Catalyst Connector Site

SMU Administration Building, Level 6, University Lounge Wed. 24th Nov 2010
7pm-9pm

By Felix Lee

The air was filled with anticipation when the buzz of the microphone came to life. SMU's own incubator was hosting their Affiliates' Corner event at Victoria Street, and the coffee machine was whining non-stop. Mentors as well as industry figures were invited to take a peek at the plans in place for enterprising students, who were in turn reminded with an update of the grant schemes available by an iDA spokesperson. Spring's new business support managers Chong Hui Wen and Lin Zhixun were in hand to lend credence to the flock. I was told this was to be a regular happening, not to be confused with the Entrepreneurs Corner @ SMU [tagged as: "A watering hole for Entrepreneurs, Innovators, Investors, Business Mentors and Industry Partners"], which led me to believe I had come to the wrong event, and it was going to be a dry night :)

SMU Business Innovations Generator (called an incubator laboratory) or BIG, houses aspiring startups as incubatees for a nominal "rent". BIG is run by incubation manager Vivek Chandrasekharan under the Institute of Innovation & Enterprise at SMU. The initiative is aligned with the various stages of fostering disruptive technology, via Innovation Promotion; Innnovation Sandbox; Business Acceleration; I&E training; Joint R&D; and finally, the Intellectual Property Management Office. He is well-aware of the many challenges ahead before the peek of success reveals itself. Some familiar faces included Nicholas Chan of Azione Capital, mentor Kris Childress, Raymond Kwok of SIM, Jerry Chen of ExpressinMusic, and Chitin Ben-David of Executives' Global Network. There was natural magnetism in SMU's own academia smoozing with the government types in formal wear on centrestage, while pockets of industry incubatees such as Alan Chan of SBA Mobile Solutions, and Cherry Chen of Cherry Solutions, skirted the walls. Annie Sung of Singapore Polytechnic was describing her new appointment as Industry & Entrepreneurship manager from her roots in Alumni.

AST*R's senior management from Exploit were present to field prospects and address the advantages of licensing IP, so as to leapfrog the "Valley of Death", a phase most startups experience in between the development and funding stages where cashflow is thin and threatens the existence of the business. So, we heard from one of their licensees about the advantages and ease of saving time on R&D and focusing on applications instead. [ I believe he was a staff and the word spinoff was mentioned ].

By 8.30pm, the light dinner spread of fried chicken, pasta, something like fish, and longans with jelly, had run out. The crowd began to thin into smaller pairs, and amidst comments of "Hey, there's no beer!", a number of us trudged down to the next block for a tipple. "Everyone's there for a reason, but I don't think they left knowing what that was..." was a comment by one of the attendees. I beg to differ. The objective was very obvious, in as much as plans are well intended, the concern may have been how the execution was going to be "administered". Entrepreneurship shouldn't be coerced, better to be nurtured from necessity and creativity, toward invention. I miss my mother...