A seasoned entrepreneur despite his youth. Armed with the experience of tossing snowballs in Europe during his Polytechnic exchange programme at ESIEE (Paris), Lai founded his first company (PINKCUBE) at the turn of the millennium in his mind when he was in his late teens. However, he only formalized it 2 months after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. The illness was so serious then that no one even dared to ask for a prognosis. Knowing that he had nothing to lose, Lai tried and failed many times in his entrepreneurship endeavors during his chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions. But he never gave up, and with the help of his partners during his NUS undergrad days, he founded the largest tuition agency in Singapore - ManyTutors.com. His interest for business does not stop here though, and Lai is currently managing numerous businesses including the Otaku House retail outlets and Internet projects to build the next Google.
January 25, 2007 by WeiChang
CNA reported that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong indicated that the hike in the GST will likely come in a one-off adjustment. The government is also seriously looking at increasing the employer’s contribution to the Central Provident Fund.
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November 13, 2006 by WeiChang
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced in parliament today that the government will increase the GST to 7%. This will definitely have a huge impact on SMEs and companies that absorb the GST. For those businesses that are not registered for GST taxes, it may be a good idea to consider voluntarily registering for GST now. Let’s discuss sensible moves that SMEs should take to minimize profit loss.
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October 13, 2006 by WeiChang
Imagine you are a proud entrepreneur and owner of a new bakery. A customer pays your cashier a buck for a piece of bread and your cashier immediately runs out of the shop with the money. Will you be held responsible? What happens if another customer who wants to avoid the queue hands some money to your baker instead? Are you still accountable if it is the baker who runs away?
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August 21, 2006 by WeiChang
Weichang, among the three founders, has always been busy with his businesses as a young and pragmatic entrepreneur, other than spending his precious time to help us maintain the site and make things happen in the background. We are glad that he will be sharing his experience in bootstrapping the different startups and creating profit and value for his customers. To start off this series, he will tell us about his online business, ManyTutors.com Read more
June 2, 2006 by WeiChang
Why are Singaporeans so uncreative? This article tosses a strong critique towards the government and sets out to explain the very recent emphasis on creativity and entreprise in Singapore.
May 30, 2006 by WeiChang
This article a brilliant must read for those who already own an existing website or blog and want to milk the most out of it. Find out how to get a million visitors.
January 12, 2006 by WeiChang
- The NUS & NTU, SITF Technology Showcase 2006
Date: 9 February 2006
Time: 6pm – 9pm
Venue: Suntec City NUSS Guild House
Click on the title for more information.
An increasingly competitive market demands that companies harness more
innovation and technologies to generate exciting new commercial
opportunities, revenues and retain their competitive edges.
After the 1st successful NUS-SiTF Technology Showcase in 2005, SiTF is
organizing a second Technology Showcase featuring this time emerging ICT
technologies from both NUS and NTU. This is also part of the NUS and NTU
on-going efforts to increase industry awareness of the cutting edge
research & technologies that are generated constantly from University
research. The technologies covered include the areas of mobile
communications, mixed reality, computer networking, biometrics,
generative design and interactive media.
It provides a platform for industry and investors to access nascent
technologies and an excellent opportunity to foster interaction and
networking amongst high-tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists,
business angels and researchers where business development opportunities
such as licensing or collaborative research can be explored.
The event is highly recommended for IT professionals, entrepreneurs,
venture capitalists, investors, technology brokers, industry players and
anyone who needs to keep up-to-date with cutting edge developments in
the IT industry.
This event is open to all SiTF members, staff and alumni of National
University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and members of
the public.
For more information and registration, please click
HERE .
December 20, 2005 by WeiChang
Recently I read this article from ‘Innovation Magazine’ and couldn’t agree more with Guy Kawasaki in his inteview. Well, it’s a great read and a nice summary about the problems facing Singapore in our road to cultivating entrepreneurs.
Click on title for excerpt and link to URL.
Excerpt:
‘I: What do you see as the biggest difference between the United States and Singapore in terms of inculcating entrepreneurship? What do you think the local environment lacks?
Kawasaki: Singapore has based its educational system on the expectation that its graduates will work for the government or multinational corporations (MNCs), neither of which prepares one for entrepreneurship. In America, if you work for a large company for a long time, people ask why. In Singapore, if people leave a large company, people ask why. This is a huge difference.
In addition, the Singapore leadership has been visionary and strong and as a result have developed the strategies and tactics for the growth of the country from the top down. As a result, the educational system has encouraged the society to learn and pick up knowledge and facts but not necessarily to be creative, which is a key factor in entrepreneurship.’
December 18, 2005 by WeiChang
I finally found time to revamp the blog after reviewing the structure of CNET news.com, numerous other popular blogs and even soccernet.com. Please give your comments about our new layout but I only want to hear the good stuff. :) Took quite a bit of hard work.
One more thing. I have created expandable post summaries. From now on, please click on the title of individual posts to view the entire article. The messy links system at the sidebar is also tidied up and there is less clutter in the individual posts.
September 15, 2005 by WeiChang
An article about how Steve Jobs came out with the Nano. Our very own Mr Sim should watch and learn. URL here
Excerpt
It’s amazing that the Nano even made it to the stage. The story of the Nano started nine months ago, when Jobs and his team took a look at the iPod Mini and decided they could make it better. On the face of it, that wouldn’t appear to be a fantastically smart decision. The iPod Mini was and still is the best-selling MP3 player in the world, and Apple had introduced it only 11 months earlier. Jobs was…….
