SOE - SSA - SIM

Remember few weeks ago i posted an entry on Spirit of Enterprise (SOE)? What Spirit of Enterprise (SOE) is all about~!? the picture says it all...

You may be wondering how I know about SOE? I really have no idea what is SOE all about a year ago... I actually know SOE through our very own SIM Student Portal~!! yes! the one that you use it to check all the news and notices... many SIM students didn't know how many good stuff there!!!

One fine day, I just click and check out my student portal and found out about SOE. By the way, I would like to start up my own business one day and so I thought this program by SOE is really amazing. I have the chance to find my own entrepreneurs to interview and learn from them.

This year 2009, I interviewed 2 entrepreneurs during my school holidays in May.

The first one is actually my poly senior's family business.... their business in mannequin! yes... one of the rare trade in Singapore... so check out the link to learn more~!!

Ms Susan Ong Sock Tin

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http://www.soe.org.sg/files/interview2009.php?i=415&a=&c=&year=2009

The second one is a favourite hang out cafe which my SIM classmate introduced to me. I love it so much that I decided to interviewed the owner! She is a Japanese and there were communication barriers, luckily I knew some conversational Japanese and managed to complete the whole interview.

Mrs Hideo Sekine And Setsuko Sekine

KAEDE INTERNATIONAL PTE LTD

http://www.soe.org.sg/files/interview2009.php?i=344&a=&c=&year=2009

I hope my nominees will win the award this year~!! ALL THE BEST!

This year is the first time we have an interaction session with all other student interviewers... in the past, all students did and submitted their work without knowing each other... thus, this year we decided to do things differently.

Our first meet up session was at 18 chefs... they have a few outlets island wide... they just opened one near my house at northpoint!! Benny, the boss was one of the past nominees for SOE. Benny was an ex-convict. Yes... and he turned over a new leaf and set up his business and hire only ex convict. It is already difficult for a typical Singaporean to set up a business, so can you imagine how difficult is it for an ex convict to set up one? I believed everyone deserved a second chance in life... during the sharing session, benny shared a lot of important messages with us....

All of the students, we started off introducing ourselves and of course, a short summary on our interviewing process with our entrepreneurs!

A group photos of all the students who came (many couldn't make it) and Kelly, the executive director of SOE, also our mentor! It was such an amazing experience which led me to attend the next SOE event!!!

I am sure some of you have been to Villa Bali... yes.. we had our next sharing session at Villa Bali... and of course.. venue and food were sponsored by Mr Robin, the owner of Villa Bali. Previously, we only invited student interviewers of 2009 but this time round we invited student interviewers from the previous batches!

That is Mr Robin, owner of Villa Bali. Beside him is Mr Thomas, who owned a pest control company!

Do you know that it is because of the Bali bombing which resulted Mr Robin to move his previous business from Bali to Singapore? Yes.. that is how Villa Bali is born...

So during the whole session, we heard how the entrepreneurs started out their business...

In addition, the official launch of Spirit of Enterprise Student Alumni (SSA). I was invited to be part of the committee of SSA. Unfortunately, I have to turn them down due to my commitment in SIM Canoe Polo but I told them I will be a free lance helper for them~!!! :)

Sorry for the flat hairdo! I rushed from my training to attend the session! Together with me is Vui Sin and Wei Jie, the 3 of us have the same dream of setting up business in the F&B industry...

What's with this photo?? THAT VUI SIN! yeah... remember last week there were some demonstrations at the atrium? yeah... that's vui sin... just like me... we both set up our own club in SIM...

I felt that setting up a club in SIM is an "entrepreneuring" experience because we have to start from nothing... start to think how can we get people to join us... get the school to support us.. in fact the school is very supportive of us! So our clubs are just like babies... we see them slowly grow up...

at the infant stage when it needed the most care and attention... nurture it the right way and it will start to walk on its own and eventually be independent... so i use this opportunity in SIM to learn and experience the "entrepreneuring" process...

You know where this is... but do you know where I view it from?

You may guess it right... It is from National Library at Level 16 The Pod, a venue not open to public... This is the place SOE & SSA had the very first Celepreneur event!

With great venue... we were lucky to have one of the past nominees to sponsor our event as well....

Formula for Successful event = Great Food + Great Venue + Great Speaker + Great organising committee

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the audience waited patiently for our celepreneur Vernetta Lopez!

oh by the way... I gave out my 20 complimentary tickets within half a day after posting! THANKS FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT~!!!

CAMERA, LIGHT, ACTION!

Being a celepreneur (an entrepreneur who is an celebrity) is not easy... Vernetta told us that because she is a celebrity, a lot of attention is on her and if her business fail, she will fall harder than normal entrepreneur. Thus, the stress is really heavy and her tight schedule didnt make it any better. Time management is the key to solve it. I will load up the youtube link once I receive it from SSA. Hope everyone can learn and get some tips from Vernetta :)

Photos with Mr Charles, Owner of Purple Sage, Kelly, Vernetta, Mr Robin and the rest of the student committee of SSA!

Another shot together with the moderator!

Cassandra (NUS), Me (SIM), Raymond (NTU), Jian He (SIM), Christina (NTU) and Vui Sin (SIM)

So out of the 6 of us, half is from SIM~!

It's been great fun working with Vui Sin and Cassandra :)

For those who would like to join or help out the events, do stay tune to my blog or your can email me! :)

Last but not least.... HOW CAN I NOT TAKE INDIVIDUAL PHOTO WITH MY IDOL!!! VERNETTA LOPEZ~!!!!! I GOT HER NAME CARD!!! muahauhauha are u all jealous~?!

Lesson of the Blog:

Entrepreneurs are successful not only because they DARE to DREAM but they WORK towards their DREAM....

If talk is cheap, then dreams are free...

The only converters for dreams to reality is Hard work...

So what are your dreams?

or have you been dreaming?

Stop living in a nightmare...

Start chasing after your dreams... :)

Erubin