nigeria.
• North America – Alex Tinsman, Regional Head for North America, is in discussions with a potential blockchain center for a year-long pilot in the USA. More details forthcoming.
• Russia – Klim Geran, Head of NEM Russia, has brought on a new team member, Alina, to support the NEM Russia team. Alina manages Russia social networks for NEM including the newly added VK.com 5, an online social media network that is ranked as one of the most popular social networking websites in Belarus and Kazakhstan in addition to Russia.
• Taiwan – NEM China sponsored the Asia Blockchain Summit, one of the most iconic blockchain summits in Asia, with over 100+ top-notch speakers in the world and regulators from 7 Asian countries. The event focused on the implementation of blockchain technology and problem-solving in the cryptocurrency space.
• Thailand – The Thailand Rep Office (a subsidiary of Malaysia) is up and running! The plan is to expand shortly with more staff to support the growing Thailand Blockchain community. Recently, Laura Takenaka, the NEM Country Lead in Thailand sat down for an interview with MissBlockchain.Tech. The video can be viewed HERE.
• Ukraine – Anton Bsnko, Head of NEM Ukraine, worked with 482 Technologies on a prototype that shows how IoT and blockchain can work seamlessly together. The project is based on three parts: Using the private blockchain Mijin, an Arduino controller, and sensors and Web Interface. Watch the video HERE.