The Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition (李光耀环球商业计划比赛) at the Singapore Management University (SMU) is back to support the entrepreneurial dreams of students globally. And it is back with strong endorsement from the business community. Agri-food giant Wilmar International is giving an endowed S$5 million to this competition, which will enable the global event to be run in perpetuity.

Launched in 2001 as the first global business plan competition for undergraduates around the world, the biennial competition encourages tertiary students to showcase their business ideas in an international arena, network with potential investors and attract seed funding for their projects. Since 2001, the competition has grown from strength to strength with more than 1000 business plan entries from over 75 institutions around the world.

“We are grateful to have an industry partner who shares in SMU's vision and believes in the development of young talents. Wilmar International's generous support will allow us to continue offering a platform for budding entrepreneurs. We want to encourage tertiary students around the world to seize this opportunity to develop their business plans, and possibly win for themselves funding not just from the competition, but also from angel investors and venture capitalists,” says Professor Arnoud De Meyer, SMU President.

“As a company built on entrepreneurship, hard work and innovation, Wilmar International can clearly identify with the objectives of this competition and is pleased to support SMU in this event. The company wishes it further success in raising up new entrepreneurs and business ideas,” says a Wilmar International spokesperson.

SMU's Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (IIE) is organising the 2010/2011 competition. “The Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan competition has been a marquee event for tertiary students from around the globe.  With such strong support from the business community, we will be able to impact even more young entrepreneurs around the world and uncover winning business ideas,” says Professor Desai Narasimhalu, Director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SMU.

The teams that have won in the past had winning business plans covering data management, energy, gaming, medical, marketing and manufacturing.

Champion of the recent competition, Mark Jensen, won for himself US$36,000 with his business plan to revolutionise the communication tower and utility pole industry. The 23-year-old from the US trumped the rest of the finalists with a manufacturing process that will produce a stronger, lighter and safer structure which also requires less maintenance. “This competition has opened my eyes to the Asian markets. It's a very outstanding community here,” he says. “One of the things I've learnt here is to constantly improve and that will be very important when I go out to raise real money,” he adds. He aims to deliver his first pole next month.

Another alumnus of the competition is SMU Information Systems graduate Leonard Lin. His team TYLER Projects came in as second runner-up in the 2005/2006 competition with a mobile multiplayer game proposal. Today, TYLER generates more than S$1m in annual revenue as a social network game developer and consultant. One of its creations, Battle Stations, is Singapore's first Facebook multiplayer game and has 3.5 million registered users. TYLER has launched two more games this year.

In this 6th competition, participants will stand to win up to US$60,000 in cash, prizes and business development opportunities. Apart from the top six teams, there will be an individual Most Promising Young Entrepreneur award. The best performing local team in the finals will also be eligible to tap into a S$100,000 HSBC Investment Grant to give life to their business idea. This year's competition is also supported by SPRING and Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE ).

Entries can be submitted from 29 October 2010 and the finals is slated for 25 August 2011. There will be three rounds: preliminary, semi-finals and finals. The top six teams will be shortlisted through an anonymous judging system.

About the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition

Named after Singapore's Minister Mentor, who developed the defining business plan for the country, the Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Competition provides an opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to test their business Ideas and pit their business acumen against students from other renowned international institutions. Organised by the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Singapore Management University, the biennial competition is into its sixth run and is open to all undergraduates, college and polytechnic students from around the world. The inaugural competition saw 203 business plans from 74 universities representing 30 countries. Students are required to submit business plans for a start-up or early-stage venture and compete for a total of US$60,000 worth of cash prizes. The winning team will take home US$36,000, the first runner-up, US$12,000 and the third runner-up, US$3,000. The other finalists will get US$500 per team.

About the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SMU  

The Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (IIE) at SMU has been set up to nurture and grow the innovation and entrepreneurial culture amongst students, staff and faculty of SMU through collaboration with the community. IIE is committed to help innovators commercialise their ideas and aspires to build high quality and robust start-ups within SMU and the larger community through research, strategy, training, R&D, business incubation and knowledge sharing. IIE will play the role of a strategic innovation partner, working closely with SMEs, large enterprises, early stage venture capitalists, academic institutions and individual researchers.

About Wilmar International

Wilmar International Limited, founded in 1991, is today Asia 's leading agribusiness group. It is amongst the largest listed companies by market capitalisation on the Singapore Exchange.

Wilmar's business activities include oil palm cultivation, oilseeds crushing, edible oils refining, specialty fats, oleochemicals and biodiesel manufacturing and grains processing. Headquartered in Singapore, its operations are located in more than 20 countries across four continents, with a primary focus on Indonesia , Malaysia , China , India and Europe . Backed by a staff force of more than 80,000 people, over 300 processing plants and an extensive distribution network, its products are delivered to more than 50 countries globally.

Over the years, Wilmar has established a resilient integrated agribusiness model that captures the entire value chain of the agricultural commodity processing business, from origination and processing to the branding, merchandising and distribution of a wide range of agricultural products. Through scale, integration and the logistical advantages of its business model, Wilmar is able to extract margins at every step of the value chain, resulting in significant operational synergies and cost efficiencies.

Wilmar will continue to leverage on the scale and strengths of its business model to benefit from the long term growth potential of the agricultural commodity business, especially in Asia.