ASEANpreneurs Youth Leader Network 2008

ASEANpreneurs Youth Leader Exchange (AYLE) is the flagship exchange project organized by the ASEANpreneurs Youth Leader Network of NUS Entrepreneurship Society (NES), bringing together student leaders and entrepreneurs from the ASEAN countries. Launched in 21 May 2008, AYLE has successfully organized the first edition of AYLE in Singapore, having attracted 29 student leaders from 8 ASEAN countries. Through the 7-day program consisting of entrepreneurship and leadership lectures, company visits and brainstorming sessions, delegates explored on a wide range of entrepreneurship related issues and many went back to their respective countries as advocates and voices of ASEAN youth entrepreneurship. Moving on to our second year, AYLE would be assisting another ASEAN country to host AYLE 09 while actively promoting youth entrepreneurship in ASEAN region through a series of workshops and events.

Talentpreneur Hub and Youth Enterprise Academy was invited to take part in the ASEANpreneurs Youth Leaders Exchange to share about our entrepreneurial journey. It was a great way for the delegates to learn from our experiences as well as pick up ideas and opportunities from the sharing and bring it back to their home countries.

And boy did we have fun sharing. Interestingly enough, most of the foreign delegates were interested in board game programmes (I mean what's not to like about board games, they're super fun, educational, impactful and you learn so much in 2 hours and yet it doesn't really feel like learning at all) and inquired about opportunities to bring some of these educational programmes back to their countries.

There was a Vietnamese student who shared that she's the President of the Cashflow Club back in her university in Hanoi and they really love the board game Cashflow. I mean, like, wow. That's awesome.

To find out more about ASEANpreneurs, visit their website here.

Cream of the Crop

I personally think that the IvP is a great programme for young students to stand up and dare to be creative.

These students at Kong Hwa School are exceptionally intelligent, creative and initiative (and self-initiated learners if I may add). Don't judge them based on their sizes, for small people, they sure have big ideas.

The red dot design museum never cease to amaze. Especially if you're visiting it for the first time. Students want to email the designers to ask them some questions on their works.
'Grandma, what a big fridge you have...' 'The better to chop you up and refrigerate you my dear...' A student explores one of the award-winning design refrigerator.
Back to school : students share what they have learnt during the museum visit.

BrainWriting in action! 'So what do you think?' The Innovative 8 (one of them is missing from the picture) brainstorm for ideas.' So tell me again why these students are so passionate about innovation? They come up with great ideas, question everything and have a huge hunger to learn.'

'These are the better students, they're all student leaders and are good performers in school.'

Ah, this explains everything. All the best for your IvP project kids! I'll definitely be seeing you soon!

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!

I³ Workshop @ St Anthony's Canossian Secondary School from 20th Feb 2008 to 22nd Feb 2008

It was my first time being a facilitator for a YEA programme at St Anthony’s Canossian Secondary School. I was pretty excited about the workshop and have been looking forward to it all week!

On the first and second day of the workshop, board games were the highlights where the girls get to play educational board games as part of their learning. The board games were interesting and interactive as you can easily see that from the happy faces of the girls. The girls were happily playing and cooperated very well with one another. This was most obvious when they're negotiating “deals” among themselves in order to push and promote their businesses. I was impressed by the ‘friendliness’ in their negotiation.

Negotiation of deal being carried out among the 2 players. An “Ok settled!” statement is quickly followed by a swift transaction. If only things are as easy in the real world....

The girls are listening attentively to Donnie for the explanation of the cards and their functions.

On the last day of the workshop, the girls were able to generate many creative ideas for their upcoming entrepreneurial projects. It was impressive to see that the girls are very enthusiastic and supportive of the ideas produced by their classmate. Girl power!

Cracking their brains and putting ideas together to decide on which product or service to provide.

Presenting their innovative ideas!

Good job girls! I am so proud of all of you. Hope that all your ideas would be put into action in the near future and be a great success!

Hope to see you all again soon!

Making An Impact On Your Immediate Environment

Our recent Creative Problem Solving workshops at ITE Balestier proves that sparks for creative ideas can be found anywhere and everywhere.

Or in this case, students were able to come up with creative solutions to everyday problems that they face in schools. Problems like the losing of tools during automotive lessons, or the inability to open doors when you're carrying bulky items (because your hands are full), or even how to improve the ways you move heavy objects like tires were put through their creative mills. The end results were, as always, remarkably exciting.

I look forward to see these ideas developed for the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventor's Award.

In the meantime, here's some snaps from the workshops at ITE Balestier.

I don't need no flipchart to present my idea!

Brainstorming for great ideas.

I've actually learnt a thing or two about automotive from these automotive students :)

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!

How to Raise Funds for Next Year

The recent training that I had with Temasek Secondary School's I&E Club reinforces the belief that good ideas, good BUSINESS ideas can come from anyone.

Case in point, the students from the club went through a round of InnoWorks™ to generate a fresh arsenal of fund raising ideas for the club.

Their best idea? I won't tell you but I'll give you a hint: similar to the idea of this RJC (or is it former RJC?) student's business idea.

Check it out here : http://donutsonline.zlhub.com/

Here're some snaps.

Mabel shares a funny moment with the students.

Giving the students some food for thought :)

Hard at work!

A group sharing an idea of theirs.

I look forward to see their ideas bear fruit next year :)

Thinking of New Ways to have FunD!

The challenge posed to the Dunearn Secondary 2 cohort was this, to come up with interesting and unique fund-raising ideas for the schools.


Some of the students were a bit reluctant, and they didn't really believe that their ideas will be green-lighted by the school and brought to fruition.

It is often this resignation to fate or the notion that their ideas will not make a difference. Why come up with great ideas if they're all gonna be swept under the carpet? Then there's always this fear that their ideas won't work out. It's often easier to just not do anything than to do something and run the risk of failing

The thing is, reluctant students won't remain that way for long while in my class. It is paramount that my students must always believe in themselves and their ability to come out with an idea that's great.

I got Yun Rui, one of my students a previous programme from National Junior College to help out as a facilitator in my class. Her infectious ice-breaker soon roused everyone and I recoreded clip where my class did a class cheer that brought down the house but it would have been too ear-piercingly loud to put it here.


Here's some footages of the great ideas from the cohort training at Dunearn Secondary.

Sometimes, all it takes for unity is 2 fingers. And with a united team, anything is possible.

I should know :)

Recycling's The Way to Go

To make our InnoWorks™ programme at for the Secondary One cohort at Dunearn Secondary more interesting, we decided to up the usual challenge to the students more interesting.
Design, pitch, plan the materials and then redeem for the materials that you need to make your product.


And since each team only had limited amount of points and there were limited resources, it was most interesting to see how they would decide which materials to use.


'Eh, let's use the colgate box.'

'Don't want la! The cardboard so flimsy, plastic bottle better.'

'No plastic will not be good for our product, so hard to decorate it.'

'Then I do lor, come pass to me.'

'I still think colgate box is better.'


Once again, the level of creativity and the quality of their ideas and works never fail to stump me. It's these little surprises that I really look forward to with each programme. I'll post about the great ideas by the Secondary Two cohort sometime later this week when I have the time.


Cheeras, happy holidays to all you students out there and have lots of fun! (But don't forget to revise ok? Heh)

Back to Bukit View

Last year, around this time, we did a InnoWorks™ for Bukit View Secondary for their sec 2s.

This year, we were invited back to do the same programme both their Secondary 1 and 2 cohorts.

As as usual, it's always a riot (I mean it in a good way) for trainers because it's honestly is great fun!

Bukit View Secondary has always been well-known in its cluster to be very innovation-oriented. And this is reflected in the quality of their students and how quick they are to come up with great suggestions and improvements for the school environment.

As usual, the red dot design museum is a catalyst and breeding ground for wild ideas. All the best to the students at Bukit View (do they call you Bukit Viewers?), Youth Enterprise Academy would certainly hope to be back to see you all again!

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!