Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 07

Went for the Singapore gala dinner for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award dinner last night. Nice event. Very expensive. Heard each table cost $2.5k! At least the food and the service was good!

Anyway, there’s something funny about the awards and its selection. This is not meant to belittle the efforts of the winners. But I find that many of the winners were 2nd/3rd generation entrepreneurs. They just took over dad’s company. Or they were not even native Singaporeans.

Anyone with a discerning eye would have noticed this. Luckily, at least the ultimate Singapore winner was a true-blue Singaporean. Otherwise, we’ll just be sending “Foreign Talent” to another contest. Just like our sporting teams.

I think E&Y should consider having separate categories. Let the guys who are 2nd/3rd generation with family money fight in one category, the guys who are rags-to-riches and on their own fight in one and also split the categories by Citizenship.

At least this will be a fairer competition. Otherwise, don’t mind me saying this but the perception will be that the competition is one that rewards the established inner-circle which truly defeats the whole idea of an entrepreneur award.

New Google Maps Feature - Terrain

Check out Google Maps. They’ve got a new “Terrain” button which allows you to see elevation maps of the entire world! It’s highly detailed and very useful for geography buffs.

The cool thing about this new feature is that you can see the world unblemished by large cities. It’s like going back in time to an era before civilization!

Update: Check out Yosemite! And a very flat Singapore.

1M installs for class Facebook apps - Is it repeatable in Singapore?

I read this post with great interest. Justin Smith interviews the teams that made it past 1M installs with their apps.

One thing I’ve just learnt is the term “viral tuning”. I wonder where that came from?

But my point is to debate twhether this is repeatable at the upcoming Facebook Apps class at NUS.

I’m not too sure really. Because at Stanford, the user base is much more established. People use it more often and more passionately. Also the interconnectivity or meshing is much stronger. Stanford’s campus culture is such that people mix around a lot through various interactions, definitely much deeper than at NUS. NUS is very cliquish whereas Stanford has the open Californian culture.

So my gut feel is that Apps developed here might find it hard to grow out of this small pond. The network linkages to a large hinterland population is just not there for virality to seriously take off. Not unless someone in the class already has more friends abroad. We’ll see!

Nevertheless, all the best! Better to have developed something than nothing!

Magneto Ecommerce Platform

Just found out about this new opn-source PHP based ecommerce store project. Looks really promising! At first glance, Magneto Ecommerce looks way better than OpenSource.

Looks like OpenSource is still a very important strategy and if well executed it still has a lot of potential.

Business Week Asia’s Young Entrepreneurs Nominations

3 of the ex-presenters at E27’s previous demo events were selected for Business Week’s Asia’s Young Entrepreneurs Awards. Congrats to

Herryanto, U-Zyn, Choon Keat and of course a shout out to Ming-Shen and Eric Feng.

Test Driving Friends and Selectively Irritating People

I really admire Tim Ferriss and all his ridiculous ideas. In fact they’re really quite good ideas. His latest idea that has thrown up a storm is the idea of test driving your friends and selectively irritating people.

The theory is absolutely right. I don’t understand why people can get so crazy angry on the thread. The first thing that everyone has to realize about this “shit-testing” is that girls do it on you all the time! So it’s actually ok to shit-test people. Afterall, why live a life filled with people who bring negativity to your life.

Life is short. I’ve had friends who have passed on or been near through near death. It makes you wonder if you’re really spending every moment of your life well.

I like the way Tim always comes up with unconventional ideas. There’s where the fun is!

I’m pretty unconventional myself. That’s why I loved reading Tim’s books.

I think it’s time I seriously engaged myself in some of the unconventional stuff he’s been talking about.

Because I think the newest frontier in ‘experiences’ is no longer geography bound (travel) but rather mentally bound.

Black Friday!

I just remembered that it’s Black Friday!

The most mega powerful shopping event in America! How I wished I could be stateside!

Good Service in Singapore? Where can you find it?

There’s this hawker centre at Dover where I just had lunch. There were 4 stalls there giving extremely pro-active service. They would come out of their way to welcome you, find you a seat and take order. Sometimes I think they’re a little over-enthusiastic. But better than being ignored isn’t it?

The reason they have pro-active service could be due to the competition. There are 2 chicken rice stalls and 2 drink stalls.

Many people have mentioned to me that service standards in Hong Kong have improved greatly. I think it’s the “China” effect. The stronger the competition, the more people buck up!

3.5G Mobile Broadband… The Way to Go! Liberation is Here!

Aha, my liberation from the shackles of wired broadband is finally here. Last weekend, I spent 3 hours in the line at StarHub Plaza Singapura to buy the MaxMobile 3.5G Broadband modem and access plan.

It’s the most wonderful piece of gadetry I’ve bought this year. It’s the ultimate mobility solution. Liberation has arrived!

The modem is called the Huawei HSUSPA USB Modem E270 with a download speed of 7.2Mbps and an upload speed of 2Mbps. It’s the latest and fastest 3.5G mobile broadband solution.

I no longer have to be thetered to to home or office line. Mobility is here. I can now go ANYWHERE in Singapore and be able to get work done.

With so many libraries, cafes and McDonalds all around this 24 hour town, the possibilities are nearly endless. It has given me the opportunity to work all around town. And get stuff done even at apparently weird places like:

• In a club, I can reply to emails by slotting the SIM card into my smart phone.
• When waiting for a carpark space, I can whip out my laptop and reply to a few mails or get some work done.
• I can meet friends at McDonalds or some Library and use Windows Internet Connection sharing to share the MaxMobile connection with them.

It’s really exciting! So much so that I’ve literally been telling everyone I know about this.

Only problem now is power supply: laptop battery just doesn’t last long enough. However, with so many places that ‘could’ have sockets, it’s not a show stopper.

Eventually, i hope to be able to buy an ultra-mobile laptop that is RAM-Drive only and has a built in 3.5G modem so all I need to do is slot in my SIM card. It will have the OS of a workstation and the portability of a mobile phone! How nice!

RoRED IDE - Must be the best Rails IDE now! No Bloat!

RoRED IDE. Just installed it. Must be the most kickass and lightweight IDE for Rails that I’ve seen around. It’s only 1MB!