KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY MR THARMAN SHANMUGARATNAM, ACTING MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, AT THE INAUGURAL ROUNDTABLE ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION ASIA 2004 ON THURSDAY, 29 JULY 2004 AT 9.20AM AT THE NUSS KENT RIDGE GUILD HOUSE, NUS

Professor Shih Choon Fong
President, National University of Singapore

Dr Tina Seelig
Executive Director, Stanford Technology Venture Programme

Professor Andrew Isaacs
Executive Director
Management of Technology Programme, U. C. Berkeley

Ladies and Gentlemen

INTRODUCTION
1     First, a very warm welcome to Singapore to our international participants.  I am glad that colleagues from 22 universities from Asia, US and Europe have made time to attend this inaugural Asian Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education (REE) for Scientists and Engineers, jointly organised by the Entrepreneurship Centre at the National University of Singapore (NUS) with Stanford University and U.C. Berkeley.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION  -  WHY IT MATTERS
2     It is not so long ago that entrepreneurship education was seen as a contradiction in terms.  In Asia certainly, there has been something of a divide between the entrepreneurship and advancement in education.  Those who did well in education gravitated to government or the professions.  It was the ‘Mandarin’ tradition, deeply rooted, and still alive in much of Asia till today.  And generations of Asian entrepreneurs have done well despite their lack of higher education  -  or, according to popular legend, because of their lack of higher education.

3     But the traditional divide is blurring over.  The reasons are quite fundamental.  We have entered the knowledge-based economy.  In Asia it is surging ahead, pushed by clusters of scientists and engineers in key cities across China, India and Southeast Asia, and the influx of global MNCs taking advantage of the growing pool of lower cost, high quality Asian talent in R&D, design and manufacturing.  Already today, China and India produce 600,000 engineers between them.  But they are a small fraction of each age cohort.  In the coming decade, they will produce huge numbers of able young graduates, anxious to get ahead in life.

4     Siemen’s latest mobile phone, recently launched, was designed from scratch in its Shanghai research lab, its first design outside its German labs.  Shanghai is not alone.  Economic growth in key cities in Asia will increasingly be driven by the ability to innovate, not just to make things more cheaply, or to absorb and apply advances made elsewhere more efficiently.  This is a sea change in the Asian economic paradigm, after 40 years of growth based on making things more cheaply.  Growth will be innovation-driven, not efficiency-driven.

5     The most successful countries will therefore be those that build and sustain vibrant innovation systems  -  the institutions and networks of people that support continuous innovation.  How well they do this will depend on the deliberate actions of governments, universities and industry players, and the interactions between the three.  And there will of course always be an unplanned or serendipitous dimension to innovation, given the flux of social and market circumstances.

6     What does it take to build innovative economic systems, and keep an edge in the new, knowledge-based global competition?  First, and most fundamental, is the quality of human capital  -  the skills of the workforce and depth of research and design capabilities.  Innovative economies will depend on an adequate supply of well trained, well educated manpower.  Without workforce skills of a high order, entrepreneurship creates little value in the knowledge-based economy.  We will not be able to create new and differentiated products, sustain brand advantages, manage complex international supply chains or work out new financial solutions.

7     Second, markets have to be allowed to work.  Intellectual property protection, competitive domestic markets and an openness to trade and foreign investment enhance innovation.  New ideas with commercial potential must also have access to funding.  Venture capital has to be in adequate supply, and banks have to develop the skills and risk management systems needed for lending to young companies without collateral.

8     Third, an innovative economic system requires a culture that respects risk-taking.  A society with high levels of knowledge and skills will not produce the breakthroughs in products or processes needed for economic advance without a culture of entrepreneurship that extends across society.  Without the willingness to take risks, we will not create value from knowledge.

9     It is a culture that gives support and recognition  -  of teachers and professors, parents and peers  -  to individuals who want to venture out and try doing something new.  A culture that allows the community at large to see failure as a stage to success.

10    It is these social values that distinguish the pro-enterprise cultures of countries like the US from the anti-enterprise cultures of countries like Japan, or even the UK.  We know the tolerance for failure in Singapore has been low.  But from most accounts it is now rising.  And social respect for those who start a business is going up.

11    Each of these three dimensions  -  skills and research capabilities, competitive markets governed by the rule of law, and the risk-taking culture are essential for a vibrant national system of innovation.  The absence of any one of these dimensions stifles innovation.  And the interaction between the three dimensions is also critical.  Bringing innovation into education, and building strong university-business linkages in particular, are increasingly important in developing sustained, innovation-driven growth.

12    Further, while innovation systems have strong national characteristics, success depends critically on openness and linkages with innovation systems in other countries  -  and especially with the global centres of excellence among universities, research institutions and  commercial laboratories.  Strong innovation systems depend not only on the local environment but on global connectedness.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS
13    Traditionally, entrepreneurship education in most universities has been largely confined to the business school.  Involvement of students from other disciplines was incidental  -  nice to look at, but really not essential.  This is rapidly changing.  However, opening up entrepreneurship programmes to students in science and engineering disciplines is not simply about importing business school modules, or exporting students into the business school.  The pedagogical approaches and curriculum design of entrepreneurship courses for general business students are not always suited to the needs of the science or engineering students.  Business school professors who teach entrepreneurship often do not have a technical background or actual entrepreneurial experience in a technology-driven industry.  And few professors in engineering or science faculties have rigorous exposure to business.  Moreover, it is a strong consensus emerging that entrepreneurship education has to go beyond the traditional classroom to incorporate more experiential learning  -  through internships in industry, mentoring with experienced entrepreneurs and business plan competitions and the like.

14    There is much we can learn from how universities elsewhere have injected an entrepreneurial dimension into their programs.  I understand that it is no coincidence that the universities with outstanding records of producing alumni who have succeeded in high tech fields, like Stanford, MIT and UC Berkeley, have each placed emphasis on entrepreneurship education early in the training of engineering students.  We look forward to exchanging ideas and best practices in this area.

ENTERPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION AT NUS
15    The National University of Singapore has been developing its entrepreneurship education capacity.  As you have heard from the President of NUS, Prof. Shih, NUS has pioneered a number of programme innovations, including the Overseas College Program under which students are sent to a number of technology hubs around the world to undertake internship in high tech start-ups, and to take courses in entrepreneurship in partner universities like Stanford in Silicon Valley, U Penn in Philadelphia, and Fudan in Shanghai.

16    More students are enrolling in entrepreneurship courses at NUS  -  up from less than 200 in 1999 to over 1100 this year.  These classroom activities have been complemented by the launch of several new initiatives like StartUp@Singapore (a national business plan competition), business incubators for professors and students embarking on start-ups, regular forums that bring entrepreneurs onto campus, and a venture support fund to seed university spin-offs.  Similarly motivated initiatives are taking place at our other two publicly-funded universities, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU).

17    What our universities are doing is part of a new wave in education, beginning with our young.  Through both our academic and non-academic programmes, we are encouraging students, from the primary level up, to think for themselves, to question things as they learn, to experiment and take the initiative.  They are at the core of the culture we are trying to nurture.  Young Singaporeans with a sense of dare, unafraid of trying something new, and never tiring of working to achieve their dreams.

CONCLUSION
18    There is much more that Singapore can learn.  I am sure that this inaugural roundtable bringing together leading education practitioners will throw up useful ideas.  It will also help catalyse the development of a vibrant community of technology entrepreneurship educators in Asia, who can continue to network and share knowledge and practices in future.

19    In closing, I would like to thank NUS, Stanford and UC Berkeley for taking the initiative to organise this roundtable in Singapore.  I wish you all productive exchanges over the next 2 days.