Singapore may soon get another Sim Wong Hoo or its own Bill Gates if the number of young choosing business instead of salaried employment as their career choice is any indication.

A January survey by DP Information Group revealed the following statistics about the Singaporean entrepreneur: More than 65% of the entrepreneurs surveyed in 582 companies were younger than 40 years old. They were also well educated, with 42 per cent having obtained at least a Bachelor Degree, and 70 per cent having a tertiary level qualification.

The latest to show their mettle are two student teams from Singapore Management University (SMU).

As Team Singapore, they came in first and second at the 2007 Asian Students' Ventures Forum, a regional business plan competition held from March 31 to April 1.

The competition was organised by the Korean Economic Daily and was held at the Peking University of Beijing. Besides Singapore, it also drew participants from Japan, Korea and China. More than 110 took part in the Forum.

The winning team consisted of Ken Koh Pei Weng, Malini Kannan, Shalini Chintalapati, Raghav Somani and Aditya Singh Harneja. They won US$1000 (about S$1520). The second-place team of Rishab Mukherjee, Aditya Sehgal, Wayne Quek Jianhong, Richa Maheshwari, Dang Chen Lu, Nitin Krishnakumar and Malay Trivedi won US$800.

Winning the competition is but a first step for the student entrepreneuers. They are looking to translate their ideas from paper into a viable business.

Mr Ken Koh, co-founder of Talentpreneur Hub Pte Ltd, which organises events to promote entrprenuerial opportunities and networking, and a member of the winning team, said: "One of the judges showed a keen interest in the winning idea (a digital name card) and was willing to support its development."

Added Mr Aditya Singh Harneja, President of SMU Ventures, the university's student entrepreneurship society, and a participant at the Forum: "We hope that this is the beginning of a long standing partnership between students of the participating countries to come together and strengthen the future of the new economic centre - Asia."

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