EDB Amoeba Challenge 2010

June 15, 2010

Essay Competition and Team Resources

Hi! To all those who are participating in the essay competition, here are the resources each team used. We sincerely apologise for the delay! We have provided you with the executive summaries and powerpoint slides of each team.

FOUR

iFve

Orange

Sting

Bagels

In case you missed it, here are the instructions again.

Send us a one-page commentary on why you have selected that particular business plan. Include in your essay, also comments on how to improve the proposal. Attractive prizes to be earned for best essay(s).

Please submit your essay to Rachel_wan@edb.gov.sg.

Thank you!

June 12, 2010

It's the end (sad face)... but not just yet!

From all of us at EDB, we truly hope that you guys had a fun and awesome time at the EDB Amoeba Challenge 2010! Our congratulations go out to ALL the teams and we thank you for your hard work, sleepless nights, panic attacks and creative ideas (and giving us so many interesting things to blog about) during these past three days!

Although the EDB Amoeba Challenge may be over for the 26 participants, we would love to hear from other students interested in sharing their ideas with us! We welcome all sorts of ideas and no idea is too farfetched, zany or weird! Put on your thinking hats and let your creative juices flow by participating in the essay writing competition (under the "Your Participation" section) and get a chance to win attractive prizes, including $1000 in cash!

Here's how to participate:

Morning of 9 June (Day 1): Case Study for the teams will be posted onto this blog.

9 to 11 June (Day 1 to 3): Each team would blog about what they have discussed the entire day. They too would be sharing their personal experience. Our commentators would also give you a download on what have been shared by our management.

During this period, we welcome your comments and assessment! Our bloggers would be consolidating your inputs which could potentially make or break a team’s strategies and recommendations! Simply comment on any of the team's blog posts.

12 June (Day 4): We will upload the business plans formulated by the respective teams. We would need your help to assess the most viable and holistic plan which the EDB should embark on.

By 25th June: Send us a one-page commentary on why you have selected that particular business plan. Include in your essay, also comments on how to improve the proposal. Attractive prizes to be earned for best essay(s).

Please submit your essay to Rachel_wan@edb.gov.sg

Please also connect with us via our EDB Facebook page if you have any questions or comments about EDB and/or the EDB Scholarship Process.

Thank you everyone for making EDB Amoeba Challenge 2010 such a great success and please join the EDB Amoeba Challenge 2010 facebook group so we can keep in touch! We wish all 26 participants the best of luck for their coming exams, and we hope to see you at EDB again soon! (:

June 11, 2010

And the winner is...

The presentations are over and the judges' verdict is in! All 5 teams impressed us with their creativity and hard work over the past 3 days, and we could see the extent of their efforts in their final presentations. The final presentations attracted a large audience, including EDB staff, interns and scholars who were super interested in what the teams had to say!

ORANGE kicked off proceedings with their well-researched introduction on the personalised healthcare industry. Sting then "sailed" us into a different direction with their presentation on port security. After a short break, The Bagels introduced us to the fourth R - the recycling innovation industry, and FOUR excited us with their plan to entice, establish and expand the medical informatics industry in Singapore. iFve then closed out the session with their passionate presentation on the green design industry! (note: you can view the summarised proposals of the teams on their respective team pages)

The Judges - Jonathan, Wee Khiang, Alvin, Wen Tung and Angeline

ORANGE highlighting important points in their presentation ot the judges

Sting answering some tough questions from the judges

The Bagels clarifying their industry

FOUR making their case for material informatics

iFve with their presentation on green design

The sessions went into overtime because everyone was clamouring to ask the teams questions! The judges were so impressed with all the ideas and took a long time to deliberate! But after almost four hours, the winner of the inagural EDB AMOEBA CHALLENGE was (finally) announced! The winning team is...drum roll please.........

Alvin annoucing the winning team...

STING!

Sting reeling in shock when their team name was announced

Sting receiving their certificates from the judges

Sting took the top prize of $4000 with their idea on developing port securities in Singapore! The other teams impressed with their innovative and creative ideas as well and the judges commented that they would take the recommendations of the teams seriously and might even get the real EDB Amoeba Teams to further research on some of them! All the participants went home with vouchers and certificates in appreciation of their hard work over the past 3 days.

Linan has been asked by Janelle to add something funny to the end of this blog post. Well he shall try to sound intellectual just one last time. Let's look for hidden benefits. Alvin was definitely not joking when he said everyone are winners. If these 3 days were simply a roulette game of choosing winners, we regret to say that your only takeaway will be the 4000 dollars. But the knowledge you gained, the friends you made and perhaps the fat gained from all the awesome food. The external benefits beyond the 4000 dollars gained far outweighs anything you would have earned. Linan is very cynical of management programs. He believes that this course is, at least, on par with the course that many CEOs paid 6 figure sums for. You did that, with foosball, food and awesome people. What more can you ask for?

COUNTDOWN...

THE PRESSURE IS MOUNTING!!! Final presentations start in less than 10 minutes and everyone is in panic mode! The casualties are piling up:

Final Preparations

We're going to keep it real simple for the final 2 hours before your presentation. Good luck, if you need luck. If not, "all the best" shall suffice.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

Three days have passed so quickly and it's finally the last day of the EDB Amoeba Challenge! The day hasn't even started yet and everyone is already hard at work (we're so impressed)! Everyone is so well dressed, and we feel bad that we're in jeans and tees!

We're also super impressed at the HUGE progress that all the teams have made! We see lots of colourful powerpoints and long pages of scripts! Before the day officially kicks off, we like to wish the teams all the best of luck for their presentations later, and MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!!!

The teams ironing out their presentations and having final discussions:

iFve

Sting

Four

The Bagels (with Linan the tech whiz helping to fix up their internet)

Orange

June 10, 2010

Lessons From Ricardo

Let's leave Ricardian Equivalence and Labor Theory of Value aside for a moment. The second day has just ended. What lies ahead of you is a stressful day which culminates in the final presentation to the directors. Your commentators are currently in no position to provide contextual advice to you. Besides the fact that army and perhaps stagnation after JC have created a fermented dish out of our brains, the impressive amount of research undertaken by all 5 teams leaves us impressed and in awe. Even then, the two of us are far from being structurally unemployed (or we so choose to believe that we are not). We shall give you some advice on preparing your presentations.

Paul Samuelson began the "new testament" in economic history. After his regrettable death last year, we wonder why his face isn't on any of the dollar bills yet. He made classic comment on Samuelson's theory of comparative advantage, which we liberally borrowed from wikipedia.

Stanislaw Ulam once challenged Samuelson to name one theory in all of the social sciences which is both true and nontrivial. Several years later, Samuelson responded with David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage: That it is logically true need not be argued before a mathematician; that is not trivial is attested by the thousands of important and intelligent men who have never been able to grasp the doctrine for themselves or to believe it after it was explained to them.

For those who have never heard of the term "comparative advantage", we feel that it is about time you did. To illustrate the concept to those who don't, and to further illustrate the wide ranging applications that the theory can be used for, allow us to introduce a simple anecdote.

Linan is a JC graduate who has just entered the army, and is on leave to help out at the EDB Amoeba Challenge. Keat Chuan is the assistant managing director (AMD) for EDB (enough said). Now let's just assume, with good reason, that Keat Chuan can blog better than Linan does on matters related to EDB, and hence will make a better blogger for the EDB Amoeba Challenge than Linan. After all, he doesn't even need to listen to the 4 modules to be able to write an essay on each one of them. Let's also assume, with absolutely good reason, that Keat Chuan is better in directing EDB than Linan does. We don't think we need to elaborate on that either. But why does Linan still do the blogging for now, even though Keat Chuan is better than Linan in blogging?

Keat Chuan stays as a full time AMD because his time is better spent directing EDB. On the other hand, for Linan, even though he does blogging lousier than Keat Chuan does, Linan continues to blog because he would be more suitable to do blogging than Keat Chuan. But why is the time "better spent" and why is Linan "more suitable"? That is because if Keat Chuan were to do blogging, the opportunity cost incurred by him not directing EDB is huge. Similiarly, we know that even though Linan is lousier in blogging and directing, but the opportunity cost of him blogging is not really high because he isn't that good in directing any way. In other words, though Keat Chuan is better than Linan in both things, Keat Chuan is far better than Linan in blogging, but only slightly (oh dear Linan's really boasting) better than Linan in blogging. For the geeks, go work out the maths using PPCs, relative costs and what not. For pragmatists, let's move on. We would say that Keat Chuan has absolute advantage over Linan in both areas, but only comparative advantage in directing. Linan has comparative advantage over Keat Chuan in blogging.

Hence in the ideal scenario, Keat Chuan concentrates fully on directing and not get tired of it (or what we call constant returns to scale). Same goes for Linan, who will never get tired of blogging. Then if Keat Chuan specialises totally in directing, and Linan blogs exclusively for the entire event, then the duo would be able to generate much more value than if Keat Chuan did both, and Linan did nothing. If Keat Chuan did do both, the high opportunity cost of him doing blogging would cause him to produce value that would be lesser than if he had specialised in directing.

If you got our drift by now, excellent. You have just made it through half of most MBA programs. Your commentator Linan has something against MBA programs. He often compliments business programs by saying that MBA is dumbed down applied economics stripped of any mathematics beyond the 4 simple operations, built for CEOs who had trouble understanding proper academic papers. But personal issues aside, if you still don't realise why this lesson is important, think about your presentation.

We hate artists who paint a painting, then write an essay to dictate to viewers what the painting is about. We prefer to wonder why Munch screamed. But there is little multifariousness in the interpretation of this anecdote. We shall shamelessly explain ourselves. There must be people in your team that are good in everything. Even if everybody is good in some particular thing, there will always be a polymath in your team. But everybody has their comparative advantage. Capitalise on that, and we promise that the product of your team will be larger than the vertical sum of your individual works.

Home Sweet Home - Ms Angeline Poh, Director, ICM, Director, SP

"Snapshots of Singapore's economy"

The modules just keep getting better. Angeline began from where Wee Khiang left off. Building on Wee Khiang's ideas on human capital development, Angeline started with a snapshot of the Singapore economy, focusing on transforming Singapore from a Host to a Home.

A clear distinction between a "host" and a "home" was made. If Singapore was to be simply a host, and she definitely was, she will be known as an efficient hub that manages the bottom line. She will be adding value to the products that companies in the industries create. But that's not enough isn't it? To be a home, Singapore has to be an essential hub for businesses. She will have to grow top line businesses, and to create new value, not just to grow existing value. In other words, Singapore should not be a place that simply attracts and welcomes industrial leaders, but also to allow these leaders to stay on in Singapore and to make Singapore their home.

"Now how do we be a home for talents"

Focusing on the key thrusts of Singapore as a home for businesses, innovation and talents, Angeline projected her ideal vision of what it means to be a home for businesses. Further highlighting the strategies for Singapore to be a home, she identified 3 key paradigm shifts - Anchoring peak talent and building deep talent, cultivate Chief Human Resource Officers and Chief Learning Officers, and developing centers of excellence. These are to be supported by the 3 pillars - tools, content and physical infrastructure.

"How can Singapore be a home for talent?"

Angeline then entertained many questions from our contestants. Drawing on her experience as director for strategic planning, she explained the heterogeneous nature of attracting businesses to Singapore, and some practical difficulties involved in such deals. She also explained what it really means to be a home for businesses.

Now that the final module is over for you contestants, you are pretty much on your own. Of course we (the commentators) would render our assistance whenever necessary. Coffee's here to help too. Oh dear please don't get addicted to caffeine.

SECRETS of Human Capital Development from Mr Toh Wee Khiang, ED, HCD and ED, BIS

The 2nd day of the EDB Amoeba Challenge has just started and what a great way to kick things off by having Wee Khiang share EDB's SECRETS on planning for Singapore's manpower needs!

The secret is...there is no secret! HAH!

Haha of course there is a secret! The true secret is...

He inspired the participants by sharing his personal vision of maximising the potential of every person and making the youth of Singapore excited about their life and future. Many people often choose to take the easy way out by being passive idealists, but Wee Khiang is certainly not part of NATO (no action, talk only). Wee Khiang is a man who walks the talk, and throughout his career, he has always focused on making his vision become a reality and has come up with and implemented numerous initiatives to help Singaporeans achieve their full potential.

Wee Khiang's interesting multimedia presentation even included quotes from Yeats!

Wee Khiang's work was certainly not smooth-sailing. Besides having to work around Singapore's physical limits, Wee Khiang also outlined specific challeneges when trying to plan for manpower in Singapore, including our nation's shrinking local workforce, the aspirations of Singaporeans, competition from developed and developing nations as well as our aging workforce.

He also challenged the partcipants to think creatively as problem-solvers and look beyond Singapore's shores during their remaining time at the EDB Amoeba Challenge. Wee Khiang reminded the participants to always think about why, what and how during their discussions and also encouraged the contestants to think of ways to bring science, design and business together for a purpose that aspires and inspires. He certainly captured the attention of the contestants with his inspiring and interesting presentation, and many of them "swarmed" towards him after the hour had lapsed to ask him more questions!

Wee Khiang answering questions from the participants during the Q&A session

To our dear participants, with Wee Khiang imparting so many SECRETS and TRUE SECRETS, you guys certainly have lots of insights to draw upon! All the best for your discussions for the rest of the day!

Good Morning!

Welcome to the second day of the EDB Amoeba Challenge. Looks like all the contestants are real awake and arrived 1 HOUR BEFORE 9AM. We give credit when it's due. Thank you Boncafe, Nespresso and Lipton Tea.

Janelle and Linan thought that it might be good to start the day by giving our fair bit of quirky comments on the teams, especially after the gut tickling posts by the teams. So here we go.

FOUR

If there is one group that should be awarded plaques for most friendly discussions and best team engagement for all team members, team FOUR would have bagged that trophy. Sit down for a chat with this group and in 1 minute you'll feel like part of that group. Absolutely welcoming and awesome atmosphere for discussions. Keep it up!

Now Linan requests that you guys be meaner to each other. Grill, roast and barbeque your ideas much more. Quarrel and debate. Just keep it non physical. There's always the foosball table for frustration venting. Janelle?
Haha since Janelle is such a friendly and nice person (HAH), she would like you guys to continue being sweet and pleasant (:

iFve

Man up man up! If there's a song Linan would like to dedicate to you, it would be "PUMP IT" by Black Eyed Peas. If you need coffee, go ahead. Beer... Well there's always happy hour at Boat Quay. You can request for Red Bull and we will try our utmost best to get it at Raffles City basement.

This team has really awesome ideas, and really really great potential for development. We're very impressed that you guys are trying to take a risk and go on the road less travelled. Continue thinking critically. If SWOT analysis is not useful, don't use it. If Porter's Diamond restricts you to 4 rectangles rather than expands your idea, dump it. If simple demand and supply, diminishing returns or economies of scale and scope suffices to diversify your ideas and to critically dissect your industrial plans, do it. We'd love to hear more from you.

Orange

This team has fantastic ideas. You guys are certainly creative and thinking out of the box! Your commentators would have loved to poke holes in your ideas, but we only managed to create pores. That might reflect badly on intellectual stagnation on the part of your commentators. We beg for your forgiveness. As the only group with 6 people however, we'd like to set standards higher. We do expect more from you. And we do hope that the 6th member has not crossed the peak of diminishing returns.

We suggest more thorough development of ideas, and much higher level of critical analysis. Be harsher to yourselves. We also suggest listening more to each other as it might be hard for some people to get a word in when your team is larger than the rest!

Sting

You guys have great prospects for university. If we need help for our doctorate thesis, we will look for you. Because for all we know, you might be our thesis mentors. And we won't be surprised. Awesomely intellectual group. It's obvious that you guys are bright and super smart individuals from your team discussions! You guys embody the socratic method. Great questions asked. Now lets see what answers you can provide.

We have one simple pointer for this group. Comparative advantage. Absolute advantage doesn't warrant domination. Please please please do not fall prey to this trap - like so many business managers did. Capitalise on the team members' comparative advantages, and through free trade, expand your production frontier. (We're trying our best to sound as intellectual as you guys). Also, as Ying Yuan said yesterday, time management is SO important, so please manage your time well and do not let bad time management be your Achilles heel!

The Bagels

Linan owes you bagels. He knows that, he remembers that, and the donuts' cousins will be here. A passionate driven and yes, fun group. They actually make this competition seem much less stressful than it really is, and of course making it as fun as it should be. Just go check out this group's page.

Now don't get carried away. Your idea is refreshing. Great great potential. Now systemise it, structure it and make it fire proof. We'd love to hear from you soon. By the way, you guys should consider changing your team name to the camwhores (:

June 9, 2010

End of Day One

A bit of recap on the start of the day. Team choosing! 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5...

And this is the end of day one! As Ying Yuan wraps up the first day with her comments on the groups' performances and some pointers on their discussions so far, it is time for serious reflection by the teams on their industry of choice.

Every summary is an act of slaughter, but we have to try our best to summarise the conclusions given by Ying Yuan in case you're (if you're a participant) at home looking at this now looking for first aid help, or you're just curious about what the participants are going through.

This competition is not about creating a new product or business. Let's leave that to the entrepreneurs; We do industrial planning. Just as how ebay cut out the middleman, don't let Singapore be the irrelevant and unnecessary middleman in production lines. If you have to allow Singapore to be the middleman, give a very very good reason for that.

It is about creating a win-win situation. Demand and supply has a reason to be included within Economics 101 as the foundation for microeconomics. Creating mutual gains through exchanges is essential to every single deal. But of course, creating an industry is not a single purchase deal. It is also about viability and sustainability. When we talk about viability and sustainability, we should also be clear of the role that Singapore should play along the production chain, and the space that we should occupy. And lastly, the Amoeba Challenge is a competition. What is your edge?

And finally, not to be nosy, but please do mind your time management. Time is a limited resource, and scarcity demands tradeoffs. Optimise. On another note, we are looking for industrial ideas, not academic chess games. Don't be caught up in theoretical economics nor mental chess games. Be smart, sharp and sexy.

And last piece of advice from your commentators. Your commentator (Linan specifically) loves Quentin Tarantino's films. The latest one of his masterpiece - Inglourious Basterds - contains perhaps one of the most important lessons for you. The German Colonel Hans Landa negotiated his own "conditional surrender" at the end of the movie when he realised that he alone holds the decision on whether the Allies' plan to kill Hitler succeeds. Hence he negotiated an extremely fat deal for himself in exchange for him purposefully allowing the Allies' plans to succeed. That included oily benefits and a nice house on Nantucket Island for himself after the war. Why did he do that? Not because he's patriotic to either the eagle or the queen. He did that because his interests aligns with that of the Allies. By allowing the Allies to kill Hitler, he fulfils the Allies' objective of ending the war, and also fulfils his own interest of getting a good retirement, instead of banking on the increasingly bleak prospects of Germany winning the war.

Point being, at the crux of every deal lies the need to align interests - to align Singapore's interests with that of investors, and to further satisfy the interests of Singapore employees and the rest of the industries in Singapore. Demand and supply is not a dead concept. It is perhaps the most important concept in economics behind comparative advantage - both of which many business school graduates have pathetically failed to learn. Instead they pick up things like competitive advantage (a dumbed down mix of absolute and comparative advantage) and branding (which is simply demand and supply). Align interests, and allow mutually beneficial deals to be made. After all, no one makes a deal to lose.

And for those of you who haven't watched the Basterds yet, it is worth skirting the M18 rating. Trust us.
Till tomorrow!

Being RESOURCEful - learning from Mr Chiu Wen Tung, Director, RDD

Ever wondered how Singapore manages to stay competitive economically despite our dearth of natural resoucres? Enter Wen Tung, the RESOURCEful Director of RDD in EDB, to share how Singapore manages to be a leading global player in different industries despite being resource-constrained.

Wen Tung showing division of land use in Singapore

During his hour-long module, Wen Tung shared with participants about how Singapore manages and utilises her scarce resources to ensure success in developing new industries. He gave insights on Singapore's strategies to overcome and work around resources limitations to secure global leadership positions in Electronics, Biomedical Sciences, Transport Engineering and Chemicals. (Additionally, Wen Tung also impressed the participants by quoting acurate facts and figures from memory!)

Wen Tung emphasing proper land planning as the key to success

Wen Tung emphaised the importance of availability of land being a critical prerequisite before developing any industry and highlighted the importance of proper land planning, citing case studies such as Jurong Island as examples. Contestants also participated in a discussion on stretching supply and managing demand of land use in Singapore, giving their views on how Singapore should utilise her precious land. There was also a discussion on Singapore's population hitting the magic number of "6.5 million" within the next 40 years (or even sooner), a controversial issue which garnered many questions from the participants.

Ultimately, Wen Tung highlighted the need for balance when solving these sensitive issues relating to resource allocation and use. He ended his engaging presenation by leaving the participants with 3 key questions to guide them during their discussions:

What resources do we need?
Is this industry suitable for Singapore in view of resouce contraints?
How do we optimize the use of resources?

Time to get resourceful guys!

Insights from Mr Jonathan Kua, Director, New Businesses

Jonathan introducing the underlying principles driving EDB's new ventures.

"Animated" is the best word that we can find to describe Jonathan, but that is far from doing justice to the exciting session he gave in the morning. After giving the contestants a glimpse of Singapore's development so far and the strategies adopted to achieve them, Jonathan posed the question "what then lies ahead for Singapore". He then went on to discuss the rising trends globally, and how some seemingly irrelevant industries might be rather significant for Singapore.

Classification of industries?

Jonathan then moved on to his niche area of new businesses, teasing the contestants about the potential areas that the teams can consider. As much as the presentation was about prospective businesses that Singapore can hope to attract, it was about strategies to select and filter businesses that Singapore can and should attract. One would never expect Singapore to have competitive edges in agriculture and space systems. However, we do have comparative advantages in the upstream processes of those industries. A huge takeaway for all the contestants.

Questions anyone?

The session was certainly an interactive one with the contestants posing questions that were nothing less than challenging. Nigel (one of the participants) engaged Jonathan in a discussion about the extent of government direction in industrial policies, and Jonathan commented on the inadequacy of pure laissez faire industrial planning in some countries, and the successful endeavours made by Singapore. Chi Ling (another participant) then asked about the potential of attracting "entertainment talent management" businesses into Singapore. While Jonathan joked about the difficulty of dealing with these complex businesses, he noted such potential and cited Singapore's latent capacity for such industries.

Buck up contestants! Jonathan spelt out high expectations for the contestants, and does anticipate outstanding ideas from them. If this isn't a good wake up call, then what is?

Orientation!

Participants have met-up with their mentors, Grace (Chew), Grace (Ang), Ying Yuan, Natalie and Lee Sar!

They've also been given a tour of the EDB offices and even met Darth Vader!!! Check out the pictures below!