More than 130 alumni, venture capitalists, industry partners, SMU faculty, staff, and students packed the scenic location of Empire in the city centre on 21st April 2016 for the first SMU Industry Night for the year. Organised by SMUpreneurs (SMU Entrepreneurs Alumni Group) and supported by SMU’s Office of Alumni Relations (OAR), the alumni entrepreneurs networked with venture capitalists such as 1823 Ventures, IIPL, UOB Ventures, Majuven, Incuvest, Enable8, Monk’s Hill, SPH Media Fund, Xpanasia and Leotech. SMU alumna Christina Pang (BSocSc, 2010) came with the aim of expanding her contacts, “I’m glad for this opportunity to network with like-minded people. This is an effective way for alumni to reconnect with one another.”
The emcee for the night was SMUpreneurs Exco member Winston Wee (MI, 2013). OAR Director Associate Professor Low Aik Meng congratulated SMUpreneurs President Ivan Chang (BBM, 2014) and his Exco for their commendable efforts in growing the SMU entrepreneurs eco-system. He said that SMU would do its utmost to support alumni entrepreneurs.
SMUpreneurs is an Affinity Alumni Group formed to engage entrepreneurs amongst the SMU alumni community. It aims to support alumni entrepreneurs via networking events and shared community resources. One of its projects this year is the launch of a comprehensive directory listing of companies founded by SMU alumni entrepreneurs. The directory currently tracks more than 225 businesses, and categorises them under 10 broad categories. SMUpreneurs’ goal is to have a directory of 1,000 alumni businesses. Ivan called upon SMU alumni to spread the word and to list their businesses in the directory.
Ivan also mentioned that SMUpreneurs is open for collaborations with student or alumni groups from SMU as well as other universities in Singapore in the area of entrepreneurship. He said, “We are not here to compete; we want to provide an awesome platform for entrepreneur development”. He encouraged alumni entrepreneurs to give back to SMU in terms of their time and expertise. “This year we will also launch the first mentoring programme with SMU Eagles Inc., the student entrepreneurship club. We need to encourage our budding entrepreneurs and ensure that their business ideas are robust.”
SMUpreneurs has a string of events lined up, including an alumni entrepreneurs’ meet-up in Hong Kong and a joint study mission trip to Silicon Valley. 2016 promises to be an exciting and fruitful year for SMUpreneurs!
For more photos from the event, please click here.
To read the article by Vulcan Post about the event, please click here.