The fourth ASEC event saw over 50 students participating from Singapore. In the first for ASEC, the top two teams from each country were judged by a regional panel of judges to determine the asian winner.
The ASEC Challenge
The challenge was issued by Professor Peter Ng, Director of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research in Singapore.
The challenge read;
The effects of Global Warming has become more apparent in the last few years. Colder winters, longer summers and increasing rainfall are just some of the visible effects. Rising global temperatures and melting ice caps have led to erratic weather patterns and new global environments that humans have to live in and have had no time to adapt to. As this trend continues, it will begin to threaten the way we live and cause humans to reflect at their unsustainable practices.
Nature has had more time and opportunity to adapt and co-evolve with the changes in the environment. Animals, plants and microbes have taken over thousands and millions of years to evolve and adapt to various physical and social environments. It has developed its own set of systems, processes and means to survive. The new study of “learning from nature” called biomimicry is beginning to unfold new ideas and innovations for humans.
Your challenge is to use biomimicry to develop sustainable habitats, in your country, for living in the face of global warming.
The ASEC Singapore Winners
Team Salamander was mentored by Vinod Tadikamalla from the ASEC Alumni. In addition, this team won the first place for the regional ASEC judging!
GEC 2012 & Asian Hub
The Singapore team was invitied to participate in the Global Enterprise Challenge (16 – 17 June 2012) from the Asian Hub in Kyoto Japan. Hosted by the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, our team was well taken care of during the stay and was treated to the wonderful hospitality of the Japanese hosts.
GEC 2012 Challenge
The 2012 Global Enterprise Challenge addresses an area of major concern and recognises that in the current global recession, young people are finding employment hard to get and for some, self-employment has become the only alternative, requiring them to make the move from job-seeker to job-creator.
Your challenge is to:
Present a business idea to a panel of entrepreneurs who are keen to invest in a business start-up which might be a micro-business in exchange for an equity stake in the operation. These investors are particularly interested in business ideas that will create jobs for young people.
Singapore’s submission detailed a plan to have a business that will bring about better cooperation between self-employed individuals and more job opportunities for unemployed youth.
Winners of GEC 2012
1st Place – Australia
2nd Place – New Zealand
3rd Place – Wales
Creativity Award – New Zealand
ASEC+GEC 2012 Sponsors
A big thank you to all our organisers, sponsors and suporters. Looking forward to partnering in the future to develop the youth entrepreneurship scene in Singapore!