We had the amazing opportunity to get one uninterrupted hour with Singapore's Minister of State, Alvin Tan, who gave us his fullest attention regarding how he can support us on our sustainability journey in fostering green innovation in Singapore through impact-making network collaboration.
A little bit about Alvin: He is Singapore's Minister of State, Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Before this, he was Facebook's Head of Public Policy and Trust and Safety and LinkedIn's Director and Head of Public Policy & Economics (thus he was the perfect person for us to not only talk about sustainability but also about scaling startups).
Here are some lessons we learned from him:
1) Do your research: it was really clear that he did his homework. From understanding the ins and outs of our startup (YSI SEA and Interseed) to even knowing when we matriculated from the National University of Singapore, he was ready to leapfrog from the mundane details to talk about the bigger picture.
2) Have resources at your fingertips: a highlight was how easily he could reference the startups/ ground-up initiatives he works with, ecosystem players that he would gladly introduce us to, and funding opportunities that we can apply for.
3) Walk the talk: And he followed through! We quickly received follow-up insights into the opportunities and connections that we were interested in, and it felt comforting to be on a fast track with an interconnected network of sustainability eco-system players.
Some great opportunities which you might be interested in too:
National Youth Fund (NYF)
Companies embracing ESG such as the sustainable Sentosa roadmap
We hope to meet more amazing impact making ecosystem players for Sustainability like Alvin as we build our collaborative platform for Southeast Asia
Sustainable cities and communities collaboration a click away.