Successful Ideas Need Not Be Original: NTU Provost

At the annual Entrepreneurship & Innovation Festival, NTU Provost Professor Freddy Boey gave valuable advice to budding entrepreneurs. Participants were also treated to a host of innovation-themed activities throughout the eight-day event.

By Cara Wong, Ong Shi Man, Sheryl Tay

PROFESSIONAL ADVICE: NTU Provost Professor Freddy Boey, himself a successful entrepreneur, tells students that the best ideas might be right before their eyes.
PHOTO: ALICIA GOH

Students should not only come up with original ideas when setting up their own businesses, said NTU Provost Professor Freddy Boey.

“You only need to invent something that is significantly better than what we have today,” he said.

To drive home the point, he added: “The first guy who invented the hairpin got a million bucks. The next guy came and put a few waves on the pin, and got another million bucks.”

He was speaking at the annual Entrepreneurship & Innovation Festival — organised by the Nanyang Technopreneurship Centre (NTC) — on 26 Aug at the Research Techno Plaza.

The eight-day event, which ran from 20 Aug to 27 Aug, was held to promote an enterprising culture among NTU students through a range of innovation-themed activities.

Prof Boey also stressed that students should keep an eye on current trends in a particular company or economy when launching their ideas.

“Ideas have a shelf life — clever ideas today will be an average idea tomorrow. The best idea in the worst possible time will not work, but an average idea in perfect conditions might just win you a billion dollars,” he said.

Director of NTC, Associate Professor Hooi Den Huan, added in his speech that students who have no intention of becoming entrepreneurs should also think innovatively.

“Whether students join the government or multinational companies, or even charities or non-governmental organisations after graduation, having an enterprising mindset will give them a strong competitive advantage,”

“A good example is our famous Singapore Airlines, which was started by none other than a government servant,” he said.

Those who visited the event on 22 Aug had the chance to speak to six up-and-coming technopreneurs at a tea session. One of them was Marcus Tan, co-founder of online marketplace Carousell.

Among the other speakers were Cheo Ming Shen — executive director of Netccentric, a parent company for web ventures such as blog advertising community Nuffnang — and Rachel Lim, co-founder of women’s apparel blogshop Love, Bonito.

SHARING TIPS: Ms Rachel Lim (second from left) co-founded popular blogshop Love, Bonito with two others in 2010, aiming to make it a forerunner of Asia’s online fashion scene.
PHOTO: ANSELM SOH

Fairuz Kahlil, 22, a final-year student from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, said that Mr Tan inspired her dream of becoming a successful technopreneur.

“(Mr Tan) comes from an average financial and academic background, but still managed to succeed. His humility towards his success today made me relate to where I am now,” she added.

On 25 Aug, participants were brought on a tour of three cafes set up and run by NTU alumni. One such cafe was The Mind Cafe, a place for people to play board games over snacks and drinks.

Participants also caught a screening of the comedy film The Internship on the same day.

Students the Nanyang Chronicle spoke to said that the event benefitted them in different ways.

Dheraj Ramchandani, 24, a final-year student from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said: “I might meet someone from another school that has expertise in something I don’t have, or someone that believes in my idea.”

As part of a flea market featuring student start-ups, Dheraj set up a booth — situated outside the Eight Flags Computer Shop near Canteen B — on the first two days of the event to promote his healthy Indian food pushcart business in NTU.

Yin Chang, 23, a postgraduate student from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, noted: “Prof Boey said to keep everything simple and not to do anything too complex, which is the way to succeed,”

“That’s very important to me as I’ve been trying to do some experiments and I stumbled on some difficulties, so that’s a new way to think about things.”