Prelude to 8th Start-Up@Singapore: An Interview with the Student Lead Organizers

The 8th Start-Up@Singapore is about to be launched. The theme for this year is “For Entrepreneurs, By Entrepreneurs”. The entrepreneurial student organizers from NUS Entrepreneurship Society are now in the midst of their Grand Launch preparation. We managed to squeeze out time with the three student lead organizers, Lee Jiaxing, Chin Kaiying (also president of NUS Entrepreneurship Society) and Felix Matthew for an interview to talk about their experience in organizing the competition with a total team of 50 students, the outreach of the competition that extend to the other institutes of higher learning (NTU, SMU and the polytechnics), their global aspirations and some information about the upcoming Grand Launch in October.

SGE: What made you guys and gals take up the role of lead organizers in Start-Up@Singapore? (Photo from the left: Jiaxing, Felix and Kaiying)
Student Leads: Being part of the ONLY student run national business plan competition in the world is of course a privilege to start off with. We always feel being part of Start-Up@Singapore is a path that allows us to not only grow on an individual level, not also as a team. We welcome the challenges along the way and believe every barrier we face only opens us to a more innovative solution. It is definitely the ultimate test of time management but being able to work our team of 50 passionate, committed and dynamic individuals, who are driven, motivates us to continue to sow the seeds of entrepreneurship.

SGE: What is the mission of S@S and your core values?
Student Leads: The mission of S@S is driven by the passion to nurture the spirit of enterprise nationally and globally. We are continuously striving not only to raise the interest level amongst the venture capital (VC) community here in Singapore, but to provide quality entrepreneurial education to those would-be entrepreneurs to initiate start-ups.

SGE: What are the successful companies that have emerged from S@S?
Student Leads: The successes of the competition lie in the people that make it all happen. From the partcipants, to the judges, to the winners, each individual contributes to our success. We boast increasing numbers of high quality entries and over 40 successful start ups. Last year’s winner, TenCube, was recently featured as finalists in the Red Herring’s Top 100 Asian companies listings. Darius, co-founder of TenCube, has become a role model among the youth. ND- Arrays, who came 3rd went on to win the Lee Kuan Yew business plan competition. These achievements reflect the quality of our competition and its participants.

SGE: What are the challenges of Start-Up@Singapore?
Student Leads: As a fully student-run competition, there are many challenges we face at S@S on a daily basis. Selling our credibility to our sponsors, working with our co-organizers and managing relations, these are just a few examples. As students, we also need to address our academic needs, amongst all the strategic planning and meetings required to ensure accountability and professionalism. You begin to learn the necessity of effective time management and prioritizing. However, at the end of the day, it’s the passion and zealousness of the extremely hardworking team that sees us through and makes it all worthwhile.

SGE: Do you guys and gals think that S@S is too NUS-centric? What have you all done to promote entrepreneurship around the country?
Student Leads: Despite the fact tat the student organizers and our supporting organizations are all affiliated to NUS, our aim is not to centralize within the NUS campus, but instead to extend the NUS vision of creating a global knowledge enterprise nationwide. This is evident through our extensive outreach programs that promote the spirit of enterprise to JC’s and polytechnics. We also establish, maintain and value our close relations with entrepreneurship organizations in the other IHL’s. The competition is open to the entirety of Singapore, and our events are held all around the company. This year’s dynamic year long program features events in SMU, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, National Library Board and of course NUS. The close partnership with our diamond sponsor SMRT, is another way we reach out nationwide.

SGE: What are the challenges running such a student enterprise? What do you feel that you have learned from organizing the competition?
Student Leads: Running a student enterprise requires any leader to be able to motivate the team using means other than financial incentives. The toughest challenge is to align each team player to the S@S vision and manage the team dynamics so that the each individual’s strengths and weaknesses complement another. But we channel our efforts into this arena and through regular team building activities we gradually understand and meet the needs of each team member. It is also difficult for us to commit to S@S full time, due to the many the commitments we face as students. As leads of the event, we are forever thinking of ways to make the event more enterprising for us, and more enriching and educational for the participants.

If there is one thing we have learnt from organizing such a big event, its how to manage our time effectively, and to balance both our commitments, School, and S@S, well enough that neither is affected. Though we do not take home any monetary package from organizing the event, it’s the experience, knowledge and satisfaction we take away with us that makes it all worthwhile. It’s the ‘WE DID IT!’ spirit that we harness.

SGE: What is S@S stature in the world?
Student Leads: Well, being known as the best national business plan competition locally is definitely not enough. Our efforts are recognised by our friends overseas as well. With global endorsements from Cambridge University Entrepreneurs, MIT-$100K, and SPARK Competition in New Zealand, we are proud that our competition is globally recognzied among the top tier business plan competitions.

Being part of S@S also provides opportunities for overseas exposure. For example, Mr Mervin Chai (see picture above), Co-Lead of 6th Start-Up@Singapore and former President of NUS Entrepreneurship Society spoke as a panelist for the Global StartUp Workshop in Abu Dhabi and the Youth Entrepreneurship Forum in Kenya. As a matter of fact, our fully student-run business plan competition model is now a role model for developing countries in Africa. We also aim to send representatives from the student team to the upcoming GSW in Sweden next year.

SGE: Who do you want to thank?
Student Leads: Our deepest gratitude goes to our supporting organizations, NUS Entrepreneurship Centre (NEC), NUS Business School Alumni (NUSBSA), and the NUS Entrepreneurship Society (NES) (including past student lead organizers from the past S@S competitions), for their continual support. We would also like to thank our sponsors, SMRT, DBS, Ascendas and Lenovo, for their belief in our vision. We guarantee that with their support, and the passion of the team, we will bring 8 th Start-Up@Singapore to greater heights.

SGE: When are you all starting? How do we take part in the competition?
Student Leads: We’ve already started! (laughs). The student team has been working hard for the past two months, laying the foundations for a successful year ahead. Our official Grand Launch ceremony, Lee Yi Shyan (Minister of Parliament, Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Chairman of Action Community of Entrepreneurship) as the Guest of Honor will be held on 26 October 2006. That’s less than a month away, and rest assured we have an exciting program to treat all those who come down and support us. Please check out our website for further details and to register. Keeping up with the momentum, we have our first roadshow, CEO – unplugged, at SMU later the same day. In order to participate in the competition, you need to first register on our website, Start-Up@Singapore. The deadline for executive summary submission is 26 Jan 2007.

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