Youth Venturer Award

Alvin Lim Shan-Jia

Hey All,

We are very glad and proud to have our very own SPY, who clinch an award which recognises and encourages youth who has shown outstanding perseverance and courage in venturing out to pursue their dreams, lifting themselves out of everyday well-trodden paths of endeavour and fufillment.

The award attempts to celebrate alternative success stories of youth. Nominees should have a “Dare to Dream spirit and should inspire others to take a bold step in taking up ventures to realise their dreams."

I hope that we can learn and benefit something from his life story. =)

“I CAN and I WILL” is my personal mantra and it has certainly worked wonders! Nothing is impossible once I have made up my mind to pursue it. Three years ago, when I joined Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP), I was awestruck by the many success stories that the school shared with students. I told myself that “if they could do it, so could I”. I wanted to soar above what I could ever dream of.

Now, my dreams have come true and over the years, I have touched the lives of hundreds through community projects, and even representing Singapore at international competitions, conferences and youth summits.

As a child at Tao Nan Primary School, I was a ‘terror’; getting punished for not doing my homework, skipping school for half a year and playing truant in class. Although I passed my PSLE, the problems did not disappear. I continued to skip classes, played pranks and was disruptive in class. My parents were so desperate that they sent me for counseling but that did not work.

When I failed my exams in Secondary 2 and was transferred to the Normal (Academic) stream, I was horrified and depressed. I looked squarely in the mirror and decided that “enough was enough”. I ‘pulled up my socks’ and did well enough to secure a place in NP. Entering the polytechnic was like a new beginning for me.

I saw it as a chance to start with a ‘clean slate’ and was determined to do well from Day One. Through sheer hard work and determination, I did well academically, held various leadership positions and made community contributions by way of projects under “Students In Free Enterprise” (SIFE).

My team-mates and I developed a board game titled “Money Sense” to teach financial literacy skills to students, organised a national competition aimed to promote the spirit of enterprise called the “National Youth Enterprise Challenge” (NYEC), worked with Muhammadiyah Welfare Home to impart communication skills to delinquent teenagers, started an initiative to promote creativity and entrepreneurship amongst young and talented women, collaborated with Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) and the University of Malta in compiling five business booklets aimed at youngsters and even wrote and implemented a 10-chapter English curriculum for children in a Chinese rehabilitation school in Suzhou, China.

Since then, with the Money Sense board game, I have gone on to win first prize at the Global Entrepolis @ Singapore’s Big IdEA Invention Slam and represented Singapore to present the Money Sense Financial Literacy project to a global audience at SIFE World Cup 2005 (Toronto, Canada) and to share best practices in running a SIFE programme in Singapore at SIFE World Cup 2006 (Paris, France).

In the course of my endeavors, many people were skeptical about my ‘audacious’ dreams/goals and there were times when I wanted to ‘throw in the towel’.
I was fortunate to have the encouragement of Mrs Choo Jin-Yi, my academic manager and lecturer. She would sit me down and sort out my priorities when I was overwhelmed by school work and co-curricular activities. Her trust and belief in me gave me confidence to press on.

In 2006, when national television programme “Generation Next 3” profiled me as a national top achiever, I was convinced that I could be a role model despite my history as a problem child. I applied and succeeded in being the only Singapore representative at the International Youth Leadership Conference 2006 (Prague, Czech Republic), and more recently at the United Nations World Youth Assembly for Road Safety (Geneva, Switzerland) in April 2007.

I am currently serving my National Service while waiting to enter the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School, where I have been awarded the prestigious NUS Global Merit Scholarship.

This is the story of how a ‘problematic’ child strives for excellence to become a success story. I hope that others like me who may be ‘late bloomers’, or parents/teachers who may think that their child is hopeless, will now view each individual in a better light to believe in the motto: Potest Qui Vult (If there is will, there is a way).

I have learnt that life is not just about studying, getting good grades, building a strong resume or chasing money. I believe that life is about being different, where each of us can reach for our dreams boldly and with a strong sense of conviction that nothing will stop us.
It is this desire for excellence and a passion to succeed that makes life interesting and worth living for.