The 24 Hour Showdown

Start-Up@Singapore concluded its first ever 24 Hour Biz Plan Challenge last weekend. Held overnight at the NUS Business School, it was intended for those who wanted the experience of developing a business plan in the shortest time frame possible. The event saw 33 teams of 110 participants in total fighting to keep awake while absorbing as much as they could about entrepreneurship in 24 hours.

Participants were in teams of 2 to 4 members and had to develop from scratch an idea that fit into any one of the three emerging industries introduced to them during the first part of the challenge – namely the Silver Industry, Social Entrepreneurship and Interactive Digital Media. At the end of it, they were to submit a 3-page executive summary for the 24 Hour Biz Plan Challenge and prepare a short 3 minute pitch to be presented to a panel of judges.

Speakers for the day included…

- Mr Alvin Lim, CEO of Bizlink Centre Singapore Ltd, on Social Entrepreneurship
- Mr Paul Southern, Director forTV, Video & Music Platforms (Asia) at Microsoft on Interactive Digital Media
- Mr. Lee Junior, Managing Director, Silver Capital Investment Pte Ltd sharing about the Silver Industry.
- Dr. Bernard Leong, Co-founder of Chlkboard to teach the participants how to write a sound Executive Summary in under 24 hours

The Ultimate Start-Up Space

Adding to the excitement, was our partner Martell V.S.O.P’s Ultimate Start-Up Space competition. The Ultimate Start-Up Space competition presents a 760 square feet shopfront space at Clarke Quay open to the imagination of budding entrepreneurs on how they wish to use it – as a flagship store for their idea, a retail outlet or even a business/advertising showcase for their ideas.

All participants have to do is to present a 1 minute pitch on how they would use this space to develop their business idea. Whether or not the the participants ideas fully leveraged on the space presented to them, having them think about how to use the space to accommodate their idea on silver industry, social entrepreneurship or interactive digital media was in itself, a good thinking exercise on how they would do their marketing if their idea materialised. The Ultimate Start-Up Space portal is still open for submission of ideas until the 12th February 2010.

Winners of the 24 Hour Biz Plan Challenge

At the end of the 2 day event and a 3-minute pitch to a panel of distinguished judges, a winner from each category was chosen. These winners also move onto the semi-finals stage of the 11th Start-Up@Singapore.

Smiles

In Tamil Nadu, India, 80% of rural farmers live below the poverty line of USD 1 a day. This poverty stems from a systematic inability to grow income sources due to land degradation. Specifically in our target districts of Tiruchirapalli and Karur, only 25% of land is arable. Team Smiles breakthrough business model – MicroMacro is an organic agriculture micro-investment social enterprise that is currently focused on empowering farmers in Tamil Nadu, India to increase plot utilization and alleviate poverty.

Team Smiles

Barely in their 20s, Smiles’s founder, Ivan Chang and Keith Tan have set ablaze the local social enterprise scene. Currently, Ivan Chang is pursuing a degree in Business Administration from SMU and awaiting for his CPA qualification. Keith Tan will be heading toward NUS for an undergraduate study in Architecture. Together, they hope to continue raise the bar for innovation and enterprise.

SilverConnect

There is no argument that the world is facing an aging population, and this presents a great opportunity for businesses to target this market. Yet despite this potential, the over 50s market has been largely ignored. As mass old age is still a relatively new phenomena, companies going into this industry face many uncertainties and an incomplete understanding of the elderly market.

Team SilverConnect

SilverConnect aims to be the full stop to that question. By conducting market research specifically targeting the elderly, we aim to bridge the gap between new and existing businesses and the up and coming silver industry.

With the 24 Hour Biz Plan Challenge, the 11th Start-Up@Singapore has come to the end of the phase of educating and empowering the public on entrepreneurship. Following the executive deadline summary on the 1st Feb 2010, about 30 to 40 semi-finalists will be selected from the large pool of submissions expected to come in. From that group, yet another 12 only will have the opportunity to make it to the finals of the competition that will take place in end May.

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