Technopreneurship Education in Singapore

Chezmoi SG

Hello there !

Calling all who think that entrepreneurs and technopreneurs can be trained ! I'm doing a research on "Technopreneurship (or Technology Entrepreneurship) Education in Singapore for people above 15 years old". I'm discussing it here hoping to find out more about it... Wink

1. Specifically, if you are a student/educator/school, I'd like to find out more about the courses/programmes/delivering methods of training technopreneurs you do or you know is available in Singapore.

2. In addition, I'd like to hear your views w.r.t :

a) whether you think schools in Singapore are currently teaching enough to train people to become technopreneurs ? If yes , what made you think so ? If no, why not? What is lacking and how do you think should be taught to be enough ?

b) do you think there are any challenges faced by schools and educators in Singapore to train students to become technopreneurs? If yes , what are these challenges?

c) in order to become a technopreneur, what do you think s/he should know or learn ?

d) Any thing, in particular, that should exist for or in a technopreneur?

e) It seems that entrepreneurship education is still not a major study in most schools in singapore. Do you think so ? If yes, do you think it should continue to play a role like this? or do you think schools should attempt to establish a diploma/degree in entrepreneurship? And how about the idea of setting up an "entrepreneurship university"?

Technopreneurs in this context refers to people who see opportunity to venture in technology-related knowledge-based businesses such as E-business, Infocomm Technology, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology and logistics. These are businesses which could give significant economical growth for Singapore

For any of the points above, appreciate your participation in advance. Pls invite your friends to join in if this topic interests them.

I hope you could also share with me your email address to ease interesting follow-up (if any) outside this forum.

Look forward to seeing your inputs and opinions soon. Smile

Chezmoi SG

Hi again !

4th University in Singapore ... what do you think ?

Coquitlam SG

Personally....technopreneurship cannot be trained.....yeah some basic foundations can be taught but the bes form of education is going out there and getting your teeth knocked out in the real corporata business world.....

Haha...to think that they can teach technopreneurship in schools....come, let them come into the business and let them get knocked about...then they will be much better business people after that

Chezmoi SG

So sounds like experiential learning would work Smile .

Understand Universities here in SG do give opportunities to students to learn to do technopreneurship in this way, e.g. overseas attachment experience (s.a.Silicon Valley), participate in business idea competitions, bring business ideas into incubations, etc.

And importantly, the person must have that passion in business, and perseverence to never give up and strive on despite any business failure or disappointment. Does an individual's personality matter then?

Experiential learning is "knowledge, skills, and/or abilities attained through observation, simulation, and/or participation that provides depth and meaning to learning by engaging the mind and/or body through activity, reflection, and application." (Craig 1997).
- From "http://people.uleth.ca/~steve.craig/whatis.htm"

Chezmoi SG

hmm...so another point that Coquitlam's message has also helped to remind us... :

Business people or more specifically, experienced technopreneurs themselves would be better educators to train students to become technopreneurs then. Right ? Anyone else who supports or disagrees with this ?

I guess if so, then it will become an important criterion to recruiting educators to train students studying technopreneurship at schools in future ! Or Is it already the case now ? Students taking technopreneurship courses, are your lecturers or project mentors also experienced technopreneurs in themselves? If so, how do these educators perform in their teachings ? Pls share with us. Thanks.

ndmmxiaomayi SG

Technopreneurship sounds possible, but in reality, it's quite hard in Singapore.

The people here simply lacks an interest for it.

1. Specifically, if you are a student/educator/school, I'd like to find out more about the courses/programmes/delivering methods of training technopreneurs you do or you know is available in Singapore.

If there's any, it's geared to life sciences. Biotechnology more specifically.

E-business and whatever crap, I have not seen yet.

And while schools do teach some entrepreneurial modules, education is not a substitute for the reality. Business is not something you learn from books, but something that reality teaches you. Yes, books play a part, but it's only a small part.

Once you have the experience, you will view things differently.

2. In addition, I'd like to hear your views w.r.t :

a) whether you think schools in Singapore are currently teaching enough to train people to become technopreneurs ? If yes , what made you think so ? If no, why not? What is lacking and how do you think should be taught to be enough ?

b) do you think there are any challenges faced by schools and educators in Singapore to train students to become technopreneurs? If yes , what are these challenges?

c) in order to become a technopreneur, what do you think s/he should know or learn ?

d) Any thing, in particular, that should exist for or in a technopreneur?

e) It seems that entrepreneurship education is still not a major study in most schools in singapore. Do you think so ? If yes, do you think it should continue to play a role like this? or do you think schools should attempt to establish a diploma/degree in entrepreneurship? And how about the idea of setting up an "entrepreneurship university"?

a) See question 1.

b) My first opening paragraph to you.

c) If according to your definition, knowledge of science or technology, plus an acute business sense and an entrepreneur spirit.

d) Don't quite get you.

e) A and B plus opening paragraph will answer you.

And the idea of another Donald Trump university don't strike a chord with me. However, the basic knowledge about certain things, such as accounting will still come into good use, and that can be studied in school.

Again, no books will substitute reality.

ndmmxiaomayi SG

I still disagree. Experienced technopreneurs served to provide an insight, and they still won't train students to be a technopreneur.

Through them, you see their failures and successes, but it's not through them that your business will succeed or fail. Each and every business is unique, even if they sell the same thing.

Dell and HP sell computers. What makes Dell successful as compared with HP? Or use Apple and Microsoft. What is it that Microsoft is successful in that Apple fails? What is it that Apple succeeds in that Microsoft fails?

Bill and Steve will have different ideas on why they failed and succeeded.

Chezmoi SG

Looks like different business used different business strategy and they know their markets well enough to deploy different marketing techniques, e.g. dell being well-known in direct selling as compared to its competitors to gain the market share. Would you then agree that marketing is an important subject that students in science and technology should place more emphasis in and these schools should teach students as the basic knowledge if they want to embark on their technopreneurship career ?

Chezmoi SG

Originally posted by ndmmxiaomayi:
[b]Technopreneurship sounds possible, but in reality, it's quite hard in Singapore.

The people here simply lacks an interest for it.

But Why?? Any report or statistics to justify this?
I'm really interested to know why do you reckon the people here lack the interest? Is it a social problem? Education problem? Sg Govt is not doing enough? Parent's influence, etc? Or that Singaporean are not ready and cannot take failures and risks?

Personally I have met people who are really interested. But their problem is that they do not know how to get started, and how to go about doing it? And they tried to attend seminars conducted by schools, private institutions or even approached entrepreneurs/technopreneurs to hear them share their experiences. Yet after these activities, they are still unsure what to do. Now that there are also courses at schools such as ITE, Polys, universities here in Sg to train technopreneurship, hence my interest is to identify and evaluate if there is any courses now or in future in school which could best help students like them. And if you mentioned people simply lack the interest, why? Can education in Sg play a role to boost up the interest and encourage more people to become technopreneurs?

d) Don't quite get you.

For e.g. Some people may think a person's personality is something to consider one as a entrepreneur ? And it seems that they are 9 such business personality types to discover entrepreneurs. Apart from personality, may be there are other elements of a person which such thing may not be able to be taught in class.

From -http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/development/a/personality.htm

ndmmxiaomayi SG

As I've said... knowledge of some business subjects would be helpful, but not to the extent of not understanding how they could be applied.

Education attempts to give you an idea, whatever happens in reality, you solve it yourself.

ndmmxiaomayi SG

But Why?? Any report or statistics to justify this?

I have none to offer.

I'm really interested to know why do you reckon the people here lack the interest? Is it a social problem? Education problem? Sg Govt is not doing enough? Parent's influence, etc? Or that Singaporean are not ready and cannot take failures and risks?

Social - maybe.

Education - maybe.

Government not doing enough - no idea. I'm not one myself, how would I know what restrictions there to stop me. But if you ask me, I don't think so, as long as they are legal.

Parents influence - to an extent.

Singaporeans aren't ready and can't failure and risks - you ask yourself, then tell me.

Personally I have met people who are really interested. But their problem is that they do not know how to get started, and how to go about doing it? And they tried to attend seminars conducted by schools, private institutions or even approached entrepreneurs/technopreneurs to hear them share their experiences. Yet after these activities, they are still unsure what to do. Now that there are also courses at schools such as ITE, Polys, universities here in Sg to train technopreneurship, hence my interest is to identify and evaluate if there is any courses now or in future in school which could best help students like them. And if you mentioned people simply lack the interest, why? Can education in Sg play a role to boost up the interest and encourage more people to become technopreneurs?

You have met interested individuals, so have I. They have attended courses, seminars and workshops, but still have no idea. That's expected. You don't expect to learn how to walk in just one day. And they are still learning.

Having educational institutes to train them will still not encourage technopreneurship.

Various factors still come into play. I have no data on whether the young here are interested, but that's only one part.

Let's take E-Business as an example.

If you are going to make it work, you don't just need to know web programming. Other issues such as security needs to be addressed. As a new online company, how do you convince users?

Cross that - one hurdle passed.

Next, usage of online payment methods. How many do actually pay via online transactions? It's more of a social problem. According to ST, the take-up rate of paying for stuffs online is increasing, but is at a slow rate.

People cite security, don't know how to use, no Paypal, no credit card, etc for not shopping online.

Don't know how to use - I don't have to explain. Not everybody is a techie.

No Paypal - Again, even if people know about Paypal, it doesn't mean they know how to use.

No credit card - While rules have relaxed, it doesn't mean they will get themselves one card as well.

There are loads of other factors to consider. Techneurpreneurship is a mix of both tech and business, so not only do you have to think in a business perspective, you also have to understand users as well. It's not as fool-proof as setting up a physical store.

Personality plays a part, but is not a key. Whether something works or fails, will still depend on your own business and common sense. And of course, how well you do your research. Launching something without much research is doomed for failure since you don't understand your own consumer market well.

Chezmoi SG

Thanks folks.

So I gathered that what we have in mind now is that university or schools can only provide the students with the basic business and technical skills and knowledge they need to know to do business or embark on technopreneurship. It's like students who have to learn engineering subjects to become competent in their engineering field to embark on a specialised engineering or engineering related career after their studies. Or even medical students, who learned and become competent doctors after schools. These professions have clear definition of problems in real life to solve. However, for students who wish to be technopreneurs, it would be a much more challenging thing as their real life business problems are more complex and undefined. Schools can only provide them the basic technical knowledge and soft skills in what they need to know, and probably they can do projects and gain experiences from business case studies. Whether they can really be technopreneur in real life, it's a question, and a question that they can only answer, and they will only know when they are in real business life.

I'd give an analogy of technopreneur training to army training. Without going into war, we won't know whether the soldiers can really fight ?! But when they are at war, with the skill and knowledge that they have learned from army schools, then they will know how to fight it right if they want to survive. Agree?

So my next question is, probably current school environment is not ideal to train technopreneurs?
i) We may need more than just current school teachings, e.g business simulations like army training, real field business battle practise, etc ?
ii) Or perhaps we are too restrictive to our thinking and understanding of current education model in Singapore in the provision of entrepreneurship training ? If not wrong, I was told that universities do have incubators, and students learn in school and do real business there. Are these effective?
So what do think about these ?

Yes, I agree that not all consumers know how to make business deals digitally, so the technopreneur must know their consumer behaviour and know their market well before they want to do certain type of technology business. I guess many people have to play a part to drive technopreneurship in Singapore. If technopreneurs are trying to do their parts in creating technology business, socially the tradition way of living has to be improved if we think there are hurdles to cross. It is not easy but it is not impossible. For example, if we talk about e-business, to share, personally, it's an eye-opening experience for me when I went to UK. Almost everything there, people will do online - esp. purchases and hotel/transport reservations, etc, etc.

I guess it need not be necc for all areas to be digitised, of course if it could be, it would be ideal. Smile I agree that payment online still has security issue to look into, but then parts of the business processes can still be manually driven, isn't it ? Offline payment still exists in real life (e.g. we still have cheque payment system, and bank tellers to assist Smile ) , so technopreneurs to be should not be stopped by technical issue if they really want to do technology related business. my 2 cents.

I guess whilst trying to educate the younger generation in schools, we need to put in efforts to educate the people of the nation as well, so then technopreneurship problems socially could be minimised. So i guess this brings us to another question to think about - cultural issue - Singapore has a rather interesting yet dfferent cultural setup, and this could therefore be the detering factor in the advancement of technopreneurship in Singapore. Do you think so ?

Chezmoi SG

Anyone would like to comment on this ? Smile

Chezmoi SG

Hi again...

Seems rather quiet, maybe let me change the focus of conversation here .. Wink

Do you think you want to be an entrepreneur or a technopreneur in Singapore?

If yes, what motivates you to do it? And how do you think you can do it ?

If no, why not ?

Rgds