Niki Cheong

is a digital culture and journalism

specialist who has spent over a decade
in various media-related roles. This
brings together his extensive journalism
experience with his passion for, and
academic interest in, digital culture and
social media, both of which have
earned him and teams he has
lead accolades and recognition both
locally and internationally.

Niki is known by the moniker The
Bangsar Boy, a reference to his
fortnightly column in The Star. He is
often also sought after for his social
commentary and opinions on social
media sentiments by media
organisations and has been featured on BBC, Al Jazeera, MTV Asia, Astro Awani,
NTV7, BFM and The Star, among others.

Since his return from London in 2013, Niki has worked on several projects aimed at
spreading positivity and unity in Malaysia. These include co-organising projects such
as #SayaMahuPicnic with arts collective RandomAlphabets and #Fast4Malaysia with
Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir and Projek Dialog.

He was also the person behind 50x50 My Malaysia, a story-collecting arts project to
commemorate the 50
th
Malaysia Day last year, which saw him visiting 13 states in 15
days to collect 50 Malaysian stories. In 2014, to commemorate 57 years since, Niki
lead a collaborative content-driven interactive installation project aimed at getting
Malaysians to reflect on their current lives in the context of their personal history
called LimaPuluhTujuh.

In his spare time, Niki contributes to various charitable causes, specifically
HIV/AIDS and cancer awareness. He is also part of the team that brought Twestival, a
global fundraising movement to Malaysia in 2009, which has raised tens of thousands
of Ringgit for youth homes in Malaysia. Since 2010, he has served the Twestival
Global team as Regional Coordinator for Asia and in 2013, took on a role in the
movements editorial team.

Early in 2014, Niki was commissioned for the DPAC Arts Festival to conceptualise
Strait(s) Ahead, a Baba and Nyonya-themed exhibition featuring the works of young
artists reimagining traditional artifacts through contemporary lenses.

Following the completion of his MA in Digital Culture and Society funded by the
British Chevening Scholarship programme in 2012, and after a successful career in
journalism from a young age, Nikis current work focuses on cross-platform media
strategy and digital/social content.

Currently, Niki splits his time between consulting for various organisations including
UNAIDS, Tesco Malaysia, Miss Universe Malaysia Organisation among others and
writing for a variety of magazines including Going Places and Esquire Malaysia. Niki
also lectures at KDU University College in the areas of news writing, creative
industries and digital media.

As a prolific user of social media, Niki has a keen personal and academic interest in
digital culture and have given talks and presentations are conferences on social media,
digital culture and journalism including the Asian Social Media and Bloggers
Conference as well as Big Data Week KL.

Before moving to London in 2011 to read for this MA, Niki was based in Singapore
as part of the Asia Journalism Fellowship at Nanyang Technological University
researching into social medias impact on news related to the Malaysian political
landscape. At Kings College London where he recently graduated with distinction,
his dissertation focused on information flow and trust on social networking site
Twitter.

Until his departure, Niki was editor of R.AGE, the youth platform for Malaysias
largest English daily, The Star. He joined the newspaper in 2005 after several years
editing magazines to conceptualise and manage R.AGE, leading the team to win
several awards including the Red Ribbon Award and the Asian Digital Media
Awards.

While at The Star, Niki was also involved in the execution of several of its social
media projects including live chats with renowned personalities, live tweeting from
events and the papers iPad edition. He also ran and facilitated the papers long-
standing young journalist programme BRATs which and equips teenagers with
skills and knowledge to produce content for print and online, including video
production and social media.

In 2009, Niki was named one of August Man magazines Men of the Year and
Martell VSOP Media Personality of the year. A year later, he was named M2
Magazines Leading Men of 2010.

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Contact details: i.am@nikicheong.com