Blazing the Trail of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Dare

When every child grows up as an avid creator, innovation and creativity will be their second nature. When at play, they will build rocket ships, castles and skyscrapers. When playing amongst friends they make-belief; one is a teacher, whilst the others are students. A simple cardboard box could be a house, a race car or even a helicopter. Their creativity is boundless, the question is – how do we harness these ideas and natural creativity of every child?

Throughout the Prudential Young Trailblazers Competition, we sought to give these students a platform where their creativity can take center stage. But beyond that, we also desired to inspire confidence by giving them appropriate tools and mentorship, so that their innovative ideas can become a reality. What better way to spark off innovation than a competition where passionate students and business owners can come together to pair boundless creativity and business world practicality!

Charlotte, one of our Young Trailblazers finalist from Zhonghua Secondary School’s Cash Crush team tells us why they were eager to take part in the competition when they heard about it,

“We were interested to join the competition because we wanted to learn more about entrepreneurship and the business world. We aspire to learn entrepreneurial skills and work as a team through this competition, and also to bond with each other. We also believe that through this experience, we will have a wider knowledge of how businesses work and that will contribute greatly to our futures.”

Although students engage in a myriad of projects throughout their academic year, the Young Trailblazers competition takes them to the next level such that their ideas can have tangible business outcomes. Thus, the competition matches teams with industry mentors, so they are able to work towards a realistic business ideas, prototype while receiving constructive feedback.

Wei Yuxin, from Raffles Institution, part of team AppRExp, shares how his mentor supported and helped his team throughout the competition,

“The Prudential Young Trailblazers journey has been a very meaningful and unforgettable experience as we were given live feedback from our mentor, Howard. Apart from teaching us about business, what sticks with us from all our meetups with him, are the valuable little life lessons that he shared with us. For the business part, it has been very helpful to have a mentor who knows how to think outside of the box. Not only that, he is able to guide us through our business plan, particularly in the areas of attracting users and creating a complete ecosystem of suppliers and consumers.”

Yet, as with every competition, it was not without its share of hardship and harsh deadlines.

Miao Xin, from Singapore Polytechnic, shares with us honestly,

“The Prudential Young Trailblazers journey so far has been tedious. We have changed our ideas multiple times and it was hard to juggle the competition with our studies. But the competition has made it comfortable to use by using online platform for us to learn and work as it is something that we are familiar with in school. Having a mentor has also benefited us as our mentor asked us many questions that made us think deeper into our project.”

The competition organizers acknowledge the heavy workload and struggle that teams have to face with, such as juggling school and the competition deadlines. At the same time, they also recognize that these are important challenges that will help the participants to grow as individuals. Team discipline, time management, resilience and tenacity in the face of multiple challenges, are just some of the qualities repeatedly displayed by the participants throughout the competition.

The Prudential Young Trailblazer competition is proud of all its participants who have taken on this challenge to blaze the trail of Innovation and take on the Entrepreneurial Dare. Like everyone who has followed this inaugural but exciting competition, we are just as excited to hear the pitch by the Finalists on July 7th.

“We are extremely excited and can’t wait to pitch our idea at the Finals. We hope that we are able to actualize the idea one day. It has been tough here and there, but we believe it has been worthwhile given the things we have learned throughout the journey.” (Wei Yuxin)

With these enthusiastic last words, we look forward to the Finals of the Prudential Young Trailblazers on July 7th.