Supporting student entrepreneurs

The expansion of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Overseas Colleges programme, which is credited with seeding the start-up community in Singapore, attests to the wisdom that entrepreneurship is a skill that can be nurtured by providing the right ecosystem. The programme, which sees students going to work in start-ups in more than 15 locations abroad, will cater to more students, gradually expanding its current annual capacity of 300 to 600 in five years. Its geographical footprint, too, will be expanded beyond Silicon Valley, New York, Stockholm, Tel Aviv and Shenzhen to encompass more business and innovation nodes in the United States, Europe, China and South-east Asia. This is an ambitious move by NUS, which should be commended not only for having initiated the programme 20 years ago, but also for extending it to students from other institutions.

The NUS is on the right track. In an article for the World Economic Forum in 2020, two academics argued powerfully that universities should support more student entrepreneurs. In the past, the article argued, a university education typically prepared students for careers defined by others. In the unpredictable post-pandemic world, however, universities need to prepare students for careers that they define themselves. Universities need to offer the curricula, facilities and incentives to create new generations of entrepreneurs. They are well placed to do this because they possess the conditions, facilities and talent that foster the emergence of breakthrough ideas.