KEOI
Kinetic Economic & Ocean-Maritime Institute Society (Keoi) is a non-profit society registered in British Columbia, Canada, and based in Vancouver. Through the Keoi Research Institute, it supports and publishes research where economics, technology, and the maritime world meet. That includes applied work on payment infrastructure and financial-crime detection, maritime economics and law, and ocean ecology. Keoi publishes monographs and practical guides by its researchers and associates in print and electronic formats, and makes its publications available to the Canadian public.
About the Institute
The Founder
Elton Shijie Qu — Founder & Director, KEOI
080-8348-2040 · sj@keoi.org
Twenty-two years in senior finance across regulation, institutions, and entrepreneurship: thirteen years with central banks and financial regulators, followed by nine years leading businesses at global financial institutions. Founder of Tachyon Group (2018), a dual-engine group — self-operated DTC retail and payment infrastructure (VeloSync platform, Hong Kong-licensed MSO). Separately, he is founding Rakuju Shoji Co., Ltd. in Kyoto — a new, independent Japan-headquartered venture in cross-border trade and payments.
Honors
Chartered Fellow (CMgr FCMI) — Chartered Management Institute, UK
Life Fellow (Life FRSA) — Royal Society of Arts, UK
Fellow (FIoD) — Institute of Directors, UK
Freeman — The Worshipful Company of International Bankers (WCIB), London
Basel Scholar — Basel Committee Scholarship (MSc Banking, City University of Hong Kong, 2009).
Member — International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
Member — National Writers Union (U.S.) (NUW)
Selected Participant (2026) — Kyoto Prefecture's Foreign Entrepreneurs Startup Promotion Programme — among only about 40 founders approved in its first six years (Certificate No. 034).
Book — Self-Iterating TBML Detection: Design, Implementation and Deployment of a Closed-Loop Risk System for Cross-Border Payments. Amazon KDP (Independently published). Paperback ISBN 9798162465621. Also available as Kindle eBook (ASIN B0HN2Z6H9G).
Authorship
Book — Kyoabiding: Putting Down Roots in Japan's Ancient Capital. Amazon KDP (Independently published). Paperback ISBN 9798162512868.
Book — Digital Iron Curtain: Algorithms, Arbitrage, and One Regulator's Escape from China's New Cold War (published under the pen name Cr KEOI). Amazon KDP. Kindle ASIN B0GQ9Y7HTN; Paperback ASIN B0GQB5TTQ7.
Working Paper — Ethical Stewardship in the Global Payment Ecosystem: A Case Study of Adyen. KEOI Research Institute Working Paper. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23409995 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23409995).
Working Paper — Advanced Cross-Cultural Communication and the AIA Model. KEOI Research Institute Working Paper. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23410098 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23410098).
Working Paper — Negotiation Strategies for a Japan–Germany Joint Venture. KEOI Research Institute Working Paper. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23410242 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23410242).
Working Paper — Closing the Productive Half of Cross-Language Conversation: An Anticipatory Multilingual Conversation Assistance System for Wearable Devices. KEOI Research Institute Working Paper. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23410988 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23410988).
Working Paper — Speculative Response Generation for Live Cross-Language Dialogue: Hiding Language-Model Latency Inside the Interlocutor's Turn. KEOI Research Institute Working Paper. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23412869 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23412869).
Working Paper — Interpretation Without a Second Device: The Single-Sided Assisted Interpretation Interface for Wearable Devices. KEOI Research Institute Working Paper. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23413956 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23413956).
Working Paper — Detecting Trade-Based Money Laundering in the Documents Themselves: A Cross-Validation Graph with Closed-Loop Self-Iteration. KEOI Research Institute Working Paper. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23414242 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23414242).
Bilingual political-economy commentator on macro policy, trade, and cross-border commerce for investors, entrepreneurs, and scholars; maintains a long-running biweekly analytical review series.
U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/170,246 — Anticipatory Multilingual Conversation Assistance System for Wearable Devices: a "conversation copilot" for smart glasses — real-time translated subtitles, anticipatory response generation, and in-ear pronunciation guidance for cross-language dialogue.
Patents
U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/170,247 — Real-Time Anticipatory Response Generation for Cross-Language Dialogue: parallel anticipatory generation of candidate responses during live speech.
U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/170,248 — Single-Sided Assisted Interpretation Interface for Wearable Devices: EMG-gesture selection, in-ear TTS read-along, and free-expression fallback for single-sided assisted interpretation.
U.S. Provisional Application No. 64/170,275 — Self-Iterating Detection of Trade-Based Money Laundering Using Multi-Source Trade Document Cross-Validation: a self-iterating TBML detection system — multi-source trade-document cross-validation graph, closed-loop model iteration driven by investigation outcomes, and a real-time risk-scoring API for banks and payment institutions.
The Kyoto Project
In Kyoto, the Institute's founder is carrying out a long-term field project on how a foreign researcher-entrepreneur puts down roots in Japan's ancient capital. The project was admitted to the Kyoto Prefecture Startup Preparation Activity Plan as Confirmation No. 034 — one of only around forty admissions in the programme's six years — with continuing support from JETRO Kyoto. A local company, Rakuju Shoji K.K., has been established as the project's base in Kyoto. The public record of the project appears in two books: 《京都，住在》 (Chinese) and Kyoabiding (English).