NUS Entrepreneurship Week 2009 (EWeek), an initiative by the NUS Entrepreneurship Society (NES), is a series of events set to raise the awareness of entrepreneurship among NUS students. EWeek will be held to from 19th to 23rd January 2009 with a series of talks, conferences and competitions, in accordance with the theme "Discover, Explore and unleash the entrepreneur in you". Through these events, students will be exposed to emerging forms of entrepreneurship, including green energy, woman entrepreneurship and web technology. Students are also given opportunities to interact with established entrepreneurs, network with enthusiasts and take part in competitions throughout the week. Visit http://www.nes.org.sg/ for more details!

Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Schools (YES! Schools)

Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Schools (YES! Schools)

Provides schools with grants of up to $100,000 to support structured entrepreneurial learning activities

YES! Schools was launched on 10th October 2008 with the objective of nurturing and encouraging students to be enterprising and innovative through ‘hands-on’ entrepreneurship learning opportunities. This scheme will provide funding support for schools to put in place a comprehensive structured entrepreneurship learning programme for their students.

Each year, the schools will have the following amounts to tap on to fund their projects :

a. Up to $100,000 per polytechnic;
b. Up to $50,000 per ITE college; and
c. Up to $10,000 per junior college/centralised institute/secondary school.

Eligibility

YES! Schools is available to polytechnics, ITEs, junior colleges, centralised institute and secondary schools. Projects from primary schools may be funded on a selective basis.

Evaluation Criteria

SPRING will evaluate projects submitted by schools based on the following criteria :

* Entrepreneurship and innovative elements
The proposal should highlight the innovative approach of the project in entrepreneurship learning;

* Holistic approach
The proposal should cover a comprehensive programme on the entrepreneurship learning activities to cultivate a mindset for enterprise among the students and/or teachers;

* Hands-on (experiential) learning component
The proposal should demonstrate the feasibility of the project and outline the steps taken to ensure effective learning outcomes for students. Projects should also require students to put to practical use the lessons learnt; and

* Reach of project
The proposal should indicate the number of students who will benefit from the project.

Apply for YES! Schools

Schools interested in applying for YES! Schools can do so from 1 November 2008.

For any enquiries on YES! Schools, please contact us via email : yes_schools@spring.gov.sg.


For more information on government assistance programmes, please contact the EnterpriseOne hotline at Tel : (65) 6898 1800 or email enterpriseone@spring.gov.sg.

Who says Etiquette class is boring?

I personally think that students nowadays can be rather blessed, the current education system is a lot more flexible and dynamic as compared to when I was a student, allowing students to be exposed to a lot more than just what they need to know to pass exams.

Business Etiquette and Networking is a very good example. We were invited by ITE College West (Clementi Campus) to train their students on business etiquette as well as business networking.

Students get to roleplay as professionals in various fields and then attempt to 'network' with one another. With hilarous results I may add.

Derick and I did the namecard and formality exchange.

'Hi, meet my boss, .....' the class learn about the do's and don't of formal business introductions.

'Nice namecard!' Live demo of what to do and say when meeting new people in a business setting.

The trick to knowing what is the correct volume to use during presentation is that when you cover your ears and speak, you should sound louder in your head than what you would normally be used to. This would mean that you're really projecting.

I've mention before that I really enjoy working with ITE students and I enjoyed having the opportunity to train and interact with the 120 Banking students. Thanks guys. You were great! Look forward to training you soon :) 

I wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Point Blank : Youths Fight Back! On Economy

Ken, our Founder, was featured on RazorTV's Point Blank in a segment titled,'Youths Fight Back! On Economy'

Check it out below!

'Secrets of Young Entrepreneur' Workshop

Global Entrepreneurship Week “the Week” is a world-wide initiative where more than 74 countries will, together with partner organisations, conduct a range of activities designed to inspire, connect, inform, mentor and engage the next generation of entrepreneurs. Global Entrepreneur Week 2008 will take place from 17th November – 23rd November. More information about the Week can be found here.

NUS Enterprise and Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) are the Country Hosts for Singapore and Youth Enterprise Academy is proud to be a part of this exciting global initiative as a supporting partner.

In line with the Week’s vision, we will be having a ‘Secrets of Young Entrepreneurs’ (SoYE) Workshop at the Singapore Management University (SMU) on Saturday, 22nd Nov 2008. SoYE is a 1-day workshop that introduces participants to the Entrepreneur Mindset, the secrets to discovering great opportunities in their environment as well as the essentials of successful marketing. The workshop will also be featuring young and successful entrepreneurs from the soon-to-be-released book ‘The 3rd Little Pig’ and they will be sharing their success stories with participants.

This introductory workshop is highly recommended for students, aspiring entrepreneurs and teachers. It's a great way for participants to understand the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and to get up close and personal with successful young entrepreneurs.

Date & Time: Saturday 22nd November 2008, 10am – 6pm
Venue: Singapore Management University
Cost: $40 per participant (Special rate of $25 for students).

Includes handouts.
Lunch and refreshments will be catered.

To sign up, simply send us the following details to education@yea.sg or call us at 6222 5672 with your

1. Name
   
2. Organisation
   
3. Occupation
   
4. Email
   
5. Contact Number

Click to view the Trainer's and Speakers' Profile.

Hope to see you there!

Not Just Another Name

In support of *scape, we strongly encourage everyone to sign up for an afternoon of great family bonding. Visit http://www.scape.com.sg/hookup/ to register now!

It doesn't matter if you're a retro parent, hip and happening youth or a groovy grandparent, Money No Enough II is a great movie to catch with your family!

Both Ken and I will be there so hope to see you!

Board Game Programmes @ *scape!

That's right! If you have been wondering how you can take part in our popular board game programmes, here's your chance!

Are you ready to take this opportunity to discover that hidden entrepreneurial spirit in you? Come join us for an evening of fun and learn something about yourself and who knows, it might just change the way you seize life's opportunities.

There will be a different Board Game Programme every Thursday from 7.15pm to 9.45pm at Settlers Lite @ *scape starting from 4th September 2008. So get ready to have a blast with us each week as each board game promises unique learning points and entrepreneurial concepts!


Board Game Programme Schedule

Smart Money - 4 Sept 2008
Zeros-to-Heros - 11 Sept 2008
Dividends - 18 Sept 2008
ExoroGame™ - 25 Sept 2008
Settlers of Catan - 2 Oct 2008
Corporate Cahoots - 9 Oct 2008
Executive Decision - 16 Oct 2008

Who is it for: Everyone!
Time: 7.15pm to 9.45pm
Venue: *scape Youth Centre, 113 Somerset Road, S(238165)
(5 mins from Somerset MRT)
Cost: $20 per person (students enjoy a special rate of $15!)

Register Now!

or email to education[at]yea.sg with your name, occupation, contact number and the session that you would like to attend!

Details of the different board games are below. It's a different board each week so there's always something new to look forward to!



See you there!

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! :)

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!

Selling Made Easy

I suppose that I should really feel quite touched when students from the ETP Club who turn up for the Fundamental of Sales workshop even though they have already attended it before.

When asked why the repeat attendance they responded, 'Because your workshop is interesting mah!'

As a trainer, that's easily the biggest compliment your student can give you.

A good thing then that I always try to make sure that each workshop is a unique experiece with different examples, case studies and activities.

Here are the highlights of the recently concluded Fundamentals of Sales workshop at ITE West (Clementi Campus).

Showing them the ultimate Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon sales move

Students were split into 2 groups of buyers and sellers to try and see who can get a better bargain out of the negotiation process.

Students share a private funny moment.

Jeralynn and friend try to act cute. They succeeded.

Roleplaying is fun!

I really look forward to working with them again. Hehe, I haven't shown them the Raising Phoenix Marketing Stance yet.

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!

National Schools Entrepreneur Summit 2007 Revisited

The National Schools Entrepreneur Summit (NSES) 2007, organised by Youth Enterprise Academy, SMU Ventures and Talentpreneur Hub, is an annual platform for primary to tertiary institutes to come together to share and showcase their various entrepreneurial initiatives and achievements. It was held on Sat, October 27th 2007 at Singapore Management University and attracted more than 250 representatives from 45 schools.

Students and teachers from 19 schools and institutes were invited to take part in the Young Entrepreneur Showcase and was a great way for participants to be updated with the latest in the school I&E scene. Student participants received the opportunity to learn and interact with their peers from other schools as well as with young entrepreneurs who have started their business.

Summit participants also got to engage a panel of educators and entrepreneurs on relevant issues in the youth entrepreneurship scene. Individuals on the Panel included Mr Tony Seow, Guest of Honor and Founder & Managing Director of Purple Sage; Professor Desai, Associate Dean of Information Systems; Mr Suresh Shankar, CEO of RedPill Solution; Mr Ken Koh, Founder & Business Development Director, Youth Enterprise Academy.

Here are some snapshots from the event: