Yat Siu

Founder, Animoca Brands

Yat Siu moved to Hong Kong in 1996, where he set up Hong Kong Cybercity, the first free web page and email provider in Asia. In 1997 Yat joined AT&T Solutions' System Integration practice, but left in 1998 to set up Outblaze, which developed innovative web-based multilingual white label communication and collaboration services.

Yat Siu's steady leadership and vision steered Outblaze through the Dotcom Bubble and several subsequent crises. Outblaze became a world leader in white label hosted web services, winning numerous awards and accolades. With over 75 million end-users under management, Outblaze secured clients and partners from all over the world and business sectors, including service providers, telecommunications operators, corporations, academia, media and publishing companies.

In April 2009, Outblaze messaging assets were sold to IBM and incorporated in IBM's LotusLive suite of services. IBM also used the Outblaze assets to open its first cloud computing laboratory in Hong Kong. The transaction established beyond doubt that -like banking and finance services- Hong Kong's local information technology can compete on a global scale.

Yat Siu was called World Economic Forum Global Leader of Tomorrow and a Young Global Leader of Tomorrow. He has also been awarded for his contributions in business and society: Standard Chartered Platinum Achievers Award, the URENCO Innovation Award, and, for the execution of his vision at Outblaze, the IT Excellence Product Award, Linux Business Adoption Award 2003 and the Asia Pacific Information & Communication Technologies Award 2003. Most recently he won the Young Entrepeneur Award from the Hong Kong Business Awards 2009.