2. Speeches
Speech by MOS Dinesh Vasu Dash at the National Youth Entrepreneurship Awards
12 November 2025
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Introduction
1. It is indeed an honour for me to join you at the National Youth Entrepreneurship Awards (NYEA).
2. It is always exciting to see young minds, your creativity, and what you are planning to do. I saw some of your products just now as well. It is very important for the Singapore startup ecosystem, to bring fresh ideas to the table, for new products to be coming online, and for us to support our own entrepreneurs locally.
a. Since 2016, the NYEA has celebrated youths who have displayed exceptional entrepreneurial abilities, and recognised their contributions to the ecosystem.
b. Through this award, we hope to continue inspiring more young Singaporeans to drive local innovation and growth.
Singapore’s Startup Ecosystem
3. Entrepreneurship in Singapore is something that has been within the national ecosystem, ever since the founding of Singapore.
4. In fact, we have been seen to be an entrepreneurship hub.
a. We are currently ranked 4th in StartupBlink's Global Startup Ecosystem Index 2025.
b. Singapore has about 4,500 tech startups, about 220 incubators, and about 500 venture capital firms.
5. We have the right ingredients for a decent ecosystem as far as entrepreneurship is concerned. The key objective would be what else we need to do to ramp up the entrepreneurial spirit and culture within Singapore. That's where all of you come in, for this to be an engine for growth from an economic point of view.
6. The economy is rapidly evolving. We are starting to see some degree of drying up of venture capital funds and perhaps that is the cycle of the global economies at this stage in life. But it is useful for us to then take a look and see what else we need to do on talent, funding ideas, and areas where we can better incubate and scale up within the ecosystem for entrepreneurship. We are not only talking about deep tech or med tech alone. We are equally happy with lifestyle entrepreneurs as well, and we think that we can leverage the Singaporean brand for our local ecosystems and our local startups to then leverage a far greater audience than within Singapore.
Economic Strategy Review Committee on Entrepreneurship
7. This is why we have set up a Committee on Entrepreneurship under the Economic Strategy Review (ESR), which I co-chair with Minister of State Alvin Tan. Our objectives are twofold.
a. Firstly, to enhance the competitiveness and attractiveness of Singapore as a startup base.
b. Secondly, to grow a Singaporean core of entrepreneurs as we deal with the challenges of the future economy and as we see the world evolving for the future.
8. The entrepreneurship culture is one area that we have identified we need to strengthen, and put in a lot more energy and emphasis on. It is really to be powered by youth entrepreneurs, and encourage a culture where some degree of failure is accepted.
9. Youth entrepreneurs are best placed because of their resilience and the runway ahead of you to bounce back whenever there are slip ups or failures, which is part and parcel of building the entrepreneurship culture within Singapore. The Government and ecosystem partners are therefore committed to supporting our entrepreneurs and startups.
a. For example, Startup SG was launched in 2017 with a range of schemes that will help support promising founders, including the ability to provide mentorship, grants, and talent support.
b. The Government also launched Stage One, a one-stop platform that connects local entrepreneurs with global startups, and drives collaborations between startups, corporates and innovation partners to grow and scale their operations from Singapore.
Stage One’s physical campus was set up recently at JTC LaunchPad at One-North, to give startups direct access to the community, resources and partnerships to start and scale their ventures. The centre is operated by the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE), and I encourage all entrepreneurs to speak with them to find ways in which you can leverage the programmes that ACE.SG has, to scale up your business ideas.
10. As you go through different stages of your startup journey, we encourage young entrepreneurs to innovate boldly, and to transform their ideas into impactful ventures. At the end of the day, from the Government's perspective, it is always important for there to be a thriving startup ecosystem, not only to encourage young founders like yourselves, but also to encourage more jobs to be anchored, both within Singapore and as your companies grow and scale overseas. I want to highlight a few interesting ideas that I saw from past NYEA recipients which I thought was very encouraging.
Inspiring Youth Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow
11. First, I would like to acknowledge Mr Sean Neo, the co-founder of Crunch Cutlery, Singapore’s first and only edible cutlery startup. This moves away from the reliance on single-use plastic cutlery.
12. I wanted to also acknowledge Mr Ernest Soh, the co-founder of RunAI, which is an application that redefines fitness. The application aims to make running more accessible and engaging for all runners through personalised training and virtual competitions.
13. Lastly, there is SpedGrow, a social impact startup co-founded by Zoe Poh and Yvette Tan, who were teachers at a special-needs institution. They have identified the need for independent living for people with special needs and for them to be able to manage their finances properly. Hence, they developed a teaching tool for financial literacy.
14. All these are very worthy goals, to have your startups and come up with very useful products and ideas that will benefit many Singaporeans, and I dare say, many people around the world as well. So I want to thank all the past members of NYEA and past award recipients for all these wonderful programmes.
Supporting Youth Entrepreneurs
POL-ITE Entrepreneurs’ Challenge
15. In 2024, ACE.SG launched the POL-ITE Entrepreneurs’ Challenge in partnership with the Institute of Technical Education, local Polytechnics and the Ministry of Education. Integrated with the NYEA, the Challenge offers a 6-month long developmental programme for IHL students and alumni to learn the fundamentals of starting a business.
16. Last month, I had the opportunity to engage the participants of the Challenge, together with one of our ESR Committee Members, Mr Willson Cuaca from East Ventures. It is good to see many familiar faces in the audience today.
a. We had a very exciting discussion. We were talking about connecting some of our startups with networks that might be available, either with the startup entrepreneurs that are on my panel or within the Government itself. The whole idea was to find ways to partner startups with existing networks that we have.
b. I am delighted that a pair of entrepreneurs that we engaged, Yao Ming and Ian from Videotto.com, has since received investment from East Ventures, and I wish Videotto all the best.
Initiatives by ACE.SG and ESR Committee
17. In addition to these events, ACE.SG offers other initiatives such as masterclasses with industry experts, regular youth engagement sessions with young founders as well as hackathons. This will be the best way for new startups to learn from your mentors and from other people who may have walked your path to get the essence of what it is to start up your companies and what else you need in order to scale. I encourage you to use the facilities that ACE.SG has to the best of your ability. There are very good quality programs that they have which are worthy of your views.
18. The ESR Committee on Entrepreneurship is also looking at new programmes for youths to experience entrepreneurship. More details will be announced in due course. As we solidify the ideas, we seek feedback from all of you as well. We are always available. It is not very difficult to get in touch with either the colleagues from ACE.SG myself or MOS Alvin Tan to hear from you what your concerns may be, the areas which you think can be strengthened, as we come up with the final report by the middle of next year.
Conclusion
19. I want to congratulate all our finalists and award recipients today for your hard work over the last few months. I also want to acknowledge all of the nominees for this year’s NYEA – I hope you have gained valuable experience from this journey.
20. Thank you once again, to ACE.SG and the team for all the support that they have given young entrepreneurs and I wish you the very best for the future. Thank you very much.