Opening Remarks by ACE CEO Ms Florence Neo at NYEA 2022

Good afternoon ACE Chairman Mr James Tan,

Distinguished Guests, Valued Partners, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to welcome all of you to the National Youth Entrepreneurship Awards (NYEA) 2022. The Awards, which started in 2017, is an annual event organised by the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) to celebrate the achievements of our budding entrepreneurs on a national level.

This year’s theme is Tech-Celeration. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered many new innovations that will continue to impact the world. This is a healthy trend. Individuals and businesses have been impelled to adopt modern and digital technologies to address pain points and enhance the quality of life in Singapore.

We at ACE are encouraged to observe that startups and new innovations have become more popular. More youths and professionals now have a keen interest in startups and the ecosystem at large – many young graduates join startups; some enter the venture capital scene; and others, like our finalists today, start their own businesses.

Multinational corporations have also set up venture arms and corporate innovation teams. Overall, we see a much more vibrant startup scene in Singapore as compared to a few years back. New tools and solutions are being designed and created to connect people, processes, and systems. Tech-Celeration is therefore in full swing.

This year, we would like to recognise our youths who have risen to the occasion, created innovative and inspiring solutions that accelerate digital transformation, and helped build the Singapore startup ecosystem. I am really excited to watch our nine finalists pitch their business ideas and plans later.

Our past NYEA winners include several familiar names:

• Augmentus, which is an AI-robotics software company,
• Skilio, a data-driven soft skills development platform, and
• Homage, a senior home care marketplace and technology platform.

I am confident that our nine finalists today will also go on to make a positive and huge impact in the Singapore economy, creating good jobs and opportunities for our people, as we chart our way forward. As PM Lee mentioned in his National Rally Speech, we want to help Singapore to shine brightly as a hub of innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth.

ACE, as the national trade association for startups, will continue to organise recognition events like NYEA to uplift the ecosystem and reward our entrepreneurs who have done well. I am also pleased to share that ACE has been ramping up our engagements – both online and in-person – together with our ecosystem stakeholders.

We curate regular networking, learning and mentorship sessions, organise monthly roundtables and discussions for our startups, as well as run youth engagements almost every week. Working hand in hand with our partners such as the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Enterprise Singapore, JTC Corporation and the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), we foster an entrepreneurial culture in Singapore and help more startups to grow, scale and internationalise.

I would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to our NYEA judges and panellists, the ACE Post-Secondary Education Institution (PSEI) Sub-Committee, all our IHL partners, GEN Singapore, and sponsors including *SCAPE and Temasek Polytechnic for supporting NYEA 2022.

I hope that all of you will have a pleasant afternoon ahead, make new friends, and glean insights from the pitches and panel discussion afterwards. Do also join us to congratulate our deserving finalists and winners this afternoon.

Thank you.