Kickstarting the Grand Launch 8th Start-Up@Singapore

Yesterday, the Grand Launch of the 8th Start-Up@Singapre kicked off the competition in its 8th year. Of course, the student organizers took the challenge to manage two events on the same day, the Grand Launch in the National University of Singapore and the CEO-Unplugged event in the Singapore Management University. Of course, we will share with you some highlights (photos) and interesting comments from the panelists during the Grand Launch.

In essence, the Grand Launch in Start-Up@Singapore is the jump-start for the competition which will run through its course through the following year. This year, the grand launch took place at the Hon Sui Sen Auditorium in the NUS Business School. The event was graced by Mr Lee Yi Shyan (MP), Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Minister In-Charge of Entrepreneurship. Other distinguished guests include Prof Tan Chorh Chuan (Deputy President and Provost, NUS), Dr Lily Chan (CEO, NUS Enterprise), Mr Steven Fang (President, Spirit of Enterprise) and many other distinguished guests from the NUS Board of Trustees, private sector and foreign emissaries.

The event kicked off with a speech from Dr Lily Chan, who gave a spirited introduction on the competition, and she mentioned Darius Cheung, the winner of 7th Start-Up@Singapore who made four attempts on the competition and finally succeeded in creating his startup, TenCube. (Darius is also one of SG Entrepreneurs’ resident contributors.)

Following on, she invited Mr Lee, our guest of honour to say a few words on the competition. The full transcript of Mr Lee’s speech can be obtained here. He spoke about the history of the competition for the past 7 years, and used the recent example of the Google-YouTube acquisition to encourage the young entrepreneurs to take up the challenge. One of the key quotes in his speech highlighted the importance of the competition in creating new startups:

Well, we may not have garages in Singapore unfortunately, but I believe today’s Start-Up@Singapore Business Plan Competition may be an even better avenue for your business start-up!

Following that, the three lead organizers, Jiaxing, Kaiying and Felix gave a presentation recapping 7th Start-Up@Singapore and also outlined the structure of the competition for this year. They used the analogy of “baking a cake” to explain how an enterprise is created and nurtured with different resources such as network, mentoring, team and education, and how Start-Up@Singapore would be the recipe book.

Following that, was a panel discussion moderated by A/P Wong Poh Kam, director of NUS Entrepreneurship Centre, together with Mr Lee Yi Shyan, Lee Junior (co-founder, AceNexus), Saumil Nanavati (CEO, Sydus) and Lee Jiaxing (the lead). A couple of key points on entrepreneurship and enterprise were discussed:

• Role of Government on Entrepreneurship: Mr Lee Yi Shyan brought up that the role of the government is not to create entrepreneurs, but provide the conditions and infrastructure that can allow the cultivation of entrepreneurship in Singapore. He also gave a general strategic direction of the entrepreneurial roadmap in the coming years during his term as the minister in charge of entrepreneurship. He also stressed on the need to go global for small-medium enterprises.
• Appreciation of Infrastructure in Singapore: Mr Saumil Nanavati, CEO of Sydus, founded his company in Singapore, as he wanted to take his product into the Asia-Pacific market. He chose Singapore because of the physical infrastructure and the tax benefits for entrepreneurs. He feels that there is a lack of appreciation on the resources provided by the government.
• Culture of Tolerating Failure: Both Saumil and Lee Junior (both entrepreneurs) believe that Singapore needs to cultivate the culture of tolerating failure. What this means, is that we should give people who fail honourably with their startups a second chance, instead of branding them failures. Of course, we are aware that in the US, most venture capitalists usually invest in entrepreneurs who have failed at least once.

The event ended with the GOH announcing the launch of the Start-Up@Singapore on stage.

You can watch the webcast via this URL.

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