Singapore, the Lion City, the center of Asia Pacific and one of the biggest technology hubs in the world. Together with 35 students, I went exploring the city, the business and the start-up environment. In this article I will discuss the companies we visited and our key take-aways and impressions.
What is the Student Startup Trip?
Each year the Student Startup Trip is organised by Academics For Technology — AFT, a student association that brings together ambitious and entrepreneurial students with a passion for technology in Belgium. The first ever Student Startup Trip five years ago, went to London. Next stops were Berlin, Stockholm, New York City and San Fransisco. This year we went to the other side of the world: Singapore. One of the most important cities of Asia with good connections to the western world. Truly the beating heart of innovation and technology. We visited world renowned universities, venture capitalists, big tech companies’ campuses, start-ups and so on. We spoke to CEO’s, professors, managing partners, students, citizens and founders. Special thanks to AE nv/sa — Architects for Business & ICT and Cronos Leuven for making this possible.
Day 0 — HYPED!!
Only arriving at the airport already gave us a first impression of Singapore as a city. Watching out of the airplane window and seeing a horizon fully packed with container ships. Singapore has one of the biggest harbours in the world, and it’s even getting bigger, it’s one of the reasons why Singapore is such a flourishing, wealthy and growing city.
We arrived at the Destination Hotel, unpacked our bags and went to the rooftop pool for some nice views and a little relaxing after the 16 hours of travelling. Afterwards we went eating in the Asian Food market next door. Hyped for tomorrow!!
Key take-away: The average temperature is 34˚C and non-spicy food is still spicy. Not sure if we will survive the trip.
Day 1 — Straight into the start-up scene
4am, clear awake… Love the jetlag! But totally hyped for the first stop: NUS BLOCK71 Singapore. It’s a co-working and incubation space for start-ups. We got some first information on the singaporian start-up environment and got to take a look around the hub. It was packed with the most sofisticated and innovating technology start-ups, automated robots and most of all: hard working and motivated people.
Key take-away: Being an entrepreneur is tough in Singapore. Just like in Belgium, 99% of the people still think their children should go with the flow and become doctors, engineers or lawyers. You still need to challenge the status quo to become an entrepreneur.
Singapore Management University — SMU
SMU invited us for a quick dive into the Singaporean school philosophy. The school’s former dean Arnoud De Meyer, who is Belgian too, told us about the school system and the need to be the best in Singapore. The school doesn’t just have grades, they make a difference between the best 5% of students, best 20%, and so on. This way, you shouldn’t just have good grades, the only thing that counts is that you’re better than your peers!
After his talk, he invited some SMU students to pitch about their start-up. Also the students of our group had the chance to pitch about their companies, followed by a networking session to learn about the opinion of students on the other side of the world.
Key take-away: University in Singapore is actually just survival of the fittest. Being good is not enough, you’ve got to be the best.
Belgian Embassy of Singapore
We (yes, all 35 of us!) were invited to the ambassadors house for a little snack, a good old Stella Artois and an introduction to the political collaboration between Singapore and Belgium. Why would a Belgian company move to Singapore in the first place? Well… only 11% of taxes, they speak english, it’s in between all the other Asian hubs (Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta,… ) and there is a non-corrupt government.
Key take-away: Singapore is the gateway to the Asian market. It’s harbour is huge and it’s located in the middle of Asia Pacific with a market of 4.3 billion people! It’s the main connection between the west and the east. That’s why a lot of European and US companies expand to Singapore.
Day 2 — About the Belgians
Onsophic
Yesterday we met Thibault Vandenhove in BLOCK 71. He works for Onsophic, a company which is specialized in customer experience. He told us about his story. From Google San Fransisco to Onsophic Singapore, how to sell yourself and the importance of knowing people who know people who know people.
Key take-away: Having a nice career is partly decided by luck, you should just make your chance of having luck as big as possible. Meet people and grab every chance you get.
INSEAD University Singapore
“The University For The World”. The slogan of one of the best Universities of the world, in particular for their MBA studies. We first joined a class about the difference between the European and Asian market, how Europe stagnates but Asia is earning money faster than the time a woman needs to find a way to spend it! Afterwards we took a tour with some of their current MBA students. We got an insight on the university building, the gym and their start-up district.
Key take-away: The picture says it all.
BLBG — Belgium Luxembourg Business Group
We already met some people of the Belgian network in Singapore, so we were invited to their networking event. Everyone (also AFT) gave a little presentation about what they do and afterwards there was a panel discussion to answer all our questions.
Key take-away: “It’s not about work-life balance, it’s about life.” ~ Bert Grobben
Do whatever you want to do, the door is open. But don’t forget that sometimes you need to give up things. You can’t have a happy family life in Belgium if you want to work in Singapore at the same time. Think for yourself what you love in your life.
Day 3 — The real thing
Econopolis
On to the financial side of Singapore: investing. Econopolis shed a light on the Asian Pacific mobile market. Did you know that about 80% of the mobile market is owned by AliBaba Group and Tencent?!? On top of that, the Internet Economy is expected to reach US$240 billion by 2025. An increase of x7.5 in 10 years.
Too bad, the market is huge. As a European, it’s almost impossible to get to know the whole market and to invest your money wisely. Luckily that’s where Econopolis is becoming an expert advisor.
Key take-aways:
- Asians love super-apps, they want their payments, transport, shopping, etc. all in one app.
- Asians like gambling a lot. For example, after booking a flight, they can use a virtual roulette wheel to earn a discount on their next purchase. This motivates them to spend their money.
- Doesn’t matter how old they are, asians love gaming on their mobile phone.
Katoen Natie
WOW. What a visit! Koen Cardon, CEO of Katoen Natie Singapore, invited us to his plant at Jurong Island. A private island in the harbour with a focus on (petro-)chemical engineering. Katoen Natie manages logistics and processing for most of the companies on Jurong Island. They told us about how they innovate and how it’s like to work at Katoen Natie. They also invited other expats from Ahlers, KBC and DEME to give us a real overview of what it’s like to be a Belgian in a big multinational company in Singapore.
Key take-away: Belgians often have managing positions in Singapore because of their people skills. Like Arnoud from SMU already told us, Singaporeans are trained to be ‘robots’. Belgians instead are trained to act human and never forget about the personal and emotional aspect in business. This makes them very important in Asian companies.
NGDATA
Privacy and GDPR… two popular bottle necks in Europe. But what about Singapore? NGDATA offers big data and AI solutions for marketing, especially in the banking industry. Jens Ponnet told us about what they do, and why they moved to Singapore. This ended up in a very interesting talk about data privacy and the Singapore life. He invited us to grab some food together, a perfect friday evening!
Key take-away: People in Asia don’t mind too much about their privacy. They think sharing their data has many advantages like safety and personalised ads. The data is being handled in a private and automated way anyway.
Day 4 & 5 — Weekend!
Sun is shining and it’s 35˚C. Perfect time for some free time! We did some group activities and there was some free time. We visited Gardens By The Bay, enjoyed light shows, visited the Museum of Art & Science and had a drink on the rooftop bar of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. Some people even took a ferry to one of the nearby Indonesian isles. A perfect weekend to explore the Lion City.
Day 6 — Back to the real thing
For Google, nothing is more important than innovation. They gave us a brief introduction about their strategy for Google Cloud and the importance of their marketing and selling. Afterwards we got a tour throughout their open offices. Color, coziness and a lot of kitchens are key!
Key take-away: Google now focusses on the NBU, the Next Billion Users. The Asian market is growing and in the next few years they expect there will be 1 billion of extra people with acces to (mobile) internet in India and Asia Pacific…. The market is just opening!
GoJEK
You probably know Uber, but what about GoJEK? It’s most popular in Indonesia and now it’s expanding to Singapore and the rest of Asia. They started off as a 2-wheel alternative for Uber but now they offer a full package of transport, transactions and food delivery! Lien Choong Luen, the General Manager for GoJEK Singapore, told us about how they are expanding and what the importance is of their Data Science department and customer service.
Key take-away: Data Science is super important when you’re growing. It’s the only thing that’s able to tell you something about your product quality, customer satisfaction and company efficiency.
Day 7 — The last day
MING Labs
MING Labs is a digital innovation and transformation company working with the world’s leading brands and entrepreneurs to craft impactful ventures for tomorrow. They invited us to their cozy new office where they gave a workshop about design thinking.
Key take-away: Singapore is not only skyscrapers and expensive food. There are also cute offices in old buildings with a lot of nice coffee-bars around it.
Visa Innovation Center
“Visa is a card company for making easy transactions”…. Well it’s not. It’s way more than a card company. With its Global Innovation Centers they design and develop the future of commerce. They guided us through their newest human-centered design principles and new technologies that advance commerce in areas such as authentication, digital, security and cloud. They also have the Visa Everywhere Initiative which is a global innovation program that tasks start-ups to solve payment challenges of tomorrow.
Key take-away: Cards and Cash are outdated. In Asia, everyone pays mobile. In a few years, your phone already tells you what your bill is while you’re shopping, because it knows which items you’re holding in the store. Asia is way ahead of us when it comes to mobile/paying technology
Concluding
It’s been 7 great and intense days. We learned so much about Singapore, technology and Asia Pacific in general. Just astonishing. I’m definitely coming back!
Singapore is way ahead of us and we Europeans can learn so much from Asia. The main Asian factors: drive, good results and being the best at everything you do. Singapore has the fastest growing companies, the hardest working people and the cleanest city. It’s safe, not too crowded, has no traffic jams and has efficient public transport. Taxes aren’t high and everything is super high-tech. Especially the mobile technology is super developed. When walking around the city, you have the feeling that everything is designed by a combination of artists, engineers and architects. Every single building is beautiful and fits the environment perfectly.
However, sometimes it’s a bit scary. Camera’s on every corner of the street, getting a text message when you enter a non-smoking-zone or even getting a fine for jaywalking because the camera caught you with face recognition… It will always be an ethical debate whether this is a good or a bad thing… but I liked it!
You know, Singapore is not perfect… but it’s coming damn close.
All credits to Jens Cloots
Original article published on April 23, 2019
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aft-student-start-up-trip-singapore-jens-cloots/
