I agree with BL that cultural mindset is probably one biggest challenges. I agree that initiative (look at Sim Wong Hoo’s articles on NUTS) and passion are very important and it may be seldom seen on youth. But there is one exception guy whom I would like to recommend. He’s not an entrepreneur nor major in business but he has the traits of an entrepreneur (passion and initiative).

That person is none other than Mechanical Engineering graduate 2003 Mr Peter Ho Yew Chi. He is one senior whom I respected a lot even though I do not know him. Since young, he loves cars a lot, however in Mechanical engineering, we do have a wide range of specialisation but sad to say, there is no automotive.

In 2001, Peter Ho managed to convince some other friends and Professor Seah Kar Heng to build a FSAE race car (FSAE is a student-built race car competition which is held in US.) as a FYP project. Obviously, the team wasn’t expert in the field and there were problems with fundings as well.

But with two years of hard work, the first FSAE race carwas build in 2003 although it did not manage to reach US for competition due to a lack of funds. The dream continued and the 2006 FSAE car is NUS’s fourth FSAE race car.

Peter Ho may not be an entrepreneur but his passion and dream of building his own race car are two traits which I think all entrepreneurs can learn from him.

In the most recent FSAE 2006 competition, our black FSAE car named Centennial II achieved a rank of no. 27th out of over 140 top university competitors. In the design criteria, the FSAE 2006 ranks the 9th best design. Although Singapore has very few local brand companies that has strong global presence, the NUS FSAE race car, being a student project is Singapore-made and international branded. (Not to mention that the NUS FSAE race car beats all university competitors from Japan, Korea etc. The FSAE race car is the best student-made car out of all Asia competitors.) And, NUS is the only “manufacturer” that Singapore government has given license to make cars.

A pity, sorry.. the FSAE race car is NOT allowed for commerical purpose… unless u can convince the “kiasi” government..

With NUS FSAE continuing to gain reputation, will that translate to a golden business opportunity to develop Singapore as a design automotive supporting hub? But with BMW design studio in Singapore and other automotive parts makers such as Bosch, Delphi and Denso…. It is hard to tell as of now….

- From Mr YSF.

Acutually, I think that the cultural mindset is one of the biggest challenges to implement in Singapore and I agree with what Marissa Mayer talks about.

Often times, I feel that it is the initiative and passion that drives a project or process across. I don’t see that happening a lot in our youth. If you are engaged in a startup, there is a lot of space to innovate and yet, somehow, a lot of people here are working in technology startups, but they don’t seem to catch the bug of innovating for the sake of making a 70% product that works.