[3 July 2004]
SMU team wins national SIFE competition

National champions to represent Singapore at World Cup in Barcelona, Spain

The student team from Singapore Management University (SMU) came out winners among Singapore tertiary institutions in this year's Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) competition, held on Thursday, 1 July at the SMU Auditorium. The national competition included teams from the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University , Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic, and Singapore Polytechnic and was supported by KPMG, AIG SE Asia and Henkel.

SIFE is a global organisation that provides university students an opportunity to make a difference in their communities by teaching the principles of free enterprise. The teams conduct their educational outreach projects throughout the academic year and then showcase them at competitions where they present oral, audio-visual and written summaries to judges comprised of top business leaders who determine which teams did the best job teaching and equipping others with the tools necessary for success. For more information, visit www.sife.org.

SIFE's program touches on some of the hallmarks of SMU's curriculum, in areas such as market economics, entrepreneurship, business ethics and community outreach. The program also emphasises teamwork, leadership, communication and project management skills, all of which are integral to SMU's pedagogy.

Two of the projects that SMU submitted in their presentation Forgotten Small Man in Singapore involved the team working with two organisations to come up with business plans. The plan for the Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD) was adopted by the organisation and made a 10% profit for SPD, contrasting with two years' previous losses. The other plan linked up a local car polishing firm with High Point, a halfway house for recovering drug addicts. Through this initiative, High Point was able to secure a $50,000 grant to start a car polishing business.

As national champions, the SMU team now advances to represent Singapore at the SIFE World Cup, to be held 22-24 September in Barcelona, Spain, where over 30 countries will compete.