Judges
BELVINDER SRON
Deputy CEO and Director of Promotions and Branding, (MPOC)
She has more than 20 years of experience in the palm oil industry. She has spearheaded campaigns to manage critical issues that have emerged in Europe and Australia in the past. As part of the industry’s effort to educate consumers, palm oil was featured at the Musée Cité des Sciences et de L’Industrie in Paris, one of the most popular museums in Europe. She has lead a team of judges to pick the winning photographs in the Annual World Palm Portraits Photography Competition.
KAREN LIEW
Head of Corporate Communications,
IOI Corporation Berhad
Karen has more than 10 years of experience in the palm oil industry and she oversees IOI Corporation Berhad’s corporate communication functions. IOI is a leading global integrated and sustainable player with operations in Malaysia, Indonesia and Europe. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (honours) degree in Media Studies from University of Malaya and Master of Science degree in Corporate Communications from University Putra Malaysia.
JAMES LEE
Film Director, Writer, Producer and Actor
James Lee, an award winning independent filmmaker from Malaysia. He’s also one of the pioneers of indie digital video film-making. On top of directing he has DP, produced and acted in other independently produced films. His films have won awards in film festivals in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Philippines and Singapore. In 2007 the 9th Deauville Asian Film Festival France had a special focus on the movies of James Lee as a talent to watch. This focus was to acknowledge Lee’s status as one of the pioneer digital filmmakers of the region. In 2014, his website doghouse73pictures.tv won the DiGi WWWOW award for the content category. And was invited as a speaker in the TEDxKL 2015. In 2015 he won Director of the Year in the Singapore advertising award GONG for the branded short film “Last Day of School” which also picked up the Cannes Silver Lion Award in 2016.
LOR YEW MIEN
Film Director, Writer, Producer and Actor
Mien.ly makes films and teaches media related subjects in local colleges. An alumni of Bifan’s Fantastic Film School 2018, she just recently completed a mini web-series ‘Marilah Sayang’ (Come, My Dear) for Unifi Play. Her dystopian short film ‘Selam 2.0’ (Dive 2.0) won 4 awards at BMW Shorties 2017. She founded the project HerStory Malaysia, a platform for women to share stories of desires and sexuality through short films in 2010. Her short film ‘Kaulah Yang Aku Mahu’ (You Are the One I Want) was selected for screening at the San Francisco International Women Film Fest in March 2014. Her work has been screened in IAWRT Asian Womens’ Film Festival 2006 and Films of Desire 2007, both of which were held in India, and Asian HotShots Festival 2008 in Berlin.
PREMESH CHANDRAN
Co-founder and CEO of Malaysiakini
Premesh Chandran is the co-founder and CEO of Malaysiakini.com. Launched in 1999, Malaysiakini is Malaysia’s top independent news website, reaching over 8 million readers in English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil. Premesh holds a degree in Physics and a Masters degree in International Studies.
He is TED Senior Fellow, a recipient of Asia Foundation’s Chang-Lin Tan Fellowship and the Media Personality of the Year 2012. He has mentored over 50 start-ups as part of the Cradle Fund’s Coach & Grow Program.
His other interests are in transit tech – where he has co-founded Asia Mobiliti – and is looking into affordable housing. He believes in finding practical ways to achieve ideals.
JAMES TOH
Director, Producer and Editor
James spent 8 years at the start of his career as a documentary editor for international broadcast channels such as National Geographic, History Channel, NHK Japan, Al-Jazeera East and Channel News Asia. With the experience and understanding of telling great stories, James went on to direct TVC’s, Cine Ads and online commercials for brands such as Castrol, McDonalds, Nescafe, Citibank and Huawei. His first online commercial “Typical Malaysian Football Fans” for Castrol managed to hit one million views and had special mentions in local news articles as one the top 10 videos to watch out for in 2014. His short film “Strength” was screened at S-Express/Asia Film Symposium in Singapore, 2015.
