Mr Lee Yi Shyan at the NTU Entrepreneurship & Innovation Festival 2009, 26 Aug 09

Opening Address by Mr Lee Yi Shyan Minister of State for Trade & Industry and Manpower, and Minister In Charge of Entrepreneurship at the NTU Entrepreneurship & Innovation Festival 2009 on 26 August 2009 at 11.45am at Admin Cluster Building, NTU

Professor Su Guaning, President, Nanyang Technological University

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and gentlemen

Good morning to all.

Introduction

It gives me great pleasure to join you for the official launch of the 5th Entrepreneurship & Innovation (E&I) Festival. I would like to commend NTU for their effort in organizing this festival to promote entrepreneurship and innovation among students and the alumni.

As Prof Su said, entrepreneurs play a critical role in an economy. We have long recognized this in Singapore, and have spared no efforts to build the best environment for our entrepreneurs. A special report on entrepreneurship by the Economist put it aptly: “The Singapore government has done everything in its power to make life easy for entrepreneurs.” This has earned us a consistent top spot in the World Bank’s ranking of global economies for ease of doing business. However, the world is not static. We must continue to enhance our pro-business environment to allow more entrepreneurs to thrive.

Youth Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurial talents express themselves in many fields. Many world-class talents started when they were very young. Michelangelo started painting at 12.Mozart began composing at 5.Tiger Woods played golf when he was just 3. Bill Gates wrote his first computer programme at 13. Indeed, it is never too early for us to plant the seed of entrepreneurship.

In 2003, the Ministry of Education (MOE) introduced the Innovation and Enterprise (or I&E) curriculum. Its aim was to inculcate in our youths a spirit of inquiry, the willingness to try different things, and develop the ability to bounce back and keep trying. To take MOE’s efforts one step further, SPRING Singapore rolled out the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme for Schools, or YES! Schools last year. The purpose is to cultivate an enterprising mindset among youths through structured and hands-on entrepreneurship learning programmes. So far, 25 secondary and primary schools and some 6,000 students have benefitted from the programme.

At the university level, our young people are also gaining more exposure to entrepreneurship. Right here in this campus, NTU establishes itself as a leader in entrepreneurship education in several ways: Firstly, NTU introduced the Masters of Science in Technopreneurship and Innovation programme (MSc TIP) to develop the mindset and skill-sets of the students required to start and grow entrepreneurial ventures. Secondly, the Nanyang Technopreneurship Center’s (NTC) tie-up with Kauffman Foundation to set up the latter’s first overseas campus - Kauffman Campus here, reaffirms NTC’s quality and innovative entrepreneurship programme. Thirdly, the NTU Ventures has also invested in and nurtured various innovative startups such as Eme-tech, which has secured global clients like Ali baba from its early days.

All these initiatives speak well for NTU’s entrepreneurship programmes. As students and alumni of NTU, you are very fortunate to have this supportive and progressive institution behind your entrepreneurial dreams.

Entrepreneurship education is most effective when it is accompanied by hands-on opportunities. The YES! Startups programme is one such hands-on help for you. If you are below 26 years old and have an innovative idea or product, you can apply for funding of up to $50,000 to start your business. We would like to see many of you using this programme to try out your new ideas.

Launch of Ideas. Inc.

As alluded by President Su earlier, I am pleased to announce the launch of the Ideas.Inc competition. This competition is organized by NTU and SPRING in partnership with the Action Community for Entrepreneurship, or ACE. Unlike typical business plan competitions where participants pitch their ideas but stop short of converting them into a business, in the Ideas. Inc. competition, participating youths will get to commercialize their business idea and produce actual products and services.

Let me give you one good example where an idea was commercialized to become a successful business. E-Thermnity, started by four NTU undergrads and alumni, produces the world-first Chromi™ series of non-toxic thermo chromatic milk bottles. The company emerged as runners-up in NTU’s Business Plan Competition 2009, and was Champion in the Startup@Singapore Youth Category. The co-founders could have chosen to split the prize money but instead, they started E-Thermnity, with the support of NTU and YES! Startups.

Conclusion

I hope we will be able to multiply many more success stories like E-Thermnity from this campus. I look forward to the day when Singapore develops itself as a thought-leader in entrepreneurship research and best practices, a thriving hub for startups and innovation, an intelligent node linking to the key markets of the world.

Huge success often starts with many small but determined steps. May I encourage you to keep up your ground-breaking efforts in entrepreneurship education and the adoption of best practices in NTC and right here in this campus. Thank you for being a valuable partner in our pursuit of entrepreneurship excellence.