Have you ever felt that you would make a huge difference in the world some day? In 2020, the year Singapore was hard hit by the worldwide pandemic and forced into lockdown, one young man and his team continued to…
To grow or to slow? In the climate of fear and instability caused by the Covid-19 epidemic, the Prudential Young Trailblazers Competition (PYTB) were faced with the pertinent question – to grow or to slow down? A game changing characteristic…
It was 7:30am on a Saturday. Most of Singapore’s secondary school students would have been comfortably sleeping in their beds. However, our young trailblazers were not average secondary school students that day. 51 Scotts Road was stirring – some of…
The date was 27th July 2019. It was a bright Saturday morning at Marina One East Tower. Fred Then came down to conduct a pitching workshop for our secondary school participants. Extraordinary artists paint ideas in new, revolutionary perspectives. In…
On Saturday, 27th April, our 2019 competition participants gathered together for a second time for a hands-on Business Pitching Workshop. As deadlines for proposal submissions were around the corner, it was timely for students to work on their delivery methods…
Due to the success of the inaugural Prudential Young Trailblazers (PYTB) Competition back in 2018, PYTB was brought back this year, with a separate competition timeline for the senior category – tertiary schools – apart from the secondary school category.…
In 2018, a team from Paya Lebar Methodist Girls’ Secondary School (PLMGSS) took part in the Prudential Young Trail Blazers competition, organised by Acorn Training in collaboration with Prudential. The team, named “PLights”, came up with a Smart Seating System…
27 January 2018, Singapore – Ask a teenager in the 90’s what they would like to be in the future and the answer would probably be a career as a professional, climbing up the corporate ladder. But ask a teenager…
3 April 2018 -- Ever wondered what the office of one of the top companies in Asia looks like? Our Young Trailblazers were given the opportunity to do just that by visiting Prudential’s Workplayce, a pioneer in integrating work and…
Check out the results at https://www.youngtrailblazers.net/prelim-results Congratulations to all the Finalists!
Magdalene Loh is Head of Innovation for Prudential Assurance Company Singapore, where she works with the leadership team to discover and empower employees through upskilling and exposure to new ways of working.
Prior to her current role, she has worked with a cross-functional team to deliver an industry-first e-claims solution as a Value Stream Lead for E-claims at Prudential. She was also the Head of Government Relations, where she worked with policy makers, practitioners, researchers and end-users to co-create solutions to issues relating to the economy and financial services, including skills, innovation, fintech and industry transformation; health and wellness; and community investment.
Magdalene obtained her executive MBAs from INSEAD and Tsinghua University. She also holds an AI in Finance Certificate from the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship and LLB from National University of Singapore.
Alex is a seasoned CEO, investor and entrepreneur. He also sits on the Board of both profit and non-profit organizations.
Alex has broad international experience and has lived and worked in Europe, United States and various part of Asia.
Alex technopreneurship started in early 90s where he launched 2 startups acting as online B-2-C marketplace for different verticals.
Following the exit of his startups, Alex launched a US$250m venture capital fund investing in technology, cleantech and healthcare sectors. In 2015, he ran a private equity fund of US$200m investing in late stage companies. The funds has successfully exited its portfolio companies on various major stock exchanges including Nasdaq, China, HK and Singapore. Others were merged or sold to major multinationals.
Alex has been CEO and MD of major operations and has grown businesses from startup to US$500m.
He has a passion in building and working with high performance teams. His leadership and strong background in developing & executing strategy has led to the growth and turnaround of businesses in broad spectrum of industries including technology, automotive, consumer products, IoT, clean tech and medical.
Alex received his Bachelor Degree in Accountancy from the National University of Singapore and his Masters from both Tsinghua University and INSEAD Business School. He is a Member of Singapore Independent Board of Directors and completed the Executive Diploma in Directorship from Singapore Management University. Alex is both a Chartered Accountant (CA) Singapore and Certified Financial Analyst (CFA).
Matthias is the Chief Innovation Officer of Fund Singapore, a company focused on funding local start-ups through Singapore-based crowdfunding initiatives. Among his many roles in Fund Singapore, Matthias is responsible to build an incubation centre for new technologies. Matthias specialises in providing technical leadership, consultancy and project management in security strategy, assessment, processes, implementations, and incident response.
He serves as the trusted advisor to many CIO’s, CTO’s, CISO’s, Divisional Heads and Directors, Chief Architects, and other senior technology and business management staff.
Fred is the Chief Thinker and Founder of Think Solutions. He has more than 20 years of start-up experience with both local and overseas organisations. He is a serial entrepreneur (8 start-ups and counting), entrepreneurship educator, EIR, mentor, business coach, neuromarketeer, author and program designer.
In Singapore, Fred has lectured and coached more than 2,000 individuals and start-up teams and helped them to dramatically improve their services and their bottom line, by changing the ways they approach and manage their customers and prospects. His intense coaching has helped entrepreneurs reduce their business failures by 90%. Fred is always in demand as a keynote speaker, trainer and mentor-in-resident with startup incubators in Singapore.
Paul is the Head of Innovation of Prudential Assurance Company, a position he has held since early 2018. Previous, also with Prudential, Paul was the Head of Product. Before he joined Prudential in 2017, Paul has been a CEO, Managing Director and innovative digital entrepreneur with 18 years’ experience in strategic management, consulting, e-commerce in medium to large scale digital transformations within government, retail and insurance industries.
An innovative entrepreneur who incorporates a creative background and business acumen from Involvement in many successful start-ups from inception to acquisition and exit. More recently Paul moved into financial services to bring extensive retail experience into the digital disruption currently occurring in the insurance and finance industry.
Benjamin is the Co-founder, Partner and Chief Networking Architect for Crowdsourcing Week (CSW) that runs a series of educational programme in crowd economy such as Blockchain and crowdfunding in more than 20 global cities. Spanning over 40 years in business as well as in holding senior positions in the corporate world (many of which are public listed companies), Benjamin’s strength has been in identifying and developing new business opportunities and markets.
Over the last 10 years, Benjamin has been active in the technology startup scene where he began with a digital media business. In giving back to the community, Benjamin serves as mentor for various startups from idea stage to go-to-market.
Bernard is the VP of Business Development of Silicon Cloud International. A technology executive with a strong track record of building and mentoring business development teams for emerging technology domains, Bernard has an extensive experience engaging business and technical executives in roundtable-workshops. Known for establishing solid working partnerships with vendor ecosystem. He is currently working with technology start-ups in cloud computing, security and IoT.
Bernard’s experiences and areas of expertise include Chief Technology Officer of CISCO Systems, Technical Author, Keynote Speaker, Lead Executive Workshops, Cloud Computing Architecture, Data Centre Infrastructure Consultant, Cyber Security expertise, Global Experience – Asia, Europe and US. Bernard is currently the Chairman of the Asian Cloud Computing Association.