Finalists for 7th Start-Up@Singapore Finals Ceremony

After a tough semi-finals yesterday, the finalists for this year 7th Start-Up@Singapore is finally out. Some quick thoughts from yesterday and we shall profile the last 10 finalists here. Remember the finals ceremony is held in Swissotel Level 4, Atrium Ballroom at 2.30 pm, 3 June 2006, and if not all, there are food and drinks plus admission is free!

Yesterday, the semi-finalists for the 7th Start-Up@Singapore business plan competition have fought out a difficult battle to get into the final 10 in the coming Saturday’s finals. They took fifteen minutes to explain their business plan and another fifteen minutes to get grilled by the judges, who are made up of academics, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, industry leaders and business professionals. These judges have taken their time out from their busy schedule to come and help us to select the last final 10 teams.

As I agree with the chief judge, Douglas Abrams, everyone is a winner in this competition. The teams get feedback from the judges and if they have stopped there, they have not understood what entrepreneurship is about. A lot of people believe that a business plan competition is just another competition similar to a PSLE, a ‘O’ or ‘A’ levels examination. Yes, winning a competition is no big deal. There is a team from a famous university who has won all the business plan competitions from the world, but they never started as a company. Statistics has shown that there is a significant number of business plan semi-finalists (who don’t make it to the finals) usually become very successful later. A good example, is a company called Akamai, which did not made it to the finals of MIT competition, but is now an IPO company. The reason is because entrepreneurs have this mentality that if they lost a battle today, they lived to fight another day.

More details for the finals and the sponsors for the 7th Start-Up@Singapore Finals can be found here. The event is jointly organized by NUS Entrepreneurship Society, NUS Entrepreneurship Centre and NUS Business School Alumni Association.

Now, the finalists for the Youth Category (in no order of preference) first:

About The Author

SGEntrepreneurs - (SGE)

Covering the Singapore and Southeast Asia entrepreneurship scene since 2005.

Find more jobs at Triple Point Jobs