Reposting the NEM foundation update since I guess many people won't find their way to the nem forum
TLDR; Global strategic plans for Tech, Marketing, and Business Development are rolling out soon, election planning continues, new leads for North America and Korea, partners now include Blockfolio and the Pillar Project, NEMsp program has a positive pilot.
"We’re early in the lifecycle of the blockchain industry and NEM has always put a focus on delivering real applications. Our line up of current and future applications is one of the best in the industry. When we look back in the next few years, we will already have many iterations of use cases and user feedback that other platforms won’t have. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing an overview of the current state of the NEM Foundation and how we’re collectively restructuring our regions to be more effective with outreach, engagement, education, and communication.” - Kristof Van de Reck, Interim President
Ongoing Planning Efforts
Regional Heads and Country Managers have been collaborating in working groups on the global strategic plans for Tech, Marketing, and Business Development. We hope to share some early results of these efforts with the community in the next few weeks.
2018 Council election processes and timing continues to be discussed. More details forthcoming.
Programs
Gary Piercy, Head of Sales in EU, is overseeing the trial for the NEMsp Network Program which provides qualified partners with technical skills and business benefits to integrate clients onto NEM. NEMsps will be directly trained, tested and certified by NEM. Meetings have been held, agreements signed, and the feedback from companies has been overwhelmingly positive.
Partnerships
NEM has signed a MoU (memorandum of understanding), with the Pillar Project 4, an open-source cryptocurrency, and token wallet, with the goal to eventually evolve to become a personal data locker.
XEM notifications launched on Blockfolio’s Signal Beta.
NEM China becomes a member of Shanghai Finance Information Association.
Product Updates
Reminder to update to the latest version of the NanoWallet (2.3.0 1). Updates made to the Domain Name System module, Import Wallet Bankup, QRcode module + Support voting with TREZOR.
Expansion + New Hires
Our teams across the globe keep expanding at an increasing rate. New reqs for job postings 3 continue to be added.
North America - Establishing a robust North America presence has been a longtime goal of the NEM Foundation and Alex Tinsman 1 has accepted the role of Regional Head for North America. Plans for satellite offices include Texas, Washington, California, New York. More plans to be shared soon.
Korea - Lance Cheang 1, Project Director for SEAsia, is now leading efforts to kickstart growth in Seoul. He’s hired a new a new team and is working with tech accelerators FoundationX and Uniblock.
Europe - Europe is in the process of hiring five more people to keep up with the increasing demand for support. Interviews are underway.
Japan - Hiroki Koga 2, Japan Lead, continues to expand growth in Japan by collaborating with the key community members (such as @Trendstream) on notable events including the recent nemcafe, NEM DAY and NEM.dev.nagoya.
Regional reporting begins to roll out with curated content. More countries to be added soon.
ANZ:
https://medium.com/nem-anz 2
Ukraine:
https://medium.com/@NEMukraine 1
North America:
https://medium.com/@alexandratinsman 3