Back in 2008, I was a Malaysian designer working across cultures and continents, riding the Web 2.0 wave, trying to figure out technology and nurture this seed of a studio called Stampede.

Discovering Naz, a fellow Malaysian designer navigating Silicon Valley, made me feel seen. Someone who understood that craft is its own reward. That seeking meaning in our work isn’t unusual.

Someone from here, who looked like me and was obsessed over things that seemed small to others but mattered deeply to us.

I later learned this was the power of representation. Being in similar places now, it’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly.

What started as dinner…

Like the best of things, none of this was planned. Two weeks before his visit, Naz got in touch so we could meet in KL. What started as dinner plans turned into a homecoming, a return to Malaysia and also to a community of practitioners who share his curiosity about craft and meaning.

“Back in 2000, there were maybe a handful of web designers in the world,” Naz reflected, talking about the early days when people built the internet because they were curious, not because there was money in it. “And then more recently, at Config, I saw thousands of designers at Moscone Centre and thought, wow, look how far our profession has come.”

Our Makers Circle format is borrowed from those old Parisian salons where intellectuals gathered and talked to each other late into the evening. There, there was intentionality, a choice for quiet conversation and a space created for thinking together.

UOB’s beautiful hall was perfect for this kind of discourse. It was spacious for deep conversations and elegant to honour the discourse. Our thanks to them for hosting us again.

Starting with intention

But the evening started with something you’d never see at a tech conference: silence.

Naz guided seventy practitioners through a brief meditation, asking us to let go of whatever had been eating at us all day. The whole hall was quiet, lights dimmed, eyes closed. We let go of the day’s scattered energy and entered the Circle with open hearts and minds.

I loved the renewed evening energy.

Naz’s Perspectives: philosophy, meets practice

Now whenever Naz and I talk, it somehow always comes back to craft. He’s the kind of friend you can pick up conversations with months later, exactly where you left off.

In fact, I learned the word “shokunin” from Naz. It’s this Japanese idea of master craftspeople who spend their entire lives perfecting one thing. Not just skill, but people who dedicate themselves completely to their craft, finding deep purpose in perfecting the smallest details.

Watching Naz share his Silicon Valley experience made it feel like thoughts and ideas were clicking into place. He talked about experiencing multiple booms and busts, his work at True Ventures and designing for inclusion. He shared how his team’s redesign of Adobe.com failed with Japanese audiences because it lacked that consideration for cultural diversity and understanding the culture and environment in which the design lives and breathes.

In the midst of figuring out what it actually means to make things when machines are getting better at making them too, these are the stories that stick with you. There’s tendency to gravitate towards success stories but mind the survivorship bias. Most times, it’s real failures that teach you something.

AI and the future of craft

We also touched on AI replacing designers. Naz shared a beautiful story about Bruce Swedien, the legendary sound engineer who worked with Michael Jackson.

Bruce was never afraid to share his knowledge. He taught workshops, wrote books and discussed his experiences openly. He’d share how he and MJ would tinker with mixes for hours, making over 90 different versions of “Billie Jean” alone.

When people asked if he was concerned others would copy the techniques he so generously shared, Bruce’s response was profound: nobody could replicate his creative future, just his past techniques.

Post-Circle, that was the bit that got me thinking. I was curious, so I Googled bruce up. Which led me to something he said that really resonates with designers navigating automation today.

Back in 2006, when digital sales were overtaking CDs, inexpensive hardware and software meant musicians could craft professional-level recordings from their bedrooms. Bruce saw this shift but far from being defensive, he was jubilant.

“What I find most promising now is that musicians have easy access to recording technology that is far better than at any time in the past. The music recording is going to be put back in the hands of people who truly love music for music’s sake.”

Replace “recording technology” with “AI tools” and his vision becomes rather prescient.

The shift to meaning

“There’s this rejection happening,” Naz said of senior designers globally who are walking away from big corporate jobs to do work that actually matters. “After Jason Santa Maria left Shopify and Ethan Marcotte left 18F, everyone’s doing their own thing again. We all want to do things that matter and practice our craft.”

The value hierarchy is shifting.

These are experienced practitioners who’ve seen how corporate pressures can dilute good work. They’re not rejecting profit. They’re rejecting the specific trade-offs that come with a scale-at-all-costs culture.

It reminds me of how my friend Ben Bowes at GovTech Singapore puts it perfectly: “Earlier in my career, I spent a lot of time in what I call the ‘more industry.’ Helping companies get people to buy more, watch more, consume more. After a while, it wore me down. I wanted my work to mean more than an uptick in shareholder value.”

This wasn’t some abstract philosophy. It lives in the choices we make.

The Salon Experiment: flipping the script

Naz and I then experimented with something we don’t often see at a tech event: a proper salon. Borrowing from those 18th-century Parisian gatherings where intellectuals debated ideas long into the evening, we turned the audience from passive listeners into the real stars of the show.

Naz moved around the audience, no longer the visiting expert but genuinely curious about what we’re building here. The role reversal was beautiful. He asked the questions and people responded with shared insights about Malaysian design that Silicon Valley rarely gets to hear.

“How many of you know each other here?” Quite a few hands went up—many had attended our larger Makers gatherings. But among them I spotted a good few newcomers too, joining our tight-knit community for the first time.

“What’s the actual state of things here? The real practitioner version?”

What happened next felt like watching trust build in real time. People opened up.

They shared design journeys, accomplishments, frustrations and the emergence of distinctly Malaysian design language thanks to #sapotlokal campaigns post-COVID.

We talked about layoffs and uncertainty, navigating pivots to entrepreneurship, ideas worth building and who to build them with.

So what did we figure out about being Malaysian

One trait many Malaysians share is humble underdoggedness. Humility is a virtue here, but it also creates a massive blind spot. We couldn’t see far into what makes us great and so it was doubly beautiful watching the non-Malaysians in the room remind us of our strengths.

“As an outsider working with Malaysians, I value your cultural insight,” someone said. “Malaysians are fantastic multicultural bridges. What you do so naturally—navigating between cultures with fluency and warmth—is truly a superpower.”

“Malaysians can code-switch effortlessly,” someone else said. “Put us anywhere, and we figure our way out.”

Naz, coming from his Silicon Valley perspective, backed this up: “Living between worlds develops empathy across cultures. That naturally leads to more inclusive design.”

The consensus is we’re not trying to be Western designers who happen to be Malaysian. We’re Malaysian designers whose cultural fluency creates value that others can’t replicate. We don’t have to choose between local and global. Our between-worlds position makes us perfect for this role.

Vulnerability and courage

Did our experiment work? Many times over. The salon format gave people permission to be vulnerable alongside being knowledgeable. Senior practitioners admitted knowledge gaps. Founders talked about fear. Designers share the dilemma of using AI to deepen their craft while risking being made obsolete by it.

“I think I’m missing foundational design knowledge and I want to do something about it,” one designer admitted, with the rest of the room nodding along.

I found this moment particularly moving because it takes courage to admit gaps when everyone expects you to have it all figured out. This was the great collective figuring-out. I enjoyed every bit of it.

How we think about technology and taste

One exchange that stays with me is how we talked about technology and taste. It felt refreshingly grounded instead of panicked or blindly optimistic. There’s a real desire for thoughtful integration here.

The unfortunate reality is that commercialism rewards speed above all else. Designers get praised for assembling interfaces quickly, for churning out converting designs fast. But this creates a trap. When automation arrives, the assemblers are the first to go. Along the way, taste gets lost.

If we look around us, the pattern is glaringly obvious. Websites look the same. Platforms sound the same. Design has become homogenous. Faster, yes. Better? Not always.

We’ve become dependent on pre-built components, reinforcing our role as assemblers rather than creators. We’ve optimised for efficiency at the cost of the very thing that makes our work human—distinctiveness and meaning.

Backstage, Naz talked about inspiration. Not those from Dribbble or Mobbin, where we recycle the same patterns endlessly. But from architecture, from nature, from other mediums and cultural traditions. Originality lives in the spaces between disciplines, where we still get to lean on our curiosity and algorithms haven’t yet flattened everything into sameness.

The irony is that designers who create from first principles often deliver better results faster. Not because they work slowly but because they tap into what makes people feel cared for. When something resonates deeply with users, it succeeds more quickly in the market.

This reminds me of how Sir Jony Ive put it beautifully in his Stripe talk:

“I really do believe that we have this ability to sense care. It’s easy in a service because you confront care, because you confront the person. When it’s vicarious, when it’s via an object, when it’s via a piece of software, it’s more complex. But I think you can sense carelessness. You know carelessness. And so, I think it’s reasonable to believe that you also know care, and you sense care.”

This explains why homogenous design feels hollow. It lacks human intention. When everything looks the same, it’s often because it was optimised for production speed rather than crafted with the person in mind. The result is faster assembly but lower differentiation and substance.

Speed of assembly isn’t the same as speed of success.

The family dimension

Perhaps the most moving moment came when Naz’s 75-year-old mother joined us. Like many Asian parents, she’s never quite understood what her son does with “these Internet things.” Neither does mine!

In Asian families, elders are woven into the fabric of our achievements. But in technology, our accomplishments often exist in languages our elders don’t speak. Watching Naz’s mother see her son command respectful attention from a room full of professionals transformed the evening from a professional gathering into a cultural homecoming.

Between Worlds: where we go from here

Like those early web designers Naz remembers, we’re approaching technology with curiosity rather than fear. We’re building for global markets but celebrating local culture.

Innovation’s future won’t be determined solely in Silicon Valley. It’s being shaped by practitioners who understand that meaningful progress happens between worlds—where Eastern wisdom guides Western technology, where community discourse creates competitive advantage.

This is our distinctive contribution: not choosing between tradition and innovation, but finding harmony between both.

For me, hosting is always a treat in itself. You plan the structure and then let the gathering take its own flow.

By evening’s end, something had shifted. We ran over by 30 minutes, yet nobody looked at their phone except for photos. This felt different.

As I watched Naz’s mother beam with pride, I dare say we’d created something unprecedented: a gathering that honours both individual craft excellence and collective cultural wisdom.

My team and I at Stampede feel deeply grateful we get to create this space for discourse. One Makers at a time, we’re building community that chooses craft over convenience, meaning over metrics, depth over noise.

The future belongs to those who remember that design is both craft and responsibility. We’re just getting started.

—

Next up: The conversation about craft and taste in the age of AI continues at Makers 12 on 27th September. Registration opens soon.

Special thanks to Naz Hamid, UOB Malaysia, my wonderful team at Stampede and every practitioner who made this gathering possible. – Shaza

The post Design, identity and the Malaysian way of seeing with Naz Hamid at Makers Circle appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

The handoff paradigm is failing us

At Stampede Makers X last month, we discovered something unsurprising yet just as disheartening: 51% of teams still operate in what we call the “Handoff stage”—where design creates specifications, transfers them to development and hopes (mostly prays) what emerges weeks or months later, still resembles their vision.

Stampede Makers isn’t your typical event. We created it to address the industry’s elephants in the room—persistent problems everyone experiences but few discuss openly.

For our tenth edition (the “X”), we tackled the design-development divide. Like past Makers events, we put a challenging question out into the world to see if others were just as bothered by it. They were—and they came in droves.

For the first time, we brought together equal numbers of designers and developers, all searching for better collaborative approaches. What emerged was a genuine conversation about breaking down the handoff model that has kept these disciplines working apart while supposedly working together.

The handoff model persists not because it works well, but because it’s the path of least resistance. When we observe teams operating this way, three patterns consistently emerge:

• Products require extensive rework when technical constraints surface too late
• Market opportunities slip away as competitors with more integrated teams move faster
• Users receive experiences that feel “almost right” – visually polished interfaces that don’t quite work or functional systems wrapped in confusing interactions

There is clearly inefficiency, and we’ve become good at normalising it.

But what if the handoff model is not only poorly practised? What if it’s fundamentally misaligned with how digital products should be created?

Why do we keep running this ineffective relay?

Now, if the handoff model creates so many problems, why does it persist?

The easy answer is inertia. We continue using it because we always have. Looking deeper, I realised something more interesting could be at the centre of this: the handoff model aligns with how specialists prefer to work and how organisations prefer to structure themselves.

This made sense in an earlier era. When digital experiences were simpler and user expectations lower, the gap between design intent and technical implementation didn’t matter as much.

That world no longer exists. Users now expect seamless experiences across multiple touchpoints. Technology has grown exponentially more complex. Speed to market increasingly determines winners.

We’re using a 2005 workflow model in 2025. This misalignment becomes more costly every year.

A developer’s perspective shift that changes everything

During Makers X, Stampede’s full-stack developer Syazwan Zubir described his first usability testing experience. He watched real users struggle with a government website that, from his developer’s perspective, was logically structured. Some users simply gave up in frustration.

“It was a wake-up call,” he admitted.

This observation reveals something profound. When developers directly witness users struggling with their creation, something fundamental shifts. The gap between building and using becomes visceral. The handoff model suddenly feels not just inefficient but absurd.

What’s fascinating is this shift doesn’t require developers to become designers. It simply requires them to expand their perspective to include the people using what they build.

Far from diluting technical excellence, we’re contextualising our solutions within human needs. Syazwan calls this “user-centred engineering“, a concept put forth by Addy Osmani, Google Chrome’s senior engineer.

Addy said, “A user’s experience is the ultimate measure of engineering success. Great engineers care deeply about the user and their needs – this includes sweating the details and making sure their experience is a valuable one.“

It does not mean abdicating your development responsibilities. It means maintaining your technical rigour while embracing empathy for the users.

Moving beyond the relay race

Our panel of cross-disciplinary experts revealed several patterns that transform the traditional handoff model:

Embrace your productive friction

Rather than avoiding tension between disciplines, Ikhwan reframed friction as creative energy – like hands creating warmth through friction. “Every meaningful problem needs this kind of productive tension,” he explained. “It’s where innovation happens.”

This perspective shift changes everything. What if friction between design and development isn’t something to eliminate but to harness? Alexis shared how her team’s most innovative solutions emerged precisely from challenging cross-team discussions that initially felt uncomfortable.

The practical application is surprisingly counterintuitive. Instead of smoothing over differences, successful teams create structured spaces for productive disagreement. Ikhwan’s Tower Defense Retrospectives from Tasty Cupcakes does exactly this—it gives teams a framework to visualise both their strengths and challenges without the conversation becoming personal.

Atif added that when development teams are confident enough to push back on design decisions with technical context and design teams are open enough to explain the reasoning behind their choices, the result is almost always a better solution than either discipline would have created alone.

Learning is best done through direct experience

The most powerful catalyst for change wasn’t process frameworks or tools but direct exposure to each other’s worlds. Designers who understand technical constraints create more implementable solutions. Developers who understand the “why” behind design decisions implement them more thoughtfully.

Syazwan’s journey exemplified this perfectly. His approach to building applications changed after watching real users struggle with an interface. In his own words, “I realised that logical code doesn’t matter if users can’t figure out how to use it.”

What’s striking is how this cross-disciplinary understanding develops. It doesn’t come from documentation or presentations. It emerges from shared experiences and direct observation. Alexis described how IKEA’s most effective teams regularly include developers in user research sessions and designers in technical architecture discussions – not to turn everyone into generalists but to build shared context.

Create artefacts that serve both worlds

All panellists emphasised the importance of shared artefacts that bridge disciplines. These aren’t just deliverables to be handed off but tools for ongoing collaboration.

Alexis shared how her team tackled this at an enterprise scale. When designers would look at implementation and say, “This isn’t what I designed,” the root cause wasn’t usually developer indifference. It was that collaboration had started too late. Her solution was a shared artefact—dependency maps between backend and frontend teams—that made complex systems visible to everyone, regardless of their technical background.

What makes these artefacts effective? They’re co-created rather than handed off. They make complex systems visible to everyone. And they focus on neutral territory rather than individual ownership.

Ikhwan expanded on this last point, recommending moving critique sessions away from individuals to the artefacts themselves – discussing “this user flow has friction points” instead of “your design doesn’t work.”

Several artefacts you could consider that worked particularly well as bridges:

• Component libraries with both design tokens and code implementation
• Journey maps annotated with both user needs and technical constraints
• Service blueprints that visualize both frontend and backend interactions
• Design systems built collaboratively by both disciplines

Communicate across boundaries

The classic question—”But I already told them that!”—resonated across all panelists’ experiences. Ikhwan’s practical “five channels five times” method addresses this reality. Important messages need to be communicated multiple times through different channels to penetrate domain boundaries.

Alexis noted that at IKEA’s scale, they discovered that documentation works best when it’s co-created, not handed off. “The process of creating it together is often more valuable than the document itself,” she explained. The document becomes a record of shared understanding rather than instructions from one team to another.

Atif also shared a simple but effective practice from his experience: regular “design+dev pairing” sessions where designers and developers sit together to work through implementation challenges in real time. These sessions build communication muscles and shared vocabulary that makes all other interactions more effective.

The Partnership Evolution

These insights helped us map a progression that teams typically follow:

Handoff: Sequential work with periodic transfers of ownership. This is where most teams begin and many remain.

Coordination: Working side-by-side with regular check-ins. Issues surface earlier, but disciplines maintain separate processes.

Integration: Shared ownership and combined practices. Team members develop cross-functional literacy and focus on collective impact.

Partnership: A unified culture with resilient practices that scale. Design and development flow together toward shared objectives.

What’s fascinating is how each stage delivers tangible improvements – faster delivery, better quality, less rework. But the most significant gains emerge at the partnership stage, where teams operate with an entirely different rhythm.

What if the endpoint isn’t better handoffs but their elimination?

Small changes, outsized impact

If your team operates in the handoff model, transformation won’t happen overnight. Evolution occurs in stages, each requiring different skills and mindsets.

Here are a few approaches to consider that would consistently produce results:

Put developers in front of users. Not through reports or recordings – have them directly observe usability testing. There’s no substitute for witnessing real people struggle with something you built.

Build an understanding of adjacent disciplines. Designers don’t need to become developers, and developers don’t need to become designers. But they do need enough fluency for meaningful conversations. Basic literacy in both domains transforms collaboration.

Create artefacts together. Journey maps, service blueprints, component libraries – these become powerful when both disciplines contribute to and use them regularly. They’re not just deliverables; they’re collaboration tools.

Share meaningful metrics. When design and development align around shared success metrics, they naturally coordinate their efforts. The metrics themselves become a common language.

None of this requires reorganizing your company or hiring rare multidisciplinary unicorns. It simply requires recognizing that these perspectives are complementary, not sequential.

Learning from our own experience

At Stampede, we’ve been fortunate to learn from 19 years of cross-disciplinary collaboration. Our founding team included both design and development perspectives – not from foresight about these challenges, but from necessity. This accidental advantage gave us insight into what works when these disciplines work closely together.

What’s striking is how consistently the same patterns emerge across organizations. The relay race creates identical friction points whether you’re a startup or an enterprise. And the solutions are surprisingly universal.

When we collaborate with clients, we don’t arrive with predetermined solutions. We start by understanding how their teams currently work. Sometimes we integrate design-aware developers into their team. Other times we add developers to design teams to validate ideas earlier. We’re not replacing workflows – we’re connecting disciplines within them.

Over time, clients experiencing this approach ask how to build this capability internally. This led us to develop workshops sharing practical techniques. We don’t have all the answers, but we’ve learned what tends to work, and we’re happy to share with teams ready for something different.

Evolving deliberately, not dramatically

If your team still operates in the handoff model, start with small steps:

• Invite a developer to your next user research session
• Schedule regular collaborative working sessions
• Create one shared metric that both teams contribute to

The changes don’t need to be dramatic to be effective. They need to be deliberate.

In the past, we could get away with handoffs. Today, they’re becoming a competitive disadvantage. The organisations that thrive going forward will be those that see design and development not as separate functions but as complementary perspectives on the same challenge: building things people actually want to use.

What if we stopped thinking about improving handoffs and started questioning whether we need them at all?

The community that makes it possible

What I found to be the most striking aspect of Makers X was the community itself.

UOB provided their thoughtfully designed space—creating an environment where candid conversations flourished naturally. The coffee that flowed throughout the day (courtesy of our dedicated barista) catalysed cross-disciplinary discussions that rarely happen in typical work contexts.

Behind the scenes, our organizing team—a mix of designers and developers—delivered the entire event without experiencing the handoff problems we discussed. There’s something particularly satisfying about embodying the principles you’re exploring.

A huge shoutout to our amazing volunteers—Faiq Uzair, Amir Ali, Sandra Yeoh, and Ahmad Alfhajri! Coming from diverse backgrounds as developers, designers and product managers, their dedication and collaboration were key in making this event successful. They truly embodied the spirit of cross-disciplinary teamwork!

Perhaps the most revealing observation is that over a hundred people dedicated a Saturday to examining how we might work differently. This suggests something important about our community—a shared recognition that our current approaches have limitations and a collective curiosity about alternatives.

Thoughtful questions, honest stories and willingness to reconsider established practices aren’t just personally valuable—they’re gradually shifting how our industry approaches these challenges.

See you at the next Makers 11, where we’ll continue exploring uncomfortable questions, sharing experiences, and yes, enjoying good coffee together!

Need better design-development collaboration? We help in two ways: through integrated project teams that deliver results while modeling better practices, or through practical training that builds this capability within your organisation. Both draw from real experience. Drop us a line to explore what makes sense for your team.

The post Rethinking the design and development relay race at Makers X appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Stampede Makers is a quarterly event that celebrates the designers and builders in all of us. Run by the team at Stampede, it gathers those who are advancing their craft in design and technology to create better, more thoughtful worlds.

Makers 7 raised an important and timely question. As designers, our job has always been about solving problems creatively, but with data and AI, we’re stepping into a new reality where the boundaries of what we can achieve are expanding. Instead of getting bogged down by repetitive tasks, AI is helping us focus on what really matters—creating meaningful value and bringing innovation to the forefront.

Illuminating the way for us were three distinguished speakers from the fields of data science, design, and business, each offering unique perspectives on the integration of AI in design.

Dr. Lau Cher Han, Malaysia’s foremost expert in data science, is renowned for his human-first approach to technology. With extensive experience in AI and data-driven solutions, Dr. Lau has helped industries across the board harness AI to create meaningful, user-centred applications. His keynote explored how designers can leverage AI and data not only to diagnose problems but to foster innovation and design sustainable, human-focused solutions.

Pedro Custódio, Design Leader at EY Malaysia, is deeply engaged in UX and innovation, and a strong advocate for grassroots community initiatives. Pedro shared his insights on how AI is reshaping the role of designers, emphasizing the importance of human creativity in combination with AI’s capabilities. His perspective provided valuable direction for those seeking to enhance their design processes with AI.

As CEO of KATSANA, Syed Ahmad Fuqaha Sd Agil has led the integration of AI and data into telematics and mobility solutions. His focus on developing user-centric innovations, particularly in creating safer and more efficient transportation systems, offered a practical demonstration of how data is essential in designing impactful, real-world solutions.

If there’s ever a brain trust for designing human-centred AI in Malaysia, this is it.

A new era of design

During his keynote, Dr Lau shared how AI and data are opening new possibilities in design. To him, the key to successful technology is not the tech itself but understanding human psychology. “Psychology-driven solutions are always cheaper than technology-led solutions,” a powerful insight that underlines the importance of designing with human needs and behaviour in mind, not just relying on advanced tools.

Dr Lau took the audience through his journey of moving from the purely technical side of things to a user-centric design approach. He illustrated this with stories of everyday design decisions, such as why traditional Chinese teacups lack handles—they are easier to transport, cheaper to produce, and signal usability (if the cup is too hot to hold, it’s too hot to drink). These subtle considerations of user experience highlight how design can shape behaviour in ways that technology alone cannot.

He also shared that while AI can help automate repetitive tasks, such as generating proposals or analyzing large data sets, its real value lies in uncovering hidden insights—patterns that aren’t immediately visible to the human eye. This capability makes AI a powerful tool in user research, where it can sift through large amounts of qualitative data to provide more accurate and insightful feedback.

To him, AI is not about replacing human creativity or empathy but about enhancing it. While AI can assist with tasks like role-playing user personas or simulating usability tests, the human aspect—especially the emotional and empathetic connection—remains irreplaceable. He concluded that “AI can offer emotions, but only humans can give the full spectrum of empathy and emotional experiences.”

The shift from manual to meaningful work

A few years ago, we worked with a team of data scientists on an engineering app that reduced the time it took to predict equipment failures from two weeks to 15 minutes. Not only that, but it also recommended the best time window for balancing cost and risk. We expected some pushback from users, thinking they might feel their work was becoming obsolete.

Instead, they embraced it. Why? Because it took away the tedious parts of their job, freeing them up to create bigger value for the company.

This mirrors Pedro’s point on how AI isn’t about replacing our work. AI now allows us to enhance our ability to focus on more valuable tasks. As this liberates designers from mundane, repetitive work, it creates opportunities for us to channel our energy into solving higher-order problems that demand creativity and innovation. Pedro also noted how AI can give us a sense of empowerment—allowing us to accomplish more with the same or even fewer resources.

Designing the future, together

In the panel discussion, Pedro and Fuqaha shared real-world examples of how data and AI are transforming user-centred innovations. As a practising designer, Pedro brought home the point that while AI can enhance our capabilities, it’s crucial to understand its limitations and work alongside these systems—not against them. He advocated for effective collaboration between designers and AI, where we leverage AI’s strengths but retain creative control of our work. This balance, as he put it, is key to maintaining our value as designers in an AI-driven world.

Data and AI are not here to take over—they’re here to make us better, more focused designers who can deliver greater impact.

Looking ahead

Makers 7 showed us that designers today have an opportunity like never before. With data and AI integrated into our workflows, we can create more impactful, sustainable, and user-centred solutions. The future of design has never been about the tools—it’s about how we use them to understand, serve, and delight users in ways we never could before.

I am excited and optimistic about where design is heading and the designers’ role in it. How about you?

Thank you for being part of our community of designers and builders of the future. To creating better worlds together, and see you at Makers 8 in June!

The post Designing the future with AI and data at Makers 7 appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

A few months ago, us from the design team were buzzing with excitement when Shaza announced that anyone could potentially attend the World Usability Congress 2023 in Graz! About a week later, Azim, the UX Designer, Wan, from business development team and I, the product designer, got the news — the three of us were selected to join Shaza herself for the trip!

We strategised ways to gain as much knowledge, as this conference is a treasure trove of UX practices in global level presenting many learnings that we could adapt and adopt. Even though the four of us have different roles in Stampede, we came to Graz with one mission in mind. We all want to find opportunities to elevate the design capability standard in Malaysia! On the 8th of October 2023, the four of us packed our bags and flew to Austria. We landed in Vienna International Airport and straight away took the train ride to Graz, while soaking in the sights and learning about Austria’s train system along the way.

World Usability Congress is an international conference organised by Youspi (an Austrian UX, CX and Usability agency) focusing on topics revolving around usability and user experience design practices. Held annually since 2013 in Graz, Austria, the conference brings together professionals, researchers, and practitioners from various industries to discuss the latest trends, share insights, and showcase innovative approaches to continuously improve user experience. This event covers the wide spectrum of usability and user experience design practice; ranging from UX design, user research, product development, strategy, Ops and more, making it a highly relevant event for anyone in the tech and design field.

The event lasted for four days from 9th to 12th of October 2023. The first two days were Focus Days — containing industry-specific talks and in-depth workshops, and then the final two days were the Conference Days — the main event containing multi-track talks, masterclasses and keynote (maximum 4 tracks at one time). Azim and I attended workshops relevant to our respective practices, and then on Conference Days all four of us dispersed to maximise the learnings from the multi-track talks and connections made. Check out our learnings in another post with more detailed breakdowns!

Our main objective in Graz was to gather knowledge, but we didn’t miss the chance to connect with as many people as we can as the UX community in this side of the world is very friendly and engaging, like ours back home. We used this chance to build genuine connections with fellow UX-ers or virtually anybody we can interact with and built our presence in the region.

Even before the conference started, the interaction with the UX community already started by meeting Johannes of UX Graz — one of Shaza’s comrades in arms, having organised together the 24 Hours of UX in previous years remotely from across the world (Making this occasion their very first time meeting in person, which we couldn’t really tell from their sense of camaraderie)! He toured us around the beautiful city of Graz and introduced us to several of his colleagues along the way. Very memorable introduction to the event and hosting city. We also met Ahmed Al-Huwwari of UX Jordan and Peter Horvath — both committee members 24 Hours of UX, making this event such a special in-person meetup for them!

The following day, after completing our workshops, we attended the UX Graz meetup dinner that was open to any WUC attendees. As our usual practice in any mass gatherings, Stampede members scattered as we make connections with as many new faces as possible because we love connecting with a diverse cast of attendees, boosting the chance of getting many new and different perspectives. That very night was very exciting as everyone we met were very genuine and friendly, we also gained some insights into how the tech and design scene looks like in Europe through those valuable conversations. We all had the same mission going into the conference. The actual conference is on the next day, but we already got a glimpse of UX practice through the lens of Europeans and pumped up to go through with the rest of the event!

Real conference days came next. Naturally, we made many connections there as the WUC event was designed to give plenty of opportunities to network and mingle around — during breakfast, in-between talks (20 minutes gap between talks), lunchtime, and the night of picturesque hilltop at Schlossberg during the Networking Dinner. Networking there was so magical that we made so many new precious connections throughout the journey, and we long to see them again anytime in the future. Even after the event ended on our way back to Vienna via train, we connected by pure chance with Susanne, one of the WUC volunteers, that our hearts were filled with joy till the very end and beyond!

And I’d like to share some tips in connecting with event attendees of any large prestigious events, that might not be applicable to everybody but have worked for us;

Focusing too much on design & professional conversation topics every time with everybody can feel transactional and takes a toll on our energy. Just remember that everybody is human no matter how professional they are, and we just want normal conversations to know each other better before opening up more.

So, we tested a different approach with a Danish designer named Anton. Surprisingly, we found that genuine connections were made easily when we are invested in that person’s story. Our conversations that night started to change, as they revolved around our respective country, life, career journey and virtually anything that came across our minds. The conversation eventually led to career & professional topics at some point, but it felt more natural. It was less tiring, and we could maintain our social energy for a long duration. And more importantly, it didn’t felt

We carried this approach to make more connections throughout the event and we managed to learn more about people, common issues and values, and finally not forgetting; to talk about the design cultures abroad to learn from each other. We even scored an office visit to Eventim in Vienna (Thank you for your hospitality, Marcus and Katharina!), attributed to the small talk and genuine connections made with the people we met there. All in all, connections should be pure and have minimal underlying agenda, as we all appreciate the natural relationships between people — as we always do in design field.

The highlight of the World Usability Conference for us aside from the important profession-related learnings, was the connections made with the people, thanks to the numerous networking opportunities designed within the conference itself. We cherish all of them, and this bond will go a long way in the future in whichever means that we have no way of predicting.

The post World Usability Congress: A pilgrimage every UX practitioners should go to appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

A Mexican wave was started by someone and over several rounds, grew into epic proportions. The gargantuan stage was generously illuminated by congregations of lanterns of purple, pink and green neons, all diverging from the top of the arena down to the center stage. The soundtrack on loop was “Reborn” by Talos. For a space this big, the acoustic was amazing and succinct. The backdrop, nestled between two giant screens, simply said “Web Summit”.

I was at the Davos for Geeks alright.

How did I end up here?

Late one night in November 2015, I received an email from Paddy Cosgrave, the founder of Web Summit, saying that Lilyana Latiff, the CEO of Aleph One has sent me a full guest ticket for the 2016 Web Summit in Lisbon under the Women in Tech initiative. That was a smart move by Web Summit, giving up 10,000 free tickets to female entrepreneurs and executives to promote better representation of women.

And obviously we women talk. And we talked a lot. We talked about Web Summit and Lisbon on Facebook and Twitter and to our fellow women friends. The 10,000 women were the catalyst to Web Summit’s social media marketing. Smart.

In the spirit of YOLO, I claimed the ticket and decided to worry about it later.

In the spirit of YOLO, I claimed the ticket and decided to worry about it later. With my workload, I didn’t think it was remotely possible for me to carve time, no matter how tempting the speakers lineup get (they tempt so, so bad) or how industry-changing the talks will be (they were) or just the fact it’s Lisbon, one of the most vibrant startup cities in the world (totally was).

I didn’t worry until October this year, when somehow, with the Web Summit happening in 3 weeks, I suddenly found three things converging at the same time: a good window of time to extricate myself from work, an amazing AirBnB deal and a good company to actually make the trip.

The opening (that we almost missed by ‘THIS’ much)

It was really difficult focusing on work to the days leading to the Web Summit. Some of us in what Malaysian Web Summit Whatsapp channel were already in Lisbon gallivanting in Belem and enjoying egg tarts.

A day before the summit, we arrived in Frankfurt for our connecting flight to Lisbon, which we totally missed due to the long immigration line and impossibly short transfer window. We were rerouted 14 hours later to Porto (300 km away from Lisbon) by the kind people at Lufthansa. We checked in to the most last-minute AirBNB I’ve ever pulled and the morning after, took the train from Porto to Lisbon. We arrived at noon, promptly settling in into our actual AirBNB in Graca, Lisbon’s historical neighbourhood. An Uber later, we finally joined the massive queue outside the MEO Arena.

We made it to the opening just in time.

The crowd lining up and moving into the arena. First sighting of my fellow geeks!

Some Web Summit veterans preferred to watch the opening keynote from the comfort of their hotel rooms. I contest that you have to be there to absorb the electricity that was Web Summit. The feeling of “I’m on the right track. What I do matters.” is the level of self-awareness you get being in the same room with 15,000 other geeks.

Collectively, you shape the industry and through the products you build, you shape how the world will experience the future.

Paddy Cosgrave kicking it off Source

Paddy Cosgrave kicked off the opening in his signature Web Summit tee and an iPad, which I assume is the lifeline of the entire operation. This is the 6th edition of Web Summit and despite the phenomenal increase in size (53,000 attendees this year), his team has found a good rhythm.

You see volunteers approaching people who seemed a bit lost (like us) offering genuine help and a smile—that sort of confidence will only come from solid crowd control planning beforehand. Most volunteers I know from other events tend to cringe from human contact or lacking information of the big picture. Even the live stream failure due to Wi-Fi problem was pretty much forgivable. After all, we’re the very people who deal with “shit breaks” on daily basis.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt taking the stage Source

Many people know Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the actor but you can add startup founder to that long list too now. His panel session was insightful and a major crowd-pleaser but I was almost envious at the lineup of Portuguese technopreneurs and startup founders honoured on the center stage by their Prime Minister and the Mayor of Lisbon. #startupLisbon is real.

The Summit happened during the US election day. One day we were all excited and empowered by the first Woman President and the next day everyone walked around in utter disbelief. This particular meltdown happened on that very day.

Another one of my favorite is the keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk. If you haven’t followed Gary, please do that now. He’ll psyche your inner entrepreneur like no one else can.

The Web App

The conferences are spread into three days and they run at the same so you will likely be running and dodging people from one stage to the next if you’re not careful with your planning. 53,000 people is quite the crowd and making real connection gets difficult when everyone has the attention span of a goldfish.

An app just for an event? Welcome to Web Summit. Source

The good thing is, the Web Summit has predicted this calamity-waiting-to-happen and released the Web Summit App two weeks prior to the event. You can browse attendees and speakers list and connect with them. (Hey, Ronaldinho did you get my message?)

I know a few people does this to secure seriously precious comm time with investors and potential partners before the Web Summit, and then attend the event to finally meet and seal business deals. The app also contains your ticket and people quite simply flip their smartphones for identification during Registration.

The Web Summit team also sends out push notification to alert attendees of potentially popular session so they can do crowd control better.

I used the app to connect to fellow Girls in Tech members, several key business partners and to plan my day throughout the Summit. The Web Summit team also sends out push notification to alert attendees of potentially popular session so they can do crowd control better. This is probably the gold standard for all conferences in the future.

21 Conferences under one roof (well, technically five)

The MEO Arena is not alone in hosting the Web Summit. The arena itself is huge (I’m running out of good adjectives here) but the 4 pavilions espousing it are each large enough to hold 2 conferences at both ends and an exhibition floor in the middle. There were in total 21 conferences happening at the Web Summit and if they didn’t make any sense to you at first (PandaConf? Future Societies?) trust me, they quickly would.

The MEO Arena

The conferences that were happening at Web Summit

AI is everywhere

Everybody seems to be talking about AI, bots and machine learning this year. Tech people are not necessarily fearful that the bots are taking over, but we do puzzle if our human skills will be made obsolete by smarter machines and how do we collaborate with AI to produce really astounding results and products we couldn’t possibly come out with without intelligent computational power.

Blockchain is making a huge wave too and I found myself nodding along, thinking “what in the world is blockchain?” and making mental note to Google it up.

Sidenote: I did Google it like the information hoarder that I am. A blockchain is the technology that allows for transactions to be securely recorded from computers globally into a decentralized digital ledger and cannot be changed after that. It is the technology behind Bitcoin but can easily be used between banks or financial institution, making transaction really fast and reducing cost. Think of sending money abroad and the transaction is almost instantaneous. Yes, we’re talking disruptive speed, baby.

But blockchains aside, one of the (many) reasons I happily endured the long flight to Lisbon was because of this guy.

Meet John Maeda

John Maeda is a designer and a technologist and his work explores the area where business, design, and technology merge. Previously a Professor at the MIT Media Lab and President of the Rhode Island School of Design, he currently heads Computational Design and Inclusion at Automattic (the company that build WordPress, yes THAT WordPress). Maeda advocates the movement of design for business and economic advancement (as opposed to design for arts) and that struck a chord in me. As a designer, we are positioned at a very strategic place to make a truly large-scale impact. In his own words, “Art is about making questions. Design is about making solutions.”

His panel session together with Bracken Darrell from Logitech titled “Design At The Core” touched on the importance of design thinking and its lack of inclusiveness in the industry. Designers by nature are not huge on collaboration. We tend to be private in our processes and vulnerable in our execution. In UX, sometimes we focus so much on making that we forget to ask the question who we are making it for. In the end, we should be aware that we are not designing for ourselves, but to solve problems for others.

Since this was my first Web Summit, my purpose was to absorb and learn as much as I could. I wanted to get a glimpse at the future in tech and I wanted to position Stampede to embrace that future.

Most of my time were spent attending talks and panel sessions chaired by design thinkers and tech entrepreneurs, discussing themes ranging from the future of working collaboratively with AI to designing responsibly in a world that is constantly hijacking your attention. I found myself overwhelmed and awed by the depth and strong morality theme behind design as the agent for good and I’m inspired to share them with as many designers out there.

Malaysians at Web Summit

My trip buddies were Lilyana Latiff, Linda Rasip and Ty Mazawaty from Aleph One. The long flight, the running like possessed trying to catch our flights at Frankfurt airport and eating so many Portuguese egg tarts we lost count; I did it all with these girls.

Trip buddies!

I’ve also had the privilege to meet a few other Malaysians at the Web Summit. Summer Goh was one of them. Originally from Pahang, she now lives in the south of France with her husband and came to the Summit as a volunteer. We connected over the app a month before Lisbon and she looked me up at the Creatiff Track. Summer and I also met Arnaud Ginioux and Leon Hudson from the stock image giant, 123RF.

Meeting up with fellow Malaysians

The crew of 16Two were also there, all 16 of them for the entire two weeks for some well-deserved Lisbon Time.

More comrades at Web Summit

I also met Karu Khoo, a veteran of Web Summit and founder of CreativeUnicorn, a digital marketing agency based in KL. After the Summit, Karu came up with his own bot to drive better brand experience. How cool!

Creative Unicorn’s brand building bot

Lisbon

The Web Summit started in Dublin but quickly outgrew the city’s available infrastructure (one of them the facilities to enable wi-fi usage for 50,000 people). It moved to Lisbon and will stay in Lisbon for at least another 5 years, and for good reasons. The Summit generates 200 million euros for Lisbon’s economy through hotel bookings, restaurants and taxi rides alone, and we haven’t even talked about direct values to businesses and startups in terms of investments, mentorship and market penetration. Uber raised their first $37 million at the Web Summit.

Sights of Lisbon, beautiful

But if I could sum up Lisbon in three words, it is efficient, charming and (pretty) cheap.

Efficient because the entire city geared up and prepared well for the onslaught of the Web Summit. The government has a positive and supportive presence at this totally non-political event and you cannot miss Web Summit banners around the city. There was hardly an Uber driver who does not know where the Summit was held and we also found that Uber sent additional drivers from Porto to help meet the demand for Uber rides throughout the event. A few Uber drivers were even attendees themselves and have their own startups. The metro station closest to the summit is 3-stops away from the airport, and within short walking distance from the arena itself. Since there were four of us, we took Uber mostly and the longest we’ve had to wait was 9 minutes.

Charming because the people of Lisbon are friendly and always happy to help. I have not been to many European countries but Portuguese are easily the friendliest ones I’ve met so far. In Portugal I felt welcomed and celebrated as a person in tech.

Cheap because the cost of living in Lisbon is comparable to Kuala Lumpur, which I didn’t know possible for a European city. Some groceries are in fact cheaper than KL and public transport makes going around really easy. All attendees get heavily subsidized metro fares for the entire week, making travel to and fro the event affordable and quick. If you’re flying TAP Portugal to attend the Summit, you could also use an attendee code and get 10% off your flight fare.

—

As a production, the Web Summit is truly a massively successful undertaking. There is much to learn from how the Web Summit team managed to pull this feat and what attendees bring home with them after the event. As a city, Lisbon is beautiful and at the cusp of a technology revival, with the right startup infrastructure and without the astronomical cost of Silicon Valley. It has grown on me and I’m excited to bring members of the Stampede team with me for Web Summit 2017.

The post Shaza Goes to Web Summit 2016 appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Last Friday (25th November 2016) marked the first time Stampede got together, physically at one place, and at the same time. If you didn’t know already, we at Stampede work remotely from various places around Malaysia along with other parts of the world. For instance, we have Viki from Hungary and Tony from Indonesia. Both flew down to KL just for this meet-up.

While we have met Tony before when he flew down last year, this marks the first time we were meeting Viki in person. She flew all the way from Budapest to meet us.

Viki arrives in Malaysia!

The reason for this get-together was to attend the JomLaunch 4 in Kuala Lumpur along with having Stampede-related meetings and just plain having fun together. Stampede was invited to JomLaunch 4 because of the voluntary work we did for the JomLaunch team. We designed and build the entire website.

The first thing we did as a team was to have dinner, which we did at Bangsar, KL. We ordered a variety of dishes and everyone dug in to their heart’s content. The tom yam soup was particularly good.

Stampede Dinner with Thai Food!

Once we had our fill, we proceeded to the condo that Shaza booked for us via Airbnb. This location was in the heart of KL and you could see some great sights at the height we were at, floor 41. We dropped off our luggage and got the needed rest for the following day’s event.

One the highlights of that night were the fresh shrimps that Iwan caught himself and prepared for us. You won’t find it any fresher and more delicious than this. It was definitely a great snack to have to produce great dreams that night.

Fresh cooked shrimps by Chef Iwan / Viki taking that honorary food pic

Event day, JomLaunch 4

Saturday happened, and we woke up extra early so that we could get first pick of our seats before the crowd moved in. The sun rose earlier that day and we could see it glowing behind the tall buildings of the city. It was a great sight.

We woke up to this the next morning!

Hopping into two separate vehicles we arrived at the venue earlier than expected. The event staff were still setting up so we had a moment for a quick breather to look around. When the event opened, there was an influx of people getting themselves registered to collect their goodie bags. We noticed that the JomLaunch team had their hands full, so we decided to help them out for a bit.

Shaza & Viki helping out at the reception

Once the crowd had finished moving into the event hall, we followed suit and took our seats. Here’s a quick explanation on what JomLaunch is about. It is an event where participants showcase their awesome ICT (information and communications technology) idea. This can be an explanation of how their system works but most participants brought working prototypes to the event itself. Some of these were ready for public usage. In total, this year JomLaunch 4 had 18 participants. The event started at 8.30 AM and completed by 5.30 PM.

The crowd at JomLaunch 4. Can you spot the Stampede team?

The presentations from each team varied from malware protection to a 3D education game. Here’s a list of what was presented during JomLaunch 4.

1. Eraxen Endpoint Protection – malware protection
2. MMS – motorsport / cub management system
3. RunCloud.io – competitor to ServerPilot.my
4. Bytetuta – AI bot for muslim lifestyle
5. Mytix – venue ticket sales management
6. MyClinic2U – clinic management
7. Ninja iDempiere – plugin for Idempiere
8. Splate – Laravel SaaS boilerplate
9. Soding – talent search and headhunting
10. WhatsTivity – social media platform
11. Telebuzz – telegram bot
12. CerdikApp – communication and monitoring tools for students, parents and teachers
13. MInD Automated Vehicle (MAV) – automated guided vehicle (manufacturing)
14. RobotJualan.com – bot for sales
15. EksploRazi – 3D education game
16. Terapi.my – Uber for home spa service
17. GO.my  – travel assistant
18. HireMe.my – platform to build and share resumes

In the end, the event was a success with every participant getting their time to showcase their ideas. The winner of this year’s JomLaunch was RunCloud.io who’s team built a platform for easy server setup. They were awarded RM 1,000 in the form of a check.

Meeting people

Another thing we like to do at these events is to meet up with other people from the industry. After a year or two, you’ll start to recognize many individuals, start-up founders and their key team members. Sometimes we bump into people who are fond of the work we do and want to get to know us better.

This is Fachrul (left), who got us together for a wefie

It’s really great to know we’re appreciated for the work we do as we put a lot of effort, thought and heart into our work culture.

Close-knit community

It never ceases to surprise us how close-knit the JomLaunch community is. The presentations of each team were well thought off and presented rather casually. This can be seen in the past 3 JomLaunches as well. The organizers did their best to brighten the atmosphere by inserting a joke or two in-between presentations. As the day was a long one, many present were feeling tired at the end of the day, but those jokes helped perk them up again.

Serious vs Freestyle

The closing night

After the event was over, we were very hungry and on our way to dinner. That was when the JomLaunch team caught us off-guard by inviting us out for steamboat. We replenished our tummies and shared a bunch of conversations with one another. Thanks JomLaunch, we look forward to what’s in store for next year!

JomLaunch and Stampede having an awesome dinner

The post Stampede Get-together & JomLaunch 4 appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Starting with remote made the journey possible for Katsana. Give your team flexibility. Results are what truly matters.

Aware of this, it gave Syed Ahmad Fuqaha, or Fuqaha for short, to come up with the idea for Katsana, a startup that offers GPS tracking and fuel monitoring systems for vehicles, complete with data analytics capabilities. Basically, users are able to track the location of their vehicles through smartphones and ensure their safety.

The former project manager for JomSocial co-founded Katsana with colleague Mohd Irwan Ibrahim, after they both left the company. Commercially launched in 2014 mainly targeting enterprises, Katsana started ambitious yet humble, remotely.

We speak to Fuqaha, who arrived for the Skype video call very animatedly — about his remote working setup, his work ethics and many more.

The post Journey Made Possible: An Interview with Syed Ahmad Fuqaha appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Shaiful, Tony and Zana catching some waves.

Going to Kuala Lumpur

I begun my morning with prayers, resisting the urge to get some extra sleep and making some final preparations before leaving my house. Understanding that my flight departs at 10:58 AM, I wanted to get to the airport early. Using GrabCar, I got picked up from my place and arrived at Soekarno Hatta Airport at 8:30 AM. All that time in-between meant that I could catch up on my downloaded anime. When it was time, I boarded the airplane and traveled across the sea to Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Hanging Out with Shaiful

My flight to KL was on a Saturday and the following flight I would need to take to get to Langkawi was on a Sunday; this meant that I had one day in KL to explore. Shaiful offered me a place to bunk in during my stay at KL (thanks master!). We spent some time at his place talking about Indonesian and Malaysian topics whilst munching down ‘pisang goreng’ (banana fritters) and sipping hot tea prepared by Shaiful’s mother. Later that evening, Shaiful drove us to Aimar Corner to indulge in ‘char kuey teow’ (a noodle dish). That was my first time having it and two plates were finished before I realized it. Once we got back, we did some work on the Langkawi Regatta website.

Initial Thoughts About Langkawi

The following day, we took a flight from KL to Langkawi. I was amazed by how similar the island looked like when compared to the south side of Bali with its numerous cafes, motels, hotels and foreign travelers. I found the vibe very good and started liking this country more!

My Awesome Team

My involvement during the regatta was to update the event website’s timeline on all the action that occurred from morning up to the evening. This also included popular social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The updates came in fast, by the minutes in fact. During midnight, we would prepare the timeline for the following day’s events. Teamwork was key here and without it, things wouldn’t have gone smoothly.

Before we proceed any further, a small introduction to the team:

Dahlia, Zana, Shaiful, Tony and Iwan ready for what’s in store!

1. Iwan. The leader of the team with the most experience about regatta among us. Hence why a lot of people in the club knew him.
2. Shaiful. My master, who gave me his advice regarding all matters on updating the timeline. His role was to update the website.
3. Dahlia. The project manager and designer who helped prepare all the visual assets that were used for the event.
4. Zana. The social media manager, who prepared all the content to be sent via social media.

We were like the Power Rangers!

I had a good time in Langkawi while working in the yacht club and hanging out with Dov and Shaza (thanks for the BBQ). The guys and I spent a lot of time talking on various topics, one of which was an old Indonesian song that both Iwan and Shaiful knew. It was interesting to find out that they knew quite a bit on Indonesian music, at times they knew tracks that I never knew. These talks happened mostly while working as well as in the room where we all crashed for the night.

On the Race Days

During the yacht races I did not really know what was going on, but I think it all went well judging by how fast the yachts were skimming through the seas. Obviously the one that was going the fastest had to be winning.

There was a heavy downpour on Thursday and that could have been the cause of why Friday had such small winds while Saturday had almost nothing. Because of that however, the race had to be cancelled and due to its cancellation, on Day 4, the team with the lead position would be crowned the winner. It was a pity that some teams lost the chance to catch up due to the cancelled race day.

On the 4th day of the race, the yachts sailed very closely to the marina. Iwan mentioned that this was the first time it was happening and it looked beautiful. It was also that day where I got the chance to enter the sea with Shaiful and Zana. Shaiful prepared anti-seasick medicine but we couldn’t drink it because we had to consume it at least 1 hour in advance, something we only noticed 15 minutes before. On the boat, I told myself mentally to just keep looking ahead and not the side or the back to prevent myself from turning over. I didn’t want to become a spectacle if it happened but surprisingly I didn’t feel anything even after reaching the shore.

On the last day, Dahlia had to rest because of food poisoning. It was a pity because there was a lot of food that night. I had a lot of delicious satay which had a different flavor from the ones I was familiar with in Indonesia. The event closed in a fireworks finale and the guests and participants invited themselves onto the dance floor.

Farewell Langkawi

The final day had arrived and it was time for me to return back home. It was a Sunday and my flight was booked at 11.25 AM. Shaza picked me, Shaiful and Zana up from our lodging and we left at 10 AM to go to the airport. Shaza shared with me a myth which mentioned that someone who travels to Langkawi will return back to Langkawi (and she proved it!). As for myself, the next time I’ll go to Malaysia/Langkawi with my own little family.

Thank you everyone at Stampede for having me at this event. See you next year!

The post Royal Langkawi International Regatta 2016 appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

Every time I wake up to know that PurelyB changes lives, that keeps me going even more.

Currently in just two of its earliest phases, PurelyB is brilliant by itself in garnering their own massive following, having close to 10,000 followers in just its first month and currently standing at 10,000+ likes for its Facebook page. These are mainly Malaysians and Singaporeans who had been aspiring to live and eat healthier these days, and having PurelyB is a godsend.

Shaza and Zana had the chance to talk to CEO and Founder of PurelyB, Jesrina Arshad, whose positive energy is so infectious. We got to pick her brain into what drives her to create PurelyB, how she got to rally such an amazing lineup of experts and team members and how Stampede has helped realising her dream.

The post Purely Passionate: An Interview with Jesrina Arshad appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.

I took a leap of faith — and decided Stampede it is.

Shaiful and Zana had the chance to talk to high-spirited Danish Mumtaz, Motopedia’s main guy. We gushed about cars, devised new website plans in the works and talked about how Danish chanced upon Stampede, before the rest is history.

The post A Leap of Faith: An Interview with Danish Mumtaz from Motopedia appeared first on Stampede: the strategic design & technology company.