Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good evening

          I am glad to be here with you at the Rotary-ASME Entrepreneur of the Year Award ceremony.

Importance of entrepreneurs

2       This being an occasion to celebrate the entrepreneur, I would like to begin by talking about the importance of entrepreneurs to the economy and to society. Entrepreneurs play three crucial roles.

3       First, entrepreneurs are drivers of change and innovation. In their drive to do things better, cheaper and faster, entrepreneurs create a perpetual pipeline of new products and services for the market. These give consumers greater choice and ultimately improve the quality of life. For example, in 1979 Steve Jobs was seized by the concept of Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) for personal computers, despite the prototype’s inventor, Xerox, being skeptical about the market potential. Jobs’ Apple Computers therefore launched the first home PC with GUI – the Apple Lisa. The advent of GUI has made computing much simpler and is certainly one of the factors that have contributed to the ubiquity of PCs today.

4       Second, entrepreneurs are creators of jobs. It is a fact that entrepreneurship and employment go hand in hand. As new products and services are introduced, more staff will be required to produce, sell, and deliver them. BreadTalk is a good example of this. Through constant product innovation and clever positioning, it has given the humble bun a new lease of life and has sparked a new wave of demand for fancy local bread and pastries. Today, BreadTalk employs more than 400 people in its local outlets. Its success has also spawned many more competing outlets.

5       An important aspect of entrepreneurship is social entrepreneurship. In this case, the objective is not to make profits per se, but to achieve social good through the similar process of identifying opportunities, exercising creativity, and building new structures. It is no accident that business entrepreneurs are also well equipped to play a role to champion social causes. It is therefore apt that the judging criteria for the Rotary-ASME Entrepreneur of the Year Award includes a component on social entrepreneurship.

6       An early example of an entrepreneur in both the commercial and social domains was Tan Kah Kee. Starting out as an apprentice in his father’s rice business, he built a diversified business empire. He also had a strong desire to contribute to society, in particular to education. He founded 5 primary and secondary schools in Singapore, and several schools and a university in China. Today, very few know the names of the many companies Mr Tan once founded. The schools he established, however, remain some of the best schools in Singapore. A more recent example of social enterprise is the Killiney Kopitiam franchise at Changkat Community Centre. Set up together with the Teen Challenge Singapore, a non-profit organisation, this franchise employs former drug addicts and gives them a chance to reintegrate into society. Killiney Kopitiam waived the usual franchising fee and provided free training in serving and cooking to the operators.

Associations can play a role in entrepreneurship movement

7       As Singapore restructures its economy to meet new challenges, promoting entrepreneurship will be a key strategy. The government will continue to work with the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) to create an environment that is conducive for enterprise and innovation. Active private sector leadership in the entrepreneurship movement will be vital for it to succeed. In this regard, associations with trade or business interests can play an important and proactive role. These associations already serve as important support networks for entrepreneurs. Especially for those just starting out, memberships to associations provide them with invaluable contacts from whom they can seek advice or even business opportunities.

8       Associations can go a step further by identifying good market opportunities, and organizing their members to capitalize on them. IE Singapore’s International Marketing Assistance Programme (IMAP) provides funding support for participation in overseas trade fairs and missions. Trade associations can organize such missions and apply for assistance on behalf of their members. Last month, IMAP supported the Singapore Precision Engineering and Tooling Association’s automotive mission to Germany, France and the UK. We must learn to hunt as a pack.

9       Associations can also work with government agencies to help their members upgrade. For example, ASME was recently appointed to champion training amongst SMEs by the Workforce Development Agency (WDA). Together, they plan to make 300,000 training places available to SMEs over the next 3 years.

10     Yet another role associations can play is advocating and celebrating the spirit of enterprise. Tonight’s Rotary-ASME Entrepreneur Award is a case in point. Events like this one not only serve to recognize the achievements of successful entrepreneurs. They also encourage aspiring entrepreneurs by putting success stories under the spotlight. As we seek to establish an entrepreneurial culture, we need more business heroes and heroines to inspire our young.

Tribute to Dr Diana Young

11     Before the winner of 2004’s Rotary-ASME Entrepreneur of the Year Award is unveiled, I would like to pay tribute to a previous winner. Dr Diana Young won this award in 1999, just one of numerous accolades she obtained in the course of her career. In addition to being a successful entrepreneur, she was a vocal advocate of SMEs’ interests and an activist in the entrepreneurship movement. Diana served as ASME’s first woman President in 2000. She was also a regular at ACE’s BlueSky Evenings, and even hosted one session at Milcom last year. The entrepreneurial community in Singapore has lost an outstanding member and a dear friend.

12     While Diana is no longer with us, I am sure her indomitable sprit of enterprise and service will continue to live on in our entrepreneurs and in the rest of us.