Friday, April 9, 2010

Think and Drink



Last Wednesday, I paid this nice little room in Bugis, called Hackerspace, a visit. It was a not for profit place for aspiring technopreneurs to incubate their ideas. But I am no technowiz, I went there for this event co-organised by Syinc and TEDx Singapore known as Think and Drink.

3 Ashoka fellows were there to share their experiences. In the picture above, Padmanabha Rao, from India on the extreme right, Joyce Djaelani Gordon from Indonesia in the center, and Preeyanan Lorsermvattana from Thailand. The man standing to introduce them is Ashoka Staff Chris Cusano who's based in Thailand.

You can go find Preeyanan's Ashoka profile here:

This is Gordon's profile:

and Rao's profile:

All 3 speakers were riveting and kept everyone focused. I especially found Preeyanan's story of her 19 year struggle to find justice for her son's condition due to medical malpractice very moving. I realised that all 3 speakers actually spoke one common point, that if you want to change something in your community, you must involve a lot of people at all levels, and you must be prepared for resistance. That's what I like about the entrepreneurial spirit, the willingness to break rules and challenge authority. The spirit of social entrepreneurship is even nicer, doing it for the good of the community. I really admire such people.

After the speeches, there was a massive networking session with good food (and did I mention it was free?) I spoke with a lot of people, including the founders of Syinc, the founder and curator of TEDx Singapore, Chris Cusano, it was pretty intensive. I got a total of 5 name cards that night, including Preeyanan's.

The event started at 7.30pm, and was supposed to end at 9.30pm. I stayed until 10.45pm. It was near my exams but I felt it was time well-spent. Not only did I get to meet extraordinary people, I learnt of this extraordinary little space called Hackerspace! Something tells me I will be seeing it again...

No comments: