Be daring to take the business plunge

Fewer than one in five tertiary students in a National University of Singapore Entrepreneurship Centre survey said they wanted to become entrepreneurs. More than two-thirds preferred regular salaried jobs. Yet, the finding ought to pass as interesting, as this is Global Entrepreneurship Week. A nascent trend has been emerging of more well-schooled young people starting their own modest businesses. A 2006 survey conducted by the DP Information Group, a business information bureau, and the Action Community of Entrepreneurship (ACE), a private-public sector movement, found entrepreneurship 'thriving'. Last year, it estimated a fifth of entrepreneurs were below age 30. In more than one sense of the saying, it is no longer 'their father's business'. Almost as often as not, they rely on infocomm technology - more specifically, the Internet - to develop and leverage their start-ups.

New-generation entrepreneurs are not only younger. They are also better educated and venture into business out of choice, not necessity. DP and ACE found 16 per cent had master's degrees, 26 per cent had first degrees. What has brought about the change? The Government has done much pushing. As Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan noted, Singapore has to attract and nurture talent, encourage ideas to flourish, make it easy to start businesses, facilitate access to capital, and secure international market access. These steps in themselves, however, are not enough to sustain the growing interest. Take entrepreneurship education. The Government has revised the national school curriculum to promote innovation, problem solving and an inquiring spirit. Universities and polytechnics have started extensive entrepreneurship programmes, but even these institutions do not claim to 'teach' the subject, beyond emphasising learning through experience, such as how to avoid wrong turns that cost time and money.

But aspirants have more role models than before to inspire and guide them from pitfalls to profits. BreadTalk, Charles and Keith, Osim and Sakae Sushi began as daring enterprises that have gone big in recent years. Creative Technology and Hyflux have been big-league players for some years. There is no lack of funding for risk takers, either. Young people with business flair and workable ideas can raise capital from both private and public sources. Yet, too much handholding can be counterproductive. Incubator should not become hothouse. Dr Balakrishnan was right to point out the limits of what the Government can do. The young should respond to his call to be ready to take risks.