Budding Entrepreneurs At Work

Budding Entrepreneurs At Work

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Open House Details in May 2013

For those who missed out on our last Open House, here's good news... we'll be holding another one in May just before the start of the Young Entrepreneurs Camp.

Here are the details:

Date: 26th May (Sunday)
Time: 4.30pm to 6.30pm (2 hour session that includes activities for kids & a talk for the parents about 21st Century Education and why we focus on this in our program)
Venue: Casa Merah Condominium (function room), 50 Tanah Merah Kechil Ave, Singapore 465524 (see map attached)

And to thank you for taking time out from your busy schedule to come for this session, we're extending to you the special Open House offer of $395 per child for registrations to The Young Entrepreneurs Camp (U.P. $450).

For planning and preparation purposes, please email your name and contact number, as well as your child's name and age, to lapaul232@gmail.com. before 20th May.

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Are You Registered For The Young Entrepreneurs Camp in June 2013?

The Young Entrepreneurs Camp - For Innovative Kids Aged 7yrs to 15yrs.

You are never too young to be an inventor, neither are you too old to learn new skills. And while you're busy inventing, it helps that you also learn how to sell your ideas too because no one just invents things for themselves right?

Anyone can gather lemons from a tree but what would you do with them? How many times would you make lemonade just to perfect your recipe? Where would be the best place to set up a lemonade stand and how much would a glass of that refreshing drink sell for?


So why not start grooming our kids to be entrepreneurs by equipping them with skills that will take them from the classroom to the boardroom and beyond! We'll expand their minds to the world around them and help them acquire the skills to be a creative thinker.

This June, we're joined by the student leaders from Victoria Junior College (VJC) who will no doubt inject new levels of energy, as well as youthful perspectives, into our camp activities.

JLPC will be working together with VJC's Student Leadership Programme to provide these students with leadership training, team facilitation know-how as well as a workshop on financial literacy prior to our camp. Thereby ensuring that our student leaders are prepared to navigate through the different invention challenges as well as handle the rigours of preparing our young entrepreneurs for the Investors Fair, which is the main highlight of our camp.

Here are the camp details:
Dates: 4th to 7th June 2013 (Tuesday to Friday, non-residential)

Timing: 9.30am to 5.30pm (we will allocate an hour before and after camp for working parents to drop off and pick up their kids. Any other arrangements, if necessary, will need to be highlighted to JLPC prior to camp.)

Venue: Victoria Junior College Campus, 20 Marine Vista, Singapore 449035
(Camp will be held at the covered concourse just behind the General Office.)

Meals: Lunch and breaks will be provided daily. Please advise us if your child has allergies or special meal requirements.

Fees: $450 per child ($400 per child for group sign ups of 3 or more kids in a group)

Early Bird Offer $410 per child is valid till 30th April 2013.

Registration for camp closes on 24th May 2013. Email lapaul232@gmail.com for a registration form now!


Here's the program line up for our camp. Please note that the number of activities may vary according to how fast (or how slow) the kids are able to complete the various challenges within a day.

Weather is also a consideration as some of the activities need to be done and measured outdoors.






Day 1 – Things that zoom or fly
-          Magic paper ring  
-          Gravity cars
-          Wind powered cars
-          Rocket Cars
-          Propeller Cars
-          Paper Flyers
-          Handocopters
-          Aluminium Gliders
-          Circuit game (optional)

  
Day 2 – Things that float or blast into space
-          Tallest Tower
-          Gravity Boats
-          Propeller Boats
-          Aluminium Ferries
-          Cartesian Divers
-          Straw shooters
-          Straw Rockets
-          Paper Canons
-          Pneumatic Rockets
-          Water Rockets






Day 3 – Invention Day – Developing the BIG Idea
-          Teams will spend the early part of the day being introduced to building a simple business/action plan, brainstorming and deciding what type of game they want to invent.
-          Second part of the day will be spent building their prototypes.

Day 4 – Investor Fair – Selling the BIG Idea
-          Most of the day will be spent finishing up their prototype, followed by ‘quality testing’, evaluation and revision of prototypes. After which, teams will prepare for their presentations and develop promotional POS materials to ‘sell’ their inventions at the Investors Fair.
-          There will be an Investors Fair at 5pm where parents and guests will turn investor for the day, sit through their kids’ presentations, proceed to try out and sample the merchandise on offer and provide the kids with objective feedback on the feasibility of their idea to venture.

More details will be provided to all camp participants and their parents prior to the start of camp.
For more information about the camp or to register your child, please email your contact details to lapaul232@gmail.com.

Sunday 21 April 2013

Of Familiar Faces And Making New Friends

Just want to give a BIG shout out to friends of JLPC who came to the Open House last Saturday, as well as to the new friends we made that day.It was great seeing you all there!

What was rather significant for me that day was the question and answer session during the talk that I gave to the parents. It was such a refreshing change to have parents also share their concerns about their kids and how they've coped with these challenges. Such information is priceless in my books because we can learn so much from each other.

The kids had so much fun too! So much so that we had a couple of residents of Casa Merah, where the open house was held, enquiring about the program right there and then! Their enthusiasm must have been pretty contagious!

A very big thank you also goes out to my fellow trainers - Uncle Wee Pin and Aunty Sharon, who hosted the Open House and were the ones championing the kids activities that day. Well done and great job guys!

For those who couldn't make it, don't fret as we will be hosting another one on Sunday 26th May. Details of that event will be coming out soon.

In the meantime, just wanted to remind everyone that we will be closing our early bird promotional offer for The Young Entrepreneurs Camp on 30th April 2013. So don't miss out on your chance to register your child at only $410 instead of $450.

The details of our camp is listed under 2013 Events so do go check that out! It's going to be a blast and we hope that you're planning to be a part of it this June.

Have a great week ahead!
JLPC Team

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Thinking is not the same as doing... So do it!

Challenge: Create a mini rocket from bits of cardboard and some straws that will launch with the help of a rubber band.

Simple right? Well, on paper it looked so easy but it took us a couple of tries before we got the formula right. Launching it was another matter all together. How can we do that? What can we use as a secure platform to launch? Why did this version not launch as well as the last one? So many questions came up in the process.



This is why kids should be encouraged to invent and create. In doing so, they not only have fun transforming recyclable materials into a gadget, gizmo or toy (and save you lots of money in doing so) but it'll also get them to think more about their environment and how things are made and refined to suit our lifestyles.

This will be just one of the activities that we'll do at the Open House this Saturday. We'll be on hand to answer your questions about the program as well. Do join us then.

Here are the details again:

Open House

 Date: 20th April 2013, Saturday
Time: 1pm to 3pm
Venue: Casa Merah Condominium (function room)
50 Tanah Merah Kechil Avenue, Singapore 465524


For planning purposes, please register your attendance with me before this Friday, 19th April, by emailing your child's name, age and school, as well as your contact number to lapaul232@gmail.com.

If you come for the open house, you will also get to enjoy a fabulous one time offer of $395 (U.P. $450 per person) if you register your child for The Young Entrepreneurs June holiday camp, which will be held at Victoria Junior College from 4th to 7th of June 2013. More details can be found under the 2013 Events page on this site.

So please help spread the word about our Open House, and come with your friends and family!

I hope to see you then!

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Let's Have Dessert First!

*An adaptation of this article was recently published in the latest issue of Asian Geographic Junior magazine (No. 23 Issue 2/2013)

As parents, we want the best for our children and we want to protect them. Not just from harm but from the harshness of failure. It’s hard for us to let go and allow our children to discover life on their own. But whether we like it or not, they need to be allowed to make mistakes. It is through their mistakes and life’s experiences that they become a thinking person. Our children need to know that it’s ok to fail and that they will be loved no matter what.
We spend so much money building up their intelligence via tuition and enrichment lessons that sometimes we forget to build them up to be strong, confident, and thinking individuals who will succeed in the real world.

Dr Edward de Bono, a guru in lateral thinking, once wrote that there is “nothing to prevent intelligent people from being excellent thinkers. But this does not follow automatically. There is a need to develop the skill of thinking.”

Children think and learn by being engaged, and not by sitting behind their desks. Give them an opportunity to play and see their eyes light up! It begs us to ask why is it that children are so alive at recess but become zombies once they are back in their classes? And if they are engaged while at play, why aren't schools designed such that they also learn through play? Thankfully we are now beginning to see an active change to incorporate more interactivity into our schools' curriculum.

Kids Invent! is a program that embodies this concept of learning through play. Kids are engaged in science based projects that also help them acquire life skills that are in line with the outcomes of a 21st Century Education, that is creativity, innovation, collaboration, communication, problem solving, critical thinking and entrepreneurship.
The uniqueness of the program is that it allows the learning process to evolve through play. Children create and innovate with little or no adult intervention, using things that they can find in their household or recycled items. In so doing, they learn not only about science based concepts but also about themselves. Just as in play, they will fumble and fall, make mistakes and deal with the frustrations of failure, but they also learn how to pick themselves up and move on.

You can’t find a learning experience in which children will learn more at a faster rate. They learn how to work in a team; how to use tools; materials; how to solve problems; and how to observe, measure, report and graph. And, they develop an understanding of the science and how it works!
The learning is real – meaning that not only will they pass the test in school, they can pass the test in life by being able to apply what they have learned.

The learning also continues in the home as the children are asked to improve their designs by making models at home. That’s where we come in. We as parents need to support this continual learning process, providing our children with a secure and supportive environment to develop to their potential, and in doing so, we experience the joys of helping our children discover more about themselves through play.

Life’s short – do the best stuff first!
Join our online community at www.facebook.com/KidsInventJLPC and LIKE our page to keep abreast of our upcoming activities.

(Writer is a trainer with the Kids Invent!, the world's leading provider of innovation based kids science activities that stimulate the creative interests and abilities of children ages 7 - 15yrs. Kids Invent! was created by Prof. Timothy Stearns, Executive Director of the Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at California State University, Fresno and Prof. Ed Sobey, President of the Northwest Invention Center.)