Polytechnic students receive a one-week apprenticeship in leadership, business and technology with Salesforce Foundation at BizAcademy.
In times past, young men learned trades from masters. The apprentices shadowed their teachers for years, sometimes one-to-one, learning the secrets to becoming successful in their craft. Apprenticeships with renowned masters were highly treasured, and apprentices in turn worked hard to prove their worth.
In today’s world, the formal education system has largely replaced this. How then does one learn things that are not written in textbooks? How does one get started in business without important connections?
Aiming to give a leg up to youths, BizAcademy Singapore was conducted on 11–15 June this year. The week-long programme was an apprenticeship in business, leadership and technology. Since 2005, Salesforce Foundation has seen more than 300 BizAcademy graduates all over the world — from San Francisco to Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, London and other cities.
This year marked a re-launch of BizAcademy in Singapore, with Halogen Foundation Singapore co-organising it with Salesforce Foundation. salesforce.com, named by Forbes magazine as the Most Innovative Company in the World in 2011, is a leader in cloud computing.
For this programme, ten polytechnic students were selected after a screening and interview process. Seven were from Nanyang Polytechnic, two from Temasek Polytechnic, and one from Singapore Polytechnic. Throughout the five days, they learned about Marketing, Sales, Strategic Planning, and Finance from salesforce.com employees as well as external speakers such as TK Ng (entrepreneur and president, Side Effects Software Asia Pacific), So-Young Kang (CEO, The Awaken Group) and Mark Wee (director, ONG&ONG).
With the theme of “Go Social!”, the apprentices also heard from social entrepreneurs Lee Min Xuan (co-founder, Playmoolah), Glen Ng (general manager, Dialogue in the Dark Singapore) and Shaun Koh (chief troublemaker, Syinc) on the thrills and challenges of running a social enterprise. Complementing the business knowledge with leadership lessons, Martin Tan, (co-founder and executive director) and Jael Chng (head, Social) from Halogen Foundation shared about the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership and what the future looks like for these young leaders.
Playing the part of mentors to the apprentices, ten salesforce.com employees volunteered and dedicated their time, experience and expertise to give the students a peek into the real workplace and business world.
“Playing the part of mentors to the apprentices, ten salesforce.com employees volunteered and dedicated their time, experience and expertise to give the students a peek into the real workplace and business world.”
This culminated in the apprentices drafting a business plan for Dialogue in the Dark Singapore which they presented to a panel comprising of top executives from the business and non-profit arenas. They were Bill Padfield (CEO, Dimension Data Asia-Pacific), Yang Cher Ming (CIO, NatSteel Holdings), Bernise Ang (founder, Syinc), Martin Tan (co-founder and executive director, Halogen Foundation Singapore), Lynette Seah (vice-president, Finance and Strategy, saleforce.com Asia-Pacific) and Zakir Ahmed (vice-preisdent, Corporate Sales, salesforce.com Asia-Pacific).
At the end, participant Nur Khaliesah Subhi summed her learning experience by saying, “I used to be a really shy person. I don’t really mingle around with friends. But after this programme, I can see that I’ve been more confident, I talk to people, and I feel great about it! Also, I’ve always wanted to start up my own business but I really don’t know how or where to start. This programme has showed me how, such as by having a vision and prototype, and looking at finance and budgets. One thing I’m afraid of is failure. But though this programme, I’ve been taught that failure is a point to success. So I’m now more brave. I’ll try again and again till I succeed.”
—Article by Darlene Uy
