We started our day with a tour of Stanford University. It was indeed a treat for us – ileaders to visit the beautiful campus. The university had infrastructure so different from NUS’s cemented landscape. The beautiful arches and the walkways are just one of the many things about Stanford that we envy. Many of us had commented that how nice if they were able to study in Stanford. They want to cycle around campus, have picnic lunches etc. How nice if we NUS students can a step back, to enjoy a slower pace of studying.

Prof Tom was a very hospitable host and a proud tour guide of the university. We were able to appreciate the diverse culture of the place especially their enthusiasm for entrepreneurship.  He was seemed ever ready to listen to someone’s idea and link his networks up. This indeed catalyses a budding entrepreneur route to success – having the right connections.

I appreciated the speakers who were at the sharing sessions today.  They were very open in sharing their entrepreneurial experiences and companies. Having to intern in Alpha for 6 months, I have gained tremendous interest in clean technology and thus appreciated the information shared by Liana and Annamaria from G-ET-IT.  In fact, the points shared by them eg. Reinventing quality of life by developing clean technologies may not be industry specific and thus I feel is useful for us to reapply in the industries that we are interested in.  They were able to spur me to think not only have a business idea but to actually move on to thinking of how this business idea should be justified , for e.g.  by a upcoming global trend or by satisfying a need.

Ooshma Garg was another inspiring speaker. She’s just like any of classmates,petite and fun loving and yet, she has started up her company Anapata last year. It was an amazing feat (: She shared with us how she went up to potential companies to try sell her product and she was successful in doing that. I was just wondering would that be possible in Singapore context. Can anyone imagine if a girl walks up to a law firm in Singapore to sell her product? I guess she would most probably be rejected immediately. It seems that it is not in Singapore business culture to listen to budding entrepreneur’s budding ideas.  Nevertheless, we should still share her passion and determination to pursue our entrepreneurial goals.  And who knows, maybe one of us will be invited to share our entrepreneurial experiences with the Stanford students!

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