Past Winners | NYEA 2017 Awardees

Youth is Not Wasted on the Young

The inaugural Quest Ventures-EDGE National Youth Entrepreneurship Awards 2017 honours nine outstanding youth entrepreneurs in their teens and early 20s.

As Singapore moves to become an innovation-driven economy, who better to lead the charge into this brave new world than our youths?

For now, the average age of Singapore entrepreneurs may be 39, according to a 2016 global study by HSBC, but this looks set to change as momentum builds for a wave of youth entrepreneurs. Nine of them were recently handpicked to be the inaugural recipients of the Quest Ventures-EDGE National Youth Entrepreneurship Award.

The award celebrates and recognises the achievements of outstanding students and recent graduates who have demonstrated outstanding entrepreneurial qualities, and achievement in entrepreneurship, as well as contributed to the entrepreneurship community.

“Today’s fast-moving world is characterised by technological disruptions and globalised competition. It is thus important for our youths to have a keen entrepreneurial mindset in order to thrive in the future economy. Key entrepreneurial qualities such as the ability to adapt to various challenges, the creativity to come up with novel solutions, and the grit to persevere in adversity, are critical life skills for our youths, even if they do not eventually start up their own businesses,” said Dr Koh Poh Koon, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade & Industry and Ministry of National Development.

He graced the 17 November award ceremony as guest-of-honour and handed out the awards to the nine winners across two categories — post-secondary (for junior college, ITE and polytechnic students) and university.