Richard Kastelein

Richard Kastelein, a Dutch Canadian dual citizen, is the founder and publisher of Blockchain News, a publication focused on Blockchain technology and theory (not Bitcoin-centric) launched in late 2015 and the founder of The Hackitarians, a Dutch Foundation (Stichting) that runs technology hackathons also known as gamified, short-term innovation events around the world.
Formerly he was the publisher and founder of TV App Market, an online portal, community, events and industry directory for the emerging industry around TV Applications and Widgets, Social TV, Multiplatform Strategy and Engagement, Connected TV, and Transmedia - and founder of The Hackfest. Both were acquired in 2013 by Six Degreesand Techforge Media in 2013.
Currently living in Groningen, Netherlands, Kastelein has spoken on the future of TV, media and innovation at events in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belfast, Berlin, Brussels, Brighton, Copenhagen, Cannes, Cologne, Curaçao, Frankfurt, Hollywood, Hilversum, Geneva, Groningen, London, Las Vegas, Leipzig, Madrid, Melbourne, NYC, Oxford, Rio de Janeiro, Sheffield, San Francisco, San Jose, Sydney, Tallinn, Vienna, and Zurich. Such as the UK's 2nd Annual Digital Convergence Summit, Apps World in London, the Future of TV Advertising and the Brazilian International TV Conference in Rio de Janeiro.
He was also the publisher, editor and founder of Atlantic Free Press along with a number of other online progressive, activist websites.
Kastelein has guest lectured at the Hanze University Groningen the University of Groningen and MIT Media Labs on Social TV. In 2010 he was Deloitte Netherlands Tech Visionary for his predictions and futurist views on New media and Social TV. And in 2011, he won a Computerworld Honors Laureate for Innovation - his five-year Atlantic Free Press project and Free Press Group were honoured for visionary application of information technology to promote positive social, economic and educational change including category co-winners from NASA, Duke University, LexisNexis, and George Washington University.
Kastelein was nominated for ConnectedWorld.TV Personality of the Year in 2011, vying against Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of SoftBank Capital Masayoshi Son, Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA)'s Chairman Nidhish Parikh, Director of Personal Media Industry Collaboration for Nokia and director of Amazon Video Cameron Janes and Leo Laporte, an American technology broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur.

As one of the developers of the Cross Media Social Platform with UK-based Sparkling Media, Kastelein is an early Social TV evangelist and convergent media analyst. In 2007, he was part of the technology team who bridged telephony 2.0, real-time 3D, the web and broadcast television with Twinners - a format developed around new technology which broadcast on SuperRTL in Germany, RTL in Belgium and TV Copenhagen in Denmark. He now writes and speaks on convergent media, Social TV and the integration of the web and TV.

Kastelein has published a number of books using Print on demand technology including A Quest For Hope: Searching For Ways Out Of Postmodern Nihilism Into New Reality (Volume 1) by Jan Chr. Vaessen Ph.D., The Chronicles Of Nefaria by William A. Cook Ph.D., The Rape Of Palestine: Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied by William A. Cook Ph.D., Oceania by Andre Vltchek, and Empire Burlesque by Chris Floyd

Kastelein first started publishing dissident and progressive online websites when he teamed up with Chris Floyd in 2005, and launched Empire Burlesque together with the former Moscow Times columnist. He then moved on to launch Atlantic Free Press in 2006. His one-off activist site at Thank You Qwest - set up to thank the company for taking on the US Administration on privacy issues was covered by a number of mainstream media including the CNN Situation Room, USA Today, New York Times, Denver Post, and The Salt Lake Tribune

Unassociated Press, another activist site built by Kastelein was set up to petition against the Associated Press and also for bloggers to boycott referencing or linking to Associated Press articles after they issued at take-down order against community news site the Drudge Retort. Unassociated Press was covered by Journalism.co.uk, Editor's Weblog and Zdnet.

He has hosted and continues to host a number of controversial writers on his servers, such as Craig Murray, the former United Kingdom Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was shut down by his hosting company after Russian billionaire, Alisher Usmanov silenced Murray with lawyers. Kastelein also hosts Canadian environmental activist Ingmar Lee, and Nick Chesterfield - an Australian grassroots security analyst and activist who stands up for the rights of Indigenous Peoples across the Asia-Pacific Region. He continues to host and publish Pacific Free Pressand Gorilla Radioout of Victoria, British Columbia with Editor and Radio Show Host Chris Cook.

One work from his political photoshopping art collection, called Richard Kastelein's Guantanamo was used by the University of California Davis, for the Center For the Study of Human Rights in the Americas.

Kastelein first started sailing on small cruising sailboats in 1987 on a transatlantic trip with a Norwegian crew and spent the following decade sailing in and out of ports around the world, compiling over 24,000 nautical miles (44,000 km) offshore. He went on to write a series called, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Seas, which was published in a number of travel and boating publications in the UK and Canada. He worked on The Orchid House, a UK Channel Four film set in Dominica in 1991 as a 24-year-old captain of 100-foot (30 m) wooden schooner Tironga, then the oldest floating boat in the world, built in 1869 in Thuro, Denmark. He lived aboard several vessels while working in the media in Sint Maarten, Netherlands Antilles. He has also worked as a charterboat captain, sailing instructor and sailboat delivery skipper for Sunsail Caribbean. His 'hitchhiking' sailing lifestyle was covered by Avantoure Magazine in 2009. Kastelein built a 1.2 million dollar catamaran with Avante Yachts in Brazil in 2004.

Kastelein's journalism career started in the Northern Press in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada, under the tutelage of Slave River Journal's Publisher Don Jaque and editor Liz Crompton. He then continued in the Caribbean as English editor at St. Martin's Week in French Saint Martin, Features editor at Today Newspaper in Dutch Sint Maarten, and was managing editor of What's ON magazine in the Netherlands Antilles. He's a member of Wired Journalists, author at Virgin.com, and is a writer for Wired Magazine's Innovation Insights. Kastelein has also written a number of articles on future TV for The Guardian such as Outside the box: the hurdles facing second screen social TVand Where's the money in social TV and second screening?

Kastelein first got a taste of social media was while building an early internet portal for the Caribbean in 1997 at suchislife.com. He added on a free Bravenet forum to the site which became a popular comment platform for tourists and feedback loop for the island. In 2003, he launched Expat Forums Online for English speakers in Europe with American expatriate Jason Goecke - and they voluntarily managed the community for three years further - which went on to over 350,000 comments and posts over the years. Kastelein's Social Media Dictionary was used by author Joel Postman in his award-winning book SocialCorp: Social Media Goes Corporate.