Dear Friends & Colleagues,

Greetings from NUS Entrepreneurship Centre and Welcome to the March and April edition of our e-newsletter. We hope you like the new look of our e-newsletter as
well as our centre’s website revamp.

As usual, we look forward to your suggestions for improvement. Please feel free to contact us at necbox2@nus.edu.sg.

Thank You and Happy Reading!!!

Best Regards,
Assoc Prof Wong Poh Kam, Director
Ms Gean Chu, Administrative Officer

>> Improvement to NUS Entrepreneurship Centre Website
We have recently revamped our centre’s website to make it more user-friendly and informative. The website will have a new URL address at: www.nus.edu.sg/nec/index.html.

Please visit us and feel free to give your feedback and comment. Please also kindly update your bookmark to point to this new url. (Reference to the old url will be automatically redirected to this new website for the next 6 months and thereafter, the old url will no longer be in use.)

-- OUTREACH ACTIVITIES --

>> NUS-IES Technopreneurship Workshop on 24 & 25 April is postponed
In view of the latest SARS concerns, the workshop has been postponed to 7 & 8 July 2003. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

The aim of this first Technopreneurship Workshop, jointly organized by
NUS Entrepreneurship Centre and the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES) is
to equip scientists, engineers and other technical professionals with the necessary skills and knowledge to start new high-tech ventures.

This workshop is a 2-day intensive programme covering all essential aspects of starting up a technology-based venture, including Defining the Entrepreneurial Opportunity, Market and Competitor Analysis, Intellectual Property Protection and Start-up Legal Issues, Business Strategy Formulation, Building the Team and Organizing for Execution, Financial Projection and Fund Raising Strategy, and Business Plan Writing and Presentation Techniques.

For registration enquiries, please contact Ms Jolia Tan at jolia@nus.edu.sg.

>> Upcoming Events for NUS Wireless Venturing Forum (NWVF)
Building on the earlier success of Location-based Services (LBS)
Marketplace Forum held in March, the next forum will focus on “Mobile
Commerce” and will be held on 13 August 2003 at NUS Hon Sui Sen Auditorium. The forum will bring together the mobile commerce value chain players to address issues, opportunities and challenges in the following areas:-

• Mobile Payment & Mobile Banking
• Mobile Marketing/Advertising
• Multi-media Messaging
• Mobile Security & Authentication

These include banks & financial institutions, mobile operators, mobile content providers & aggregators, mobile middleware/infrastructure vendors, corporate end users, trade & professional associations. Some of the local wireless start-ups in the above areas include Airgateway, Blink, BMob, mPayment, Mozat, PurpleAce, System@Work, Ufinity, Voium, etc.

For more information about NUS Wireless Venturing Forum and membership criteria, as well as speaking and sponsorship opportunities for the Mobile Commerce Forum, you may wish to contact the Forum Manager, Mr. Patrick Chan at patrickchan@nus.edu.sg. Alternatively, you can visit us at:
http://www.nus.edu.sg/nec/ed/rio/nwvf_index.html for the latest events updates and more information on NWVF.

>> Upcoming Events for Start-Up@Singapore (S@S)
Start-Up@Singapore is holding its Final Awards & Prize Presentation Ceremony on May 31, Saturday afternoon from 1430-1800 at the Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre (SICEC). The Guest of Honour is Mr. Raymond Lim, Minister of State for Entrepreneurship. The winning team will represent Singapore in the Grand Final of the Global Start-Up@Singapore business plan competition on Oct 27 – 28 held in conjunction with EDB’s Global Entrepolis (www.globalentrepolis.com) at SICEC.

Start-up@Singapore owes its success to the many individuals and teams who have participated in the past and used it as a launching pad for their business ventures. We would like to encourage our past participants of Start-up@Singapore to contribute a 1-page update of their existing business operations and success stories. Please include the following details: Contact person and details, business descriptions, business updates, success stories/customer profiles. Please visit www.startup.org.sg for more updates of our alumni.

Past speakers, mentors and judges are also invited to join the Mentored CEO Growth Program for S@S. More details will be available at the S@S website soon.

There will also be a showcase of products and solutions from past S@S participants at Suntec City on 31 May. Please contact Ms Jolia Tan at jolia@nus.edu.sg for more details.

-- EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES --

>> Technopreneurship Minor Programme for NUS Undergraduates
The Minor in Technopreneurship will be offered again in Semester I of Academic Year 2003/04. With the implementation of the Centralised On-Line Registration System (CORS), students who wish to take the Minor in Technopreneurship will have to bid for the TR modules on-line. Students need not fill in any application form. Please refer to the CORS website at http://www.nus.edu.sg/cors/ for more details on the bidding system.

Students can also obtain more information on the Minor Programme at: http://www.nus.edu.sg/nec/events/education/tech_undergrad.html
and refer to the list of Frequently-Asked-Questions from our website at:
http://www.bschool.nus.edu.sg/programs/bba/trminor.htm.

>> New Summer Intensive Graduate Course on Technopreneurship
We will be offering a new summer intensive course, TR5101 Technopreneurship course as a cross faculty module to graduate students from the Engineering, Business, Science and Computing Schools from June to August 2003. Students will be able to interact with students from the Norwegian School of Entrepreneurship taking the course.

Interested graduate students may apply through their respective graduate schools for the course. The closing date for applications is 10 May 03. For more information, visit our website at: http://www.nus.edu.sg/nec/events/education/tech_summer.html

-- RESEARCH ACTIVITIES --

>> Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between NUS Entrepreneurship Centre & Institute of Economic Research, Lund University, Sweden
On 13 March, our centre had inked a Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) with the Institute of Economic Research at Lund University to establish
collaboration and exchange in a number of research and educational activities
related to technology entrepreneurship, venture incubation and intellectual capital management.

>> Research Project on Benchmarking Singapore's National Innovation System
NUS Entrepreneurship Centre has been invited to participate in a 3-Year international comparative research project on "National Systems of Innovation in a Globalising, Knowledge-based Economy: A comparative study of small countries in Europe and Asia". The project involves 6 European small advanced countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Ireland) and 3 Asian NIEs (Singapore, Korea and Taiwan). Assoc. Prof. Wong Poh Kam, Director of NUS Entrepreneurship Centre, is the Principal Investigator for Singapore. The first project meeting was held in Oslo, Norway on 20-21 March.

>> Start-up@Singapore Semi-Final Bootcamp
Start-Up@Singapore held a 2-day Bootcamp on the 21st and 22nd March to provide more than 100 members of semi-finalist teams with an intensive program focused on helping to improve their business plan writing. This year’s bootcamp was highly interactive: each team was assigned one of 24 experienced mentors, and also met one-on-one with an expert advisor in Marketing and Finance who evaluated and made suggestions for improvements in the respective sections of the business plans.

Teams also had several opportunities to improve their presentation content and delivery in preparation for the upcoming semi-final presentations. On Friday evening, each of the teams delivered an elevator pitch “on the firing line,” followed by candid and constructive feedback on their pitch. On Saturday afternoon, each team had a chance to make a full-length presentation to investors, followed by additional feedback.

In addition to the one-on-one meetings, mentoring and presentations, participants had the opportunity to engage in two experiential simulation exercises to further sharpen their finance and marketing skills. Armed with their improved business plans, teams now will proceed to semi-final judging, to be held on 17-May.

For more updates, visit us at http://www.startup.org.sg.

>> NUS Wireless Venturing Forum (NWVF) - LBS Marketplace
The "Location Based Services (LBS) Marketplace" forum on 26 March attracted an overwhelming response of close to 180 participants across different segments of the wireless industry, including wireless start-ups, VCs, telcos, lead mobile users, university researchers as well as NUS students, staff and alumni.

The forum provided the audiences with valuable insights into LBS through case studies presented by various well-known companies and telcos from the industries.

In the LBS Users Roundtable discussion, Mr. Dennis Khoo of Standard Chartered Bank shared about the bank’s trial of mobile banking and the use of LBS technology for consumers to locate the bank’s ATM machines and branch offices. Mr. Chan Keen Len from SBS Transit also shared about the use of location determination technology for its fleet management activities. Both organizations have indicated interest for vendors and partners in further collaboration in the trial of LBS technologies.

For more information, you can visit: http://www.nus.edu.sg/nec/ed/rio/nwvf_index.html or contact Patrick Chan at patrickchan@nus.edu.sg.

>> Innovation Research Seminar
We were pleased to have Professor Mark Dodgson, Director of Technology & Innovation Management Centre from University of Queensland to present his research findings on "The Intensification of Innovation and the Management of Knowledge" on 27 March 2003.

For more information about the seminar, please visit:
http://www.nus.edu.sg/nec/eir/gem/
sem-mark270303.html

>> Entrepreneurship Research Seminar
A Research Seminar jointly organized by NUS Entrepreneurship Centre and the Department of Business Policy, NUS Business School on 5 March, featuring a talk by Ms Zhang Jing, PhD candidate from Department of Business Policy, NUS Business School on “Network Ties, Prior Knowledge and Resource Acquisition by High-Tech Entrepreneurs”.

We would like to encourage our NUS alumni, who have been involved in entrepreneurial ventures to submit a 1-2 paragraph write-up of theirnew ventures to contactnec@nus.edu.sg. Please include the following details: Contact person and details, business descriptions, business updates, success stories/customer profiles.

To subscribe to our bi-monthly free e-newsletter, please provide us with your email address at this link: http://www.nus.edu.sg/nec/about/e-news/index.html.

You are receiving this email or e-newsletter because of your prior participation in one of our earlier events or activities, or you have signed up for our e-newsletter directly. If you do not wish to receive further e-newsletters and event updates from us in the future, please send a note to us at necbox2@nus.edu.sg. You will be taken off from our mailing list with immediate effect. Thank you.

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