SGEntrepreneurs » Start-Up@Singapore

The 24hr Business Plan Challenge – 14-15 Jan

Egi SEPTIADI — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:36:40 +0000

Singapore’s shortest and most exciting business plan competition is back again this year with three new categories and promises to be a day of heart-pumping excitement. The top team from each of the three categories gets a prize money of S$500 (US$384) and if the judges are impressed enough, direct entry to the semi-finals of the Start-Up@Singapore Business Plan Competition 2012, Singapore’s largest and most prestigious.

Event Details

When: Saturday to Sunday, 14th-15th January 2012
Where: NUS Business School
Register here by 11th Jan.

Entrepreneurs Unplugged 2011 – 8 Nov

SGEntrepreneurs — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 03:50:21 +0000

Next Tuesday, Start-Up@Singapore will organize ‘Entrepreneurs Unplugged’, a panel discussion with the topic ‘Dream Big, Act Now: Converting Ideas into Businesses’. The speakers will share their take on entrepreneurship and cover diverse topics such as how to get out of comfort zones and how to decide on whether an idea is feasible.

Mr David Yim of Udders Ice-Cream, Mr Tong Yee of School of Thought, Associate Professor Albert Teo from NUS business school, Mr Ben Tan of Hauslab D&B Pte Ltd (Design & Build) and Mr Geoffrey Kung of REVERSE Cooperative are the panelists for this event.

Event Details

When: Tuesday, 8th November 2011
Time: 630pm-830pm
Where: Hon Sui Sen Auditorium, NUS Business School, 1, Business Link, Singapore 117592 (Map)
Register here.

This event is part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2011.

SGE is proud to be the Official Online Media partner for GEW 2011.

13th Start-Up@Singapore kicks off

Terence LEE — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 08:32:30 +0000

Start-up@Singapore (S@S), a flagship business plan competition organized by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Entrepreneurship Society, held the official launch for its 13th edition on 6th October.

Last year’s competition saw about 338 teams and around 1000 participants, all vying for the top cash prizes of S$20,000 (US$15,500) for the Open Category and S$5,000 (US$3,890) for the Youth Category, which can be used to turn their ideas into reality.

Past winners include mobile security company TenCube, which was acquired by secruity giant McAfee, and Zimplistic, which produces Rotimatic — a roti-making machine.

This year’s official launch, held at the Hon Sui Sen Auditorium of the NUS Business School, was graced by the Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Teo Ser Luck; Director, NUS Entrepreneurship Centre, Prof Wong Poh Kam; as well as CEO of NUS Enterprise, Dr Lily Chan.

For a summary of the panel discussion, check out e27′s article.

Click here for SGE’s past coverage on S@S.

12th Start-Up@Singapore Awards Ceremony

SGEntrepreneurs — Mon, 16 May 2011 08:40:45 +0000

This year, Start-Up@Singapore (S@S) saw 1000 participants from over 17 countries, making it the most successful installment thus far. The awards cermeony will showcase the finalists of the 12th Start-Up@Singapore and their ideas. Having been through months of rigorous judging processes and mentoring, the finalists will enter a final showdown on the day itself, with the winning teams from both categories walking away with attractive prizes of close to SGD$100K (USD$80K). Check out the speakers below and view the programme here.

Speakers

William W. H. Liu, Chairman of Stream Global Pte Ltd and W3 Infocomm Group Pte Ltd

Mr William Liu (or Bill as he is more commonly known) started his career in the I.T. industry in 1970 after graduating with a B.Sc Hons in Mechanical Engineering from University of Manchester and a M.Sc in OR & Management Studies from Imperial College.He is currently a Board member of SISTIC.com Pte Ltd, the National Library Board and Monte Jade Singapore. Mr Liu was actively involved in IDA’s 2015 “Intelligent Nation, A Global City powered by Infocomm” Master Plan, sitting on 3 sub-committees, viz. Infocomm Competency Council, Financial Services and Enterprise Development.

Yenn Wong, Founder of JIA Boutique Hotels group

Ms. Yenn Wong, 31, is the Founder of JIA Boutique Hotels group of which the first hotel, JIA Hong Kong, opened in March, 2004. The Philippe Starck-designed JIA was the first designer boutique hotel in Hong Kong and Starck’s first hotel in Asia. Since then she has added to the JIA “collection” with JIA Shanghai in August, 2007 and its Italian restaurant Issimo. Yenn herself has received several awards since founding JIA, which include: “Innovative Entrepreneur of the Year 2006″ by Hong Kong’s City Junior Chamber ‘Hospitality Entrepreneur of the Year’ in the Hospitality Asia Platinum Awards 2006 and the Martell ‘Rise Above’ Award 2007. She was also named on the list of top 26 “Asia’s Best Young Entrepreneurs” by Businessweek.

Kenny Eng, Founder of Gardenasia

Starting off with a product-based business concept, Kenny’s foresight and entrepreneur instincts quickly took flight when he saw the potential of lifestyle marketing and holistic services. Gardenasia soon expanded to manage portfolios ranging from corporate events, to Artwine and even garden weddings. Gardenasia imbues the philosophy of its parent company, Nyee Phoe, in her business model. Kenny was awarded the Emerging Young Entrepreneur by E-Global in 2004 and in the following year, he was an Honouree for the Spirit of Enterprise Award. Keeping himself ahead of our changing times, Kenny is also an active member of several organizations which include *Scape Co.Ltd, Kranji Countryside Association, SouthWest CDC and the Singapore Youth Olympics Organising Committee.

Event Details

When: Saturday 21st May 2011
Time: 1215PM-5PM
Where: Kent Ridge Guild House, 9 Kent Ridge Drive, Singapore, 119241

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One-Stop Look At Singapore Business Plan Competitions

Guest Contributor — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:10:14 +0000

If you belong to the camp that believes in business plan competitions, there are three main ones in Singapore: Start-Up@Singapore National Business Plan Competition, Ideas.Inc and the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition. Here’s two side-by-side comparisons of the three, with prize money, timelines and dates.

Click for enlarged version.

Image credit: Tecfan

About The Author

An aspiring branding and product strategist, Ridza Salim is a fourth year Communications & New Media and Technology Entrepreneurship student at the National University of Singapore. Ridza dives deep to understand the relationship between global and local trends in the media, web and technology scenes. Ridza can be found on LinkedIn.

12th Start-Up@Singapore Business Competition

Start-Up@Singapore — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:23:48 +0000

Got a new product or idea? Always wanted to launch your own business? Join Singapore’s most prestigious business plan competition, Start-Up@Singapore Business Plan Competition and stand to win up to SGD 70,000 in funding!

More than just a contest, Start-Up@Singapore provides all participants with opportunities to get professional advice, networking sessions and the chance to pitch your ideas to venture capitalists!

To participate, simply register and submit a three-page executive summary by the Singapore time, 23rd of January 2011 (2359hrs).

Entrepreneurs Unplugged with Start-Up@Singapore

SGEntrepreneurs — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 07:15:04 +0000

Entrepreneurs Unplugged is one of the biggest events of Start-Up@Singapore, the nation’s leading business plan competition and entrepreneurship resource hub. Top local and international entrepreneurs would participate in thought provoking discussions and share their insights on a wide range of entrepreneurship issues. The audience would also have the opportunity to ask intriguing questions and interact with these established entrepreneurs. In addition, there will be a showcase of start-ups in the ASEAN region.

Speakers

Moderator: Ms Pranoti Nargarkar Israni, Founder, Zimplistic Inventions and Open Category Winner of 10th Start-Up@Singapore

Only in her 20s, she left her job at a leading electronic manufacturer to start-up on her own. She recently won the prestigious Start-Up@Singapore 2009 grand champion trophy, which comes with $28,000 in prize money and one free year of office space. Prior to this, Israni’s Zimplistic was awarded the YES! Spring Singapore grant for young entrepreneurs valued at $35,000. Israni aims to partner or license with a consumer appliance brand to bring Rotimatic to market in 2010.

Panelist: Mr John Yap, Co-Founder of Awfully Chocolate and Everything With Fries

Mr John Yap co-founded Awfully Chocolate in 1998. Today, it is a popular dessert franchise with 22 stores in 8 cities. He has since ventured into the eatery business with Everything With Fries, which has outlets in Holland Village and Joo Chiat. A father of three, he runs the businesses with his wife, Ms Lyn Lee.

Panelist: Ms Christina Lim, Founder of Ocean Healthcare

Ms Christina Limis a trained pharmacist and MBA graduate from Singapore, and she founded the Ocean Healthcare (S) Pte Ltd in 1995. Ocean Healthcare (S) Pte Ltd now distributes Ocean Health, Therapeutic Dermatologic Formula and Ocean Derma products throughout Asia. Christina still spends her time pursuing her passion: formulating new products, delivering lectures and sharing with people ways to improve their health condition for a better quality life.

Panelist: Ms Susan Chong, CEO of Greenpac

Greenpac (S) Pte Ltd (“Greenpac”) is a knowledge-based company that specialises in designing and distributing environmentally friendly packaging products and solutions. Since starting the company in September 2002, Susan grew Greenpac from a one-woman start-up into a thriving multimillion dollar company.that serves Fortune 500 companies and is the market leader for environmentally friendly packaging solutions in Asia. Susan has won several prestigious awards, including the Entrepreneur of the Year 2008 and the Enterprise 50 (E50) 2008, where Greenpac was ranked #4 in the exclusive list of 50 of the most enterprising privately-held local companies in Singapore.

Programme

1730 – Start of Registration
1815 – Arrival of Panellists
1830 – S@S Introduction by the Lead
1840 – Panel Discussion
1930 – Question and Answer
1955 – Presentation of Token of Appreciation
2000 – Refreshments

Event Details

When: Monday 15th November 2010
Time: 530pm-8pm
Where: HDB Hub Auditorium, Basement, 480 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh, Singapore 310480

This event is part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010.

SGE is proud to be the Official Online Media partner for GEW 2010.

Soyato Leads The Frozen Soy Way

Start-Up@Singapore — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 16:52:32 +0000

It is every girl’s (and boy’s) dream to enjoy the pleasures of ice cream without the accompanying guilt. An age of scientific progress, together with the bombarding of media images, inculcates in us a degree of health-consciousness. This is complemented by a proliferation of frozen yoghurt shops in Singapore, such as Frolick and Yoguru, an indication of a shift in consumer preference. However, can the lightly masked sourness of yoghurt really replace the wonderful flavours of ice cream? As Verleen Goh, the young founder of Soyato, mentions, even chocolate is sour.

Frozen soy

Verleen and her business partner Alan Phua are offering Singapore a solution, a guilty pleasure without the guilt – frozen soy. The Start-Up@Singapore (S@S) Public Relations department met up with the two young entrepreneurs who won S@S in the open category last year. Despite their busy schedules devoted to their start-up, Verleen and Alan shared with us many insights regarding the business and their experiences of entrepreneurship.

The main selling point of Soyato is the innovation of frozen soy. Its conception was based on the popularity of both ice cream and yoghurt. Perceiving a gap between the two products and realising the limitations of a female-oriented yoghurt market, Verleen and Alan developed the notion of a soy-based dessert free of both milk and eggs.

Their product is in fact even healthier than commercial yoghurt, which masks its sourness with high sugar content. With soy milk as its base, not only can Soyato cater to pockets such as the vegan, vegetarian and lactose intolerant, they provide for anyone who enjoys their ice cream but prefers a healthy alternative. Simply put, Soyato is giving us the best of both worlds.

Future plans

Beginning with nothing but an idea like any other start-up company, Soyato has developed a concrete business plan for expansion. From 4 basic flavours, the dessert now comes in 20 different tastes. They are also opening their first retail store by the end of 2010. When asked about their vision for the company, Verleen and Alan expressed plans to open 3 stores in 1 ½ years and penetrate not just Asian but Western markets.

A strong foundation is required for success

As young graduates, they have big and admirable plans for Soyato. Yet, their ambition and verve are complemented by a cautious awareness that a strong foundation is required for success. Verleen and Alan recognise the need to resolve issues with back-up operations before expansion can be materialised. To tackle foundation operational issues, they have thought of pre-packing ingredients in the production process as to ensure consistency and a high level of quality. However, they also realise the ‘people factor’ is the most difficult problem to work on.

Advice to aspiring entrepreneurs

What advice do Verleen and Alan have for budding entrepreneurs? They encourage young students to have a vision. It is never too early to plan for your business. They also advise youths to join business plan competitions. The process of such a competition forces one to think through concrete plans to implement one’s business idea. Winning the competition is not as important as getting the feedback necessary for start-up companies. Also, a competition imposes a deadline, which forces the participants to stay on track with development.

Verleen and Alan were themselves final-year students when they participated in Start-up@Singapore 2009. S@S has provided them with opportunities to develop their business route and to create a plan that is more than just a product. Even after the competition, they were placed in many settings to conduct networking. Sometimes working at the National University of Singapore incubation hub, they have also received much help from the school.

Throughout the interview, Verleen and Alan were both eager to share their experiences and ideas. We hope to see many more of such young innovative talents to contribute to Singapore’s entrepreneurial landscape.

Soyato on Facebook and Twitter.

Written by He Yining, he.yining@startup.org.sg.

This article is brought to you by 12th Start-Up@Singapore. Visit Startup.org.sg for more highlights.

Start-Up@Singapore 2010 Crowns Its Winners

Start-Up@Singapore — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:18:27 +0000

Organised by the NUS Entrepreneurship Society, the nation-wide business plan competition Start-Up@Singapore 2010 closed with a bang (literally) at its Awards Ceremony held at DBS Auditorium last week, when confetti and streamers were shot high to celebrate the victory of its champion. Acting Minister of Information, Communication and the Arts, Mr Lui Tuck Yew, graced this closing ceremony with the keynote address.

Participants emerged from an enriching journey of workshops, consultations and mentoring sessions organized by Start-Up@Singapore to take home a total of $50,000 in cash prizes.

The champion team of the open category is Soyato made up of two students: Phua Wei Quan and Verleen Goh. They proposed a soy-based dessert of the same name. Soyato is currently sold at mobile stalls, but the team is planning to invest their prize money of $20,000 in a physical store.

The Soyato team.

Also winners are Coating Concepts and TAPP. Coating Concepts aims to revolutionize cutting operations with its self-lubricating coating product. TAPP is a freeware dynamic address book for the smartphone, which updates itself when your contacts change their information.

The champion of the youth category is Towless, a team that aims to bring convenience to many through their toiletries vending machines. Teams Jollyphony and TheCaviarLab also had their share of victory with their exciting ideas of a free gaming website and fruit caviar.

All the winners.

If you want the opportunity to take part in next year’s competition and bootcamps, watch this space!

11 Finalists for this 11th Start-Up@Singapore

Start-Up@Singapore — Sat, 22 May 2010 12:52:09 +0000

The Semi-Final round is over, and 11 Finalists have been selected for this 11th installment of Start-Up@Singapore, the national business plan competition.

Here are the team names and their ideas in a few words:

Open Category Finalists

Powerhouse are a group of Business Administration students looking for new approaches in marketing. Their solution?For-eve.com is the first exclusive all-female try before you buy cosmetics website inSingapore. It replaces the traditional department stores by customizing and bringing the shopping experience to the comforts of the females’ homes.

The shift in consumer preference for eating healthily has led to searches for healthier frozen desserts that still satisfies their taste buds.Observing the trends, a brand new category of frozen dessert can be created in frozen soy, which possesses great product versatility and business potential. We call this product innovation, Soyato.

TAPP is a new way of exchanging your contact information, and keeping it up to date. We have developed a FREE to download dynamic address book for the smartphone, which updates itself when your contacts change their information. Do you have 2 phones? Use TAPP to synchronize your contacts. When you get a new phone, download TAPP, log-in, and access all your contacts straight-away. When you and your contacts are on TAPP, you can message each other for FREE.

Through innovative fusion of fingerprint and face recognition technologies, Real-ID establishes identity of people in emerging countries and prevents identity fraud wirelessly and in real-time.

Coating Concepts Pte Ltd‘s first product poised to be commercialised is a coating that enables self lubrication in high speed cutting operations.The company’s vision is to provide state of the art coating solutions for industrial and consumer applications.

GIVEsingapore is a group of young minds coming together to bring exciting innovation to how we can make the world a better place. Anyone from any background, race, religion or culture is welcomed to be part of Team GIVE. All you need to have is the believe that the world is amazing. If you want to meet us, just drop by at our cozy incubation space within NUS.

Youth Category Finalists

Genesis represents a new beginning. Our business is to rehabilitate lands that were former logging sites (known as dormant land) and turn them once again into productive sites. Genesis will address the issue of deforestation by rehabilitating the forests and the issue of poverty by providing jobs to the indigenous people.

Jollyphony is a website that provides a definitive compilation of non-commercial games i.e. icebreakers, bonding games, traditional games for users who require the use of these games anytime, anywhere.

Nineteen: Two nineteen year-olds with big aspirations in business and an even bigger passion for entrepreneurship. With unique ideas and practical business concepts, we possess the “midas” touch. Having a great interest in the F&B industry, we aspire to revolutionize how a business operates in Singapore’s F&B industry and strive to be Singapore’s leading F&B brand.

TheCaviarLab aims to bring fruit caviar to the mass population, to allow people of all ages to enjoy this. We intend to bring out the uniqueness of the product through drinks, in this case healthy drinks, fruit juices and mock-tails.

Tow-less aims to bring convenience to toilet users by dispensing good quality, affordable toiletries for one-time use by installing vending machines in these facilities.

Congratulations to the finalists!

11th S@S Awards Ceremony

If you’re interested in what got them to the finals, come on down to the 11th S@S Awards Ceremony this year:

Date: Saturday 29th May 2010
Time: 2:30pm – 5:30pm
Venue: DBS Auditorium, Tower 1, 6 Shenton way
GOH: Mr. Lui Tuck Yew, Acting ICA Minister
Attire: Formal (Shirt without tie)

RSVP now!