Singapore Entrepreneurs

A speech by Mervin Chai about NUS Entrepreneurship Society as a student enterprise.

Contributed by Mervin Chai, Chairman of NUS Entrepreneurship Society

The article is based on a speech transcript by Mr Mervin Chai during the recent 7th Start-Up@Singapore Grand Launch event. The talk stresses on the importance of student enterprise in Singapore and how NUS Entrepreneurship Society has risen to the occasion, with its present achievements. Mervin Chai is the Chairman of NUS Entrepreneurship Society 2005/06. He was the co-lead organizer of 6th Start-Up@Singapore and president of NUS Entrepreneurship Society. He was invited as a panellist to speak in Global Startup Workshop and also in Kenya.

Author’s note: We thank Mervin for his contribution to Sgentrepreneurs.

Beginning of Speech Transcript

NUS Council Chairman, Mr Wong Ngit Liong
NUS President, Professor Shih Choon Foong
NEC Director, Professor Wong Poh Kam
Ladies and Gentlemen

A Happy New Year to all.

To be frank, I never thought I would be giving a speech after Mr. Wong and Prof Shih. Given their success and experience, there’s almost nothing for me to say. Since I was asked by the organizing team to say a few words today, let me share with you my journey with the team in NUS Entrepreneurship Society over the past 3 years.

As Prof Shih has mentioned earlier, NUS recognizes the importance of entrepreneurship and utilized its resources to develop its vision and structure towards a global knowledge enterprise. These efforts have placed NUS among the top ranking universities in the world. Likewise, NES strives to become one of the top student entrepreneurship organizations in the world.

We believe that a great university is not merely defined by the amount of resources it has. It is about the people; staff, students and the alumni. The most important element that differentiates a good university from a great one is the kind of students it produces: Enterprising student leaders.

We are fortunate to be in this part of the world with a diverse community from all over Asia and the rest of the world. This diversity is prominent in NUS as a cosmopolitan university with students from diverse backgrounds and cultures.

The creation of a community that can harness the expertise of different faculties and sieve out good cultural values from both local and international students would be an asset in surviving the competitive world ahead of us.

A student enterprise, whether it is a student organization focusing on grooming leaders or a student startup aiming to create value in society, its modest contribution in the area of entrepreneurship is still relevant in moving towards the vision of a global knowledge enterprise.

We believe that NES as a student enterprise can provide a platform to nurture enterprising student leaders. Running Start-Up@Singapore as its flagship event has seen the value added growth of its members.

Over the years, NES has been through many obstacles as would any other student organizations. There are three main weaknesses of a student organization have to be overcome before it can go on to create a strong presence in the world and to generate successful student leaders.

Firstly, being a voluntary organization makes it harder for it to grow and be sustainable. Unlike corporate organizations which are able to leverage on its employee’s livelihood to remain profitable, voluntary organizations does not have that luxury. It only has its vision and goals to maintain its existence. The importance of leadership from students is vital to prevent such organizations from collapsing.

Another weakness of student organizations is the biased mindset that the society has created. Students are seen to be irresponsible and unable to be accountable for their actions. This culture has marginalized the role of students in big organizations and trust of students has eroded with it. Thus, the empowerment of students is critical to provide the opportunity for students to excel and to learn from their mistakes. This is also true to corporate businesses in empowering their employees as they are out to flatten their organizations.

The final obstacle that will prevent a student organization from moving on to the next stage is the traditionally weak institutional memory. The importance of institutional memory should not be omitted as management changes year by year. It is often seen in some weak organizations that every leader comes in with fresh ideas and begins with a fresh start, thus neglecting what the previous leader has achieved. A great and strong organization builds and innovates on the previous year’s successes. It does not become successful by reinventing itself every year. Hence, good institutional memory is the key to unlocking the full potential of an organization.

Professor Phang, CEO of NUS Enterprise once said to me, “Don’t Talk the Walk but Walk the Talk”. It’s a very simple quote but it made a significant impact to what NES has become today. I will shortly highlight how NES as a student enterprise is walking the talk.

With 14 years of history, NES has maintained its vision to Motivate, Prepare and Nurture Successful Entrepreneurs. This would not be easy without the great support from the people in NUS Enterprise, Prof Phang and his team.

Two years ago, NES took on a crucial decision in playing a major role in co-organizing the Start-Up@Singapore national business plan competition together with NUS Entrepreneurship Centre and NUS Business School Alumni Association. Running this flagship event gives its members a great platform to exercise their potential to become professional and enterprising students.

However, we do not merely want to be typical event organizers. We want to become an internationally renowned organization. We see the impetus to build a strong presence not just locally but also regionally and globally.

NES overseas presence started off with the Asia-Pacific Students’ Entrepreneurship Forum in 2001. It brought together 50 student leaders from over 7 universities in the Asia Pacific region to raise awareness of the importance of regional entrepreneurship and foster international relations.

In 2005, NES was invited to provide a panelist in the Global Startup Workshop held in Abu Dhabi. NES stood tall amongst prestigious entrepreneurship organizations from around the world which comprised of more than 300 students and professionals from 46 different countries. This positioned NES as one of the top international entrepreneurship organizations in the world.

The experience and professionalism of NES in the field of entrepreneurship was further exemplified through its invitation to speak at an international youth entrepreneurship conference in Kenya. We had the honor of being the first and only entrepreneurship organization from Asia invited to share on the best practices of running business plan competitions.

Being the role model for developing countries in youth entrepreneurship, not only strengthens NUS brand presence but also our position in the global arena. This also gives a win-win situation with our sponsors as their brands get translated with these overseas exposures.

We believe that for NES to succeed, we can ill-afford to just stay within our borders. Conversely, we no longer just place our sights locally, but have also recognized the need to grow regionally and globally. Building a network with other entrepreneurship organizations has also been a key initiative that NES has undertaken since last year.

Overseas outreach programs with Scotland and China were highlights of NES efforts in building international relationships. These trips are not merely holiday trips. Instead, they are planned to expose both the student leaders as well as the participants to the different working and entrepreneurial culture abroad. It also allows them to build closer bilateral ties with our international partners. Working with different organizations from various countries is an important asset in international commerce and this is what the student leaders of NES do as well.

In our mission to enhance regional cooperation between entrepreneurship organizations, we have also spearheaded the Asia-Pacific Enterprise Network. This alliance was formed from the Abu Dhabi Initiative that was discussed during the 8th Global Startup Workshop. Bringing together various entities from 7 different countries, we believe that having this platform for regional communication and discussions will strengthen the ties between all the member organizations. NES also hopes that this will bring about greater entrepreneurial exchanges for everyone in the future. We will also be planning for the inaugural A-PEN summit where all its members will gather here to discuss the emerging issues pertaining to entrepreneurship in the region.

It has been great today to share with you what NES has achieved over the past few years. Yet we do not want to rest on our present laurels. We want to take this further. We continue to pursue our dreams and aspire to become successful entrepreneurs and industry leaders who will move and shake the world tomorrow. We must not only strive to be the best but to become the role model for others. Only through such vision, will we create significant value and impact for our society.

Finally, I would like to end with this simple quote by John Maxwell:

“To Add Growth - Lead Followers. To Multiply Growth – Lead Leaders.”

Thank you.