Where are the Asian hackers?

I used to work at a technology incubator here in central Japan. Statistically speaking, you've used something from our startups -- it was just buried deep in a car, navigational system, cell phone, video game, or movie.

I was regretfully not as successful as I would have hoped getting the startups to think in terms a bit broader than producing components consumed by Japanese mega-corps. Oh well -- working on it, one day at a time.

The guy next to me at the day job is actually planning a B2C startup, after being inspired by a lot of the US Web 2.0 darlings, particularly the B2SMB ones, and the absurdly easy replace-your-salary-math when you're a 20 or 30-something Japanese engineer. I honestly believe that that realization could rock this country. (Imagine how attractive startups would be if a highly-motivated, well-educated hacker could expect a $2,200 a month salary straight out of college and, if he was willing to work a decade of 60~70 hour weeks, might break $4,000 by the time he was 30.)

Someday I hope to have the chance to test out a pet theory of mine: an American web application with Japanese visual design would be a galloping success. (There are small town pizza joints here whose flyer art rivals much of what I've seen on Smashing Magazine. Oh crikey the B2C possibilities...)

Uh, do the folks running the Asian equivalent of a "Hacker Space" use the word "Hacker Space"?

Is there an equivalent of a "hacker space" in every culture in the world? Could this be like asking "where is the USA's professional Starcraft league?" [1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_professional_competit...

It's really nice that the hacker concept is as international as it is. (Thank you, giant worldwide Internet!) But I wouldn't be astonished to find that it is not perfectly cross-cultural. Especially since the idea of a "hacker space", by that name, is only a few years old. (Before that it might have been called a "ham radio shack" or a "model railroad club", or perhaps a "Homebrew Computer Club".)

I assume that lots and lots of Asian hackers are busy building lots and lots of Asian-language products to serve lots and lots of Asian-language-speaking customers.

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[1] Man, I wish we had a pro Starcraft league. But I wish, much more strongly, that we had Korean-quality high-speed internet.

I actually think that Asian hackerspace have more to offer than the western counterparts. For one the manufacturing facilities are nearby, that means not only are tools available, but industrial machinery and more importantly assembly workers are totally accessible.

If anyone interested to start a hackerspace in Macau, let me know I have space and workers. www.goldentime.com.mo

let's not forget that russia is also part of asia