Distinguished Entrepreneur Series: Recipes for Success

The Distinguished Entrepreneur Series – Serial Entrepreneurs: Recipes for Success featured by MIT Enterprise Forum Hong Kong (MITEF) and Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks (HKSTP) on 20 Jun 2014 in Charles K. Kao Auditorium at Hong Kong Science Park. CityU Business & Industrial Club (CUBIC) was one of supporting organizations. MIT Enterprise Forum Hong Kong (MITEF) is a chapter within the MIT Enterprise Forum network, the global voice of entrepreneurship.

The Forum invited four panel speakers as follows: (From Left)
1) Simon Squibb (CEO, Nest Investments) who is Angel investor, founder of multi award-winning creative agency. (Hong Kong)
2) Jacob Hsu (CEO, Symbio) who is Investor, YGL of WEF, CEO of global product development and R&D service company. (Silicon Valley, USA)
3) Peng T. Ong (Director, Banean Holdings) who is Investor, Entrepreneurs, executive role in numerous multi-national corporations. (Singapore)
4) Chuck Cheng (CEO, AppoTech) who is an entrepreneur in technology (HK and Silicon Valley), numerous entrepreneurship award winners. (Hong Kong)

After introduced by the panelist themselves, Q&A session was performed about 1.5hr. I would like to summarize some points below for sharing.

Simon said Hong Kong is special that you can access the world in spot. He said Hong Kong had a lot of capital. Silicon valley is a mindset but not the place. Then he concerned company culture. For large company, their culture was focus on operation efficiency but not innovation.

Jacob Hsu told us that Entrepreneur concerned more on “How much they make the impact to the world” rather than “How much money they earn”. Moreover, he pointed out three factors included Passion (e.g. keep going), Resource (e.g. Capital) and Adaptability (e.g. Real time to Market / Change Business Model).

Peng T. Ong said that VC would consider the heart of Entrepreneur. He also said Entrepreneur didn’t act as employee but look forward the future.

Chuck Cheng told the advantages in Hong Kong included IP protection and door to China. Then he said the most important of entrepreneur was the TEAM! You needed to find the right partner.

Other Definition of Entrepreneur:
- People change the world in some ways and make the life different (By Peng T. Ong)
- Make something different and prove by himself (By Chuck Cheng)

At the end, I met Dr. David Ai (Director of Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Transfer Office, CityU) and took a photo for memory.

Reference:
HKSTP - http://www.hkstp.org
MITEF HK - http://www.mitefhk.org/
CUBIC - http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/kto/index.aspx?id=PG-1200038