BlueSky Enterprise Day 2008

The BlueSky Enterprise Day 2008 has been jointly organised by the Action Community for Entrepreneurship, Talentpreneur Hub and the Youth Enterprise Academy to dedicate a half-day event running entrepreneurship related programmes for youths. It was held on Friday,18th July 2008, at the Hwa Chong Institution. Students and teachers from more than 20 primary and tertiary institutes were invited to participate in workshops, board games and exhibitions. These programmes were aimed to engage youths in various activities to inspire them to realize the possibilities of creative ideas and turning them into avenues of wealth creation.




The BlueSky Enterprise Day is part of the BlueSky Festival which is held annually to run initiatives that encourage and foster the spirit of enterprise amongst Singaporeans, namely the youth.




Gracing the event was the Senior Minister of State for Education, RADM (NS) Lui Tuck Yew, acting as Guest of Honour and took a brief tour of the exhibition area.





At the exhibition, various schools also held exhibits side by side along with other business companies supporting the event such as Now Asia, Microsoft and KooBits. Talentpreneur Hub and the Youth Enterprise Academy were on site to present business development and education programmes which are in line with the vision of Spring Singapore’s initiative to integrate youths into the culture of enterprise.







Student booths on the other hand, presented business programmes and activities that have been run by their respective entrepreneurial student clubs and co-curricular activities. There were also those who tried their hand at setting up and running their own shops selling soft toys and bookmarks among others. Most importantly are exhibits which showcased exemplary Singapore start-ups such as Charles and Keith detailing their humble beginnings to the successful businesses they are today.







Also gracing the event were educational albeit fun filled games held by Settlers Lite, also a local start up. Set in tables laid with board games, groups of students were treated to the fine but essential skills of networking and negotiating. Strategic game play was also evident in “Dividends” where players engage themselves in the trade of financial literacy. Central to the purpose of enterprise, these would prove to be invaluable skills in business and lay the foundation of enterprise in seamless and interactive activity.







Workshops were at hand to foster creative ideas and grease the wheels of innovation. In a series of talks, students participated in discussions with speakers, shared ideas and mapped out concepts in business. It presents a wonderful avenue for them to learn and interact with others to inspire potential entrepreneurs by planting the seeds of business acumen.

Mayor's Imagine Social Entrepreneurship Challenge (MISE) 2008

The Mayor's Imagine Social Entrepreneurship Challenge (MISE) 2008 was designed to help acquaint youth with the local social entrepreneurship scene and to challenge them to come up with a feasible business plan to help voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) to set up sustainable social enterprises to aid their causes.




More than 200 students from JCs, Polytechnics, ITEs and Universities from 50 teams submitted their executive summaries for their idea.

20 teams were specially selected to go through the Business Plan Workshop by Youth Enterprise Academy. 10 teams would be shortlisted in this round where they would again compete for their projects to be funded by the Mayor's Imagine Fund (MIF).



On Day 1, students learnt about the local social entrepreneurship climate as well as the various legal forms that a social enterprise. They also learnt about business plan essentials in an intensive module and also learnt the importance of being able to market their plan well.

In between Day 1 & Day 2 of the Business Plan Workshop, students signed up for mentoring sessions led by trainers to help them fine-tune and iron out hiccups in their business plan. Given the strict judging criteria, it was not surprising that a large number of students were feeling stressed (it was written all over their faces!) to come up with a solid, feasible and credible business plan to show the judges during Day 2 of the programme.

On Day 2, concurrent sessions of Smart Money board game programmes was run while the judging was going on.



While the students may look relaxed in the above picture, I could tell that their mind was on the judging that was going on in the other room. If it was me, I'll be nervous too!

The MISE Challenge 2008 is a great platform to help students to learn about VWOs and to help think of business ideas to help VWOs create self-running, sustainable social enterprises (thus adding an added avenue of much-needed funds to advance their causes and help their beneficiaries). I felt greatly encouraged by the compassion of the youths to raise up to the challenge and test their mettle (and business ideas!).

To the teams who didn't make it, keep that passion burning! Social entrepreneurship do not begin nor end with MISE 2008. You decide whether or not to make a difference and when to call it quits!

And to the finalist teams, all the best!

For the latest updates on the MISE 2008, watch this space!

Join Us at BlueSky Enterprise Day 2008!

Register for the workshops now by sending your details to events@talentpreneurhub.com !

Hope to see you there! :)

InnoWorks™ : Spark That Idea!

I think I forgot to announce this but Youth Enterprise Academy is the Education Partner of the 9th Design Competition organised by Bukit View Secondary School and Ngee Ann Polytechnic.



To help students to find that creative spark they need to create that winning design, a compact version of the programme was customised for the competition and students and teachers from schools like Rulang Primary School, Raffles Girls School (Secondary) and Pasir Ris Primary School came together for an afternoon of learning and fun!

'Hmm where does this piece go?'

Students learn about the importance of Innovation in today's world. It's presentation time! Feedback is always important. And I really like their ideas too!

The red dot design museum is a great place for new ideas to spawn forth from young minds!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the teachers and students for attending the workshop.

It's not often that we have teachers and students to come together as participants and I'm glad they did, because I think that just the simple task of working together will help to them to bond as a team and I'm confident that they'll be able to do well in the upcoming competition!

Girls Rulz...

One of the girls in my class wrote that on her group's working plan. And I have to say that I must agree.

Working with the girls of St Anthony's Canossian Secondary School was a new experience and a definite blast.

The girls were able to express their interests, individuality and passion through their business plans in the E³ Progamme.

Some of the ideas that they came up with were really impressive and they really have some very good marketing skills!

A picture speaks a thousand words so here's a few to prove my point.

The girls assess various creative opportunities that they have thought up.

Time for some games! And teachers get to play too!

'I think she should do it!' The girls learn to co-operate 'arrow' one another.

One of the 2 winning teams in the competition, theWHATmag team.

Another team presents their business plan in a mini-competition between the two classes.

I personally feel that it's great that the girls have strong support from the school to act on and follow up from their business ideas from the workshop. I look forward to seeing these plans put in action next year!

All the best girls!

National Youth Entrepreneurship Conference 2007

The first NYEC is organised by the Exoro Team (find out more about them here) to reach out to students from all tertiary institutes and also, to challenge them to prove their mettle at the National ExoroGame™ Youth Challenge.

Here, teams of 3 (each taking up the role of a CEO, CTO and CMO for Chief Executive, Technology and Marketing Officer respectively) from each school put on their business hats and go mano-a-mano against the other teams in the business simulation board game ExoroGame™. They must purchase, market, develop (and even patent) and price their products while keeping an eye out on their competitors and avoid falling too deeply into debts at the same time.

The process above sure sounds similar to the actual process of running a real business.

Talentpreneur Hub was invited to be a Supporting Organisation for the NYEC 2007 and it was really good to see some familiar faces from the schools that we have worked with turn up at the Challenge.

Colin from Settler's Cafe was also there and there was a lot of interest from teachers and students in the Settler's Lite programme. To find out more about it, visit the Settler's Lite website.

I thought that the most interesting highlight of the conference was Mr Ron Sim's sharing of his experience as an entrepreneur. Given that he has been on the enterprise path for the last 20 years, his stories really left me a lot to think about.

But more stories about it next time! Youth Enterprise Academy, together with Talentpreneur Hub, will be launching the biggest school entrepreneur event of the year! And you saw it here first!

So be sure to mark out the 27th October 2007 down on your calendar because everyone is invited to the National Schools Entrepreneur Summit 2007!

Stay tune for more information in the coming weeks :)

2 Sheeps for 1 Brick Please!

I had a pleasant surprise during one of my board games session for Kong Hwa School that was held at Settler's Cafe.

One of the creator of the stock market board game Dividends (pictured above), Evelyn Brunner from Fun Factory Games, actually dropped by to check out our board game programme!


Colin invited her, and even he initially thought that Kong Hwa School was a secondary school and told Evelyn, 'You got to come see these people use your board game to teach entrepreneurship to secondary school students.'

So they both were shell shocked when I told them that these kids are actually primary school students and yes, they ARE playing high-level games like Settlers of Catan and Dividends, and they play it well too. And no, you're not dreaming either.

Evelyn told me that Dividends was never really intended for children 12 years of age and below. That's because the stock market system and its concepts aren't easily understandable by the very young.

Remind me to drop her an email the next time saying that she can drop the target age group on the box from 13+ - Adults to 10+ - Adults.

I'm not surprised at how smart and creative primary school students are simply because I've work with them a lot. I get this warm proud feeling in my heart when I see them play Settlers of Catan and they trade and negotiate as well as anyone you can think of.

Bullying techniques? Check.

Reverse-psychology techniques? Check.

Long-term partnerships? Check.

Good head for business? (You want this ore? Sure, pass me 2 sheep and 1 wood and it's yours) Check.

So really, underestimate them at your own peril. Competitions like YESCOM have already proved that when it comes to Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the primary school students are as business-savvy (if not more so) as secondary school students.

Settlers of Catan Board Game Competition

Settlers of Catan isn't the easiest of games to play and can be quite difficult to pick up immediately, especially if you're an unseasoned player.


I conducted the competition for Serangoon Secondary School's I&E Day and expected students to stuggle with the game as the dynamics of european games can be quite different.

But judging by the response and the strategies that were deployed by the students of Serangoon Secondary Schools, they're no pushovers too. They traded, bargained, threatened and cajoled their way to victory. Kudos to them.

There were 2 rounds of competition, where winners of the first round would go on to play the second round. The winners of the second round would go on to win attractive prizes sponsored by Settler's Cafe.

Mr Yeo, the principal, commented on their initiative, stating the school has and will always support new learning initiatives such as learning through board games, and encouraged the winners to step up to take part in the Nationals, if there are any.

Good news for the champions then, there IS a Settlers of Catan National Board Game Competition. When is it going to happen?

Well, I guess you just have to watch this space, I suppose.

'Go Global' Business Case Seminar

The "Go Global" Business Case Competition saw the gathering of students from completely different cultural and educational backgrounds to tackle a business case study. Participants from tertiary institutions and international schools went through team-bonding and problem-based learning to synergise their strengths and efforts in solving an unconventional business case study.
One of highlights of the competition was a seminar with a panel discussion organized by Talentpreneur Hub held before the final presentation of the competition. The topic of the seminar was Youth Entrepreneurship and Opportunities Abroad. Successful local entrepreneurs Ms Elim Chew of 77th Street, Mr Douglas Foo of Sakae Sushi, Mr Colin Lim of Settlers’ Café and eBay PowerSeller, Mark Young gave the audience valuable insights on handling setback and venturing overseas. Young entrepreneurs of Talentpreneur Hub, Nicky Teo of Funeral Solutions, Serene Yeo and Goh Cheng Ze of Dotbox also shared about their start-up journey. An interactive session of Q&A following their sharing had many members of the audience motivated to further explore their own business ideas. Many of them commented that it was inspiring meeting the young entrepreneurs in person and learning about their start-up journey.In the following months, YEA will feature more events that serve as platforms for young people to cultivate their interest and knowledge in entrepreneurship in the months to come. Meanwhile, keep a lookout for details of the National Schools Entrepreneur Summit coming up in December 2007. This event will bring together student entrepreneurs from all over Singapore and offer a smörgåsbord of activities and talks to bring spotlight to the school entrepreneur scene!

It takes a different kind...

of student to be able to apply what they have learnt from your workshop and put those ideas into great use.

The youth from the National Junior College Innovation & Enterprise Club are exactly the kind of students who have what it takes to convert ideas into winning designs.

The InnoWorks™ @ red dot design museum programme was aimed at helping them to idealize and conceptualise different ideas for competitions such as the RJC Toy Challenge and Citibank Ideas In Action.

And we were overjoyed when 2 of those designs got into both competitions above. I always believe that the red dot design museum is a great nexus for innovation and design. And Sharon, the President of the I&E Club, says it best,' I really enjoyed the exhibition of ideas (at the museum) and seeing how an idea that I had thought of during GEC (have) actually won a RedDot award. This highly motivates me.'

So congratulations to Edmund and his team, the Youth Enterprise Academy team is behind you every step of the way!

Innovative & Technical Excellence

That's my acronym for ITE because that's the kind of impression I get from ITE students on the programmes that I work with them.

After the previous experience with ITE College East, ITE College West (Dover) approached us to do a InnoWorks™ programme to help their students generate new ideas for the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventor's Award.

And after a quick briefing, they got to work pretty quickly! Great ideas like a stackable tray with a drinks slot for the canteen, stackable auditorium chairs and even milk bottles with soothing music for babies!

Any student can be creative, but the ITE student temper imagination with practicality, thinking of practical ideas that applies to everyday life.