# Ridzuan Ashim
Ridzuan is a Technologist who has spent a good part of the past **20 years in various engineering-related roles** in the startup scene across multiple industries - *communications*, *marketing & advertising*, *digital currencies*, *security(OSINT surveillance and counter surveillance)* and *sports*. He is especially adept in helping young startups and SMEs **set up their initial engineering teams**, **cross-divisional processes** and **engineering culture**. At present, he spends his time advising companies on both software engineering, technical architecture related subjects and how to build effective teams.
## Past
### Fields of Work
- **Digital solutions development**
- (Marketing+others) Lead Developer @ Splazz Solutions
- A development consulting company that helped companies and individuals build various web solutions - CRM, company website, EDMs
- Also had expertise in building BlackBerry applications
- (Marketing) Head of Development @ INEO Solutions
- Digital Marketing agency working with various local and regiona
- (Generic) Business Development and Project Management @ Octasia Labs
- Octasia Labs focused on the production of marketing related digital assets - EDMs, campaign microsites for social media campaigns, CRMs, mobile apps. Worked with marketing/pr agencies with regional brands and local ministries
- **Offensive/Defensive Security**
- (Surveillance / Countersurveillance) Solutions consultant for Hire
- (Field Work + OSINT Ingestion) Independent contributor to online criminal community infiltration and surveillance efforts
- **Unified Communications**
- Startup CEO @ Widgeous
- Widgeous was a unified communication startup solving the problem of an abundance of communication platforms by allowing users and platform developers to determine how message routing will take place across platforms
- **Blockchain/Cryptocurrencies/Web3**
- CTO @ XSQ
- Set up the cryptocurrency mining farm and built the operations team to support the running of it
- Advised the investments team on the technical feasibility of projects under evaluation
- Advised companies in the company portfolio
- Independent advisor to blockchain startups
- **Health & Fitness**
- CTO / CPO @ LIV3LY
- LIV3LY was a health and fitness mobile app that tracked a person's workouts and plugged them into a community of other like-minded health conscious individuals
- Was responsible for building up an engineering team, technical architecture the product and managing offshore human assets
- Simultaneously played an interim role to manage the product roadmap, feature planning/design and roll-out strategies.
- Major highlights include rolling out the Star Wars(Disney) Virtual Run and overseeing the development of the Jurassic World run which incorporated the use of AR tech in mobile.
### Formal Education
- Anderson Secondary School
- Anderson JC
- Computer Engineering, NTU
## Present
### Work
**Technology & Innovation Lead @ The MINISTRY Agency**
MINISTRY is a multi-faceted digital agency that is able to work with clients end-to-end - from tightening strategy all the way to the day to day execution of initiatives.
**Lead Architect @ Start Line Initiative / Last Line Initiative**
Word of mouth based general consultancy where we help solve a broad range of problems and challenges. While SLI is typically engaged to help build up/re-organise software engineering teams and processes, LLI is often engaged for 'emergency' situations requiring dynamic coordination across multiple jurisdictions at short notice.
**Lead Architect @ JERVIS Network**
A private infrastructure for my close friends and family. The private network is aimed at being an independent system to manage individual and group information, joint-security, joint-finances. It has a footprint across multiple countries, has high redundancy and is almost entirely privately owned and minimises reliance on external party dependencies
**Co-Founder, Vanguard @ Excalibur Circle**
Excalibur Circle is a private but more open group that aims to be a self-sufficient community that takes inspiration from the concept of Network States.
**Lead Architect/Developer @ Project Trinity Worlds**
An experimental multi-dimensional text-based game where users determine the growth and evolution of the game world. Functions across 3 layers - web domains, an in-game world space and the real world.
### Interests
- Gaming
- Reading / Learning
- Autonomous Networks
- Technology
- Stoicism & Leadership
## Future
### Broad View
For a long time to come, I intend:
- to continue keeping on top of applied technology trends
- to keep working with others to help actively build the future with the goal of pushing the human condition forward. We are all custodians of the future making impact through others.
### Personal View
In the more immediate term, I am looking:
- For opportunities to keep on top of technology advancement and adoption
- To continue helping people build teams, processes and products
- to work with highly motivated teams looking to make a meaningful dent in an industry/space.
- to figure out how to incorporate gaming as a productive way for resource and people management skills training
## Contact Information
Email:
[email protected]