Another point was one that I derived after a conversation with a scientist working at A*Star. Upon achieving user-driven research outcomes the scientist at A*Star is given the option to spin off the discovered technology into a company with funding by A*Star (the government) which essentially causes it to be government-linked in the end. Many iconic Singaporean companies have the same thing in common. (They are private companies with the Government as the major shareholder) The presence of the government in the entrepreneurship scene can be unsettling and (as seen in the scenario today) counterproductive.

The human survival and development base on its capability on the existing condition to explore the commonly unknown or unexplored. The same apply to individual and nation.

Individual was born with a value of capability. The value moving up or down is the result of the interacting between the social interaction and the germ. The same is the world environment to a nation.

Entrepreneurial Spirit In Singapore
Singapore, in the process of nation building, has refined all the rules and setup in places to ensure the nation survival.

This value of the instinct, or the germ factor inclining for developing entrepreneurial spirit has not disappeared, but has just been contained unconsciously. Should a right and clear direction is guiding and make the value conscious and this value could be ignited, people mindset could be changed in days or months, it could evolve to form a kind of world wonder in its own way different from the Silicon Valley culture within the next 10 years- due to the advance and growth of quality of its people and business infrastructures in the knowledge base economy and connection to the world, the opportunity the globalization offers and the nation desire to survive- stay ahead and create new value before the competitors do.

The Ignorance Of Marketplace Idea By The Descision Makers
Entrepreneur spirit, seeking and inviting great idea has long and much been studied and promoted. The assisting schemes available to new startup and existing business have been in place for submission of business plan or business idea in detail for valuing. Because of accountability and compliance, the decision makers would base on the known conditions for the existing and the future to value all the submissions.

Those who possess the entrepreneur spirit and the marketplace idea may not approach for help, as they know what they know could not make the decision maker known. Instinctively they know they have to work a long and hard way before they become known. Chance of success is getting slim in the midst of globalization. If a marketplace idea could develop to be emerging world brand name within the next 5 year, it may serve as an ignition to the contained entrepreneurial spirit to evolve to leverage on the Singapore brand name. Every supporting resource, just as the waiting is in place for such marketplace idea to grow or more often die naturally. It is therefore critical to create such ignition power before too late.

Gamble For The Marketplace Idea……….

Networking is an important skill that any students and entrepreneurs must have. It requires more than……

To my thinking, the development of the dotcom business in Asian is approx. 3 years behind the US and 2 years the UK. Globalization provides the opportunity for other countries fast catching up, especially for the Singapore companies leveraging on the Singapore brand name.

The Silicon Valley model, the Singapore story, in less than ten years the most successful dotcoms with the market cap. of more than 80B US are all unique in their path of growth and have been the wonder of today world.

In the dotcom business, size of geographic and population no longer matter, what matters is the business value that a company could bring to the worldwide market, the fastest the impact. Globalization has leveled up the playing ground. Creativity or the capability to fill the cavity of the world supplies matter.

Singapore as a traditional world known trading port, with the advances in its business and ecommerce infrastructural, the ever growing Singapore brand name, and the switching of the world economic pole from the west to the east, has a great chance today to develop Singapore as a global hub of e-retailing.

Can a small company in Singapore without investing fund be a big leading e-retailer in the world market? My experience in the ecommerce is positive though I run a small e-retailing business http://www.pchub.com as stock provider shipping order placed online to more than 120 countries.

My business was bootstrap, and grows according to the model of reinvented new economy

Why wait for a homegrown hero to light the path? Everone has their own path to take. A true entreprenuer finds his way, with govermental help or not.

Thats the problem with us singaporeans, we bemoan about our own state of affairs but other than bemoaning, we do little to improve our lot.

I see it even in the way NOC students here in BV and SV. I seriously feel we should do more than experience SV/BV but also do our part in dragging VC funding to Singapore since we are here. We should have a concerted effort in selling Singapore as an entreprenuer hub with low taxes and a clean garhmen. We should remember that it is our people who sent us here and we owe them that much.

Despite Gahmen’s call for entreprenuership, you still see a concerted efforts by EDB and other gahmen agencies clamoring for short term job gain by attracting overseas MNCs to base their companies in Singapore. Also, large GLCs still compete with small companies within the domestic market which is small enough to disallow any growth from Singapore to overseas.

I sincerely feel a clean break is very much needed in the minds of Singaporeans both people and the governing agencies. Increasing our brain gap temporary by recruiting large number of bright young minds around the region is good but we need to do better than that. Can hiring 10 Chinese from top universities and 10 Indians from top colleges like IIT produce valuable patents? Possibly but not definately considering that IBM churns out more Patents than China and India combined. Futhermore, there is so much research funding that NUS/NTU can grant.

Thus what I’m proposing is a paradigm shift in that SPTO to be fully subsidized by EDB and to give a 10-15 year grace period for patents to both be filed and further developed in Singapore. Alot of inventors with bright ideas need to stem from our neighbouring countries and would like to access the asian markets. For us to do that, we can allow suitable candidates to apply for a Singaporean patent, pay for their chinese patent and in exchange have them develope their technogies in singapore. There should also be a suspension of royalties for these patents brought in if developed in NUS.

What singapore needs is not an influx of academically bright students from overseas but an innovative work group with patents and business experience under their belts. Hopefully doing so will cause upheaval within the singaporean market drive the engines of innovation for our country.

To really see the level of true entrepreneurship rise in Singapore, there needs to be a home-grown hero who makes it big and becomes recognised for his/her enterprising pursuits.