Guest Seminar, Spring 2011

This must be the best guest seminar I have attended. Every semester, it gets better, thanks to our TAs, former students and organizing committees. This semester, we have three very distinguished guests from varied backgrounds:

Speaker 1 - Mr Anol Bhattacharya, CEO Of GetIT Comms
Speaker 2: Mark Cheng - Avelife
Speaker 3 - Graham Perkins



I hope you've enjoyed the guest seminar as much as I have!

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Mr Anol Bhattacharya, CEO Of GetIT Comms

As a former theatre-boy and a Star Wars light saber wielding sci-fi fan, Anol Bhattacharya, could easily be mistaken for a high school, science fiction nerd. Instead, he now heads GetIT Comms, a B2B consultancy for digital marketing solutions for hi-tech and telco clients. Among his list of his company’s illustrious clients include telco heavyweights like Cisco Systems, HP, IBM and Singtel. However, one can be surprised to find out that Anol never set out to be a CEO in the first place. A “Serendipitous entrepreneur” is what Anol describes himself as he never intended to be helming a company one day. Instead, Anol’s beginning’s were humble. His university days were filled with hitchhikes around India, living off scraps and a perpetual lack of budget. Today, he is a married man who claims to have earned ‘enough’ for himself and his family.

His personal philosophy for running GetIT Comms may surprise you. While others dream of making it big in the world, earning millions by the fifth year of the luxury of choosing who they want to work with startup, Anol is content with being small and manageable. Not only does this allow him more quality time with his family, he says it helps build a more conducive workplace for his workers as well. Being small also means he and his colleagues have the luxury of choosing who they want to work with. Being small is about being agile, and his measure of the company, other than the bottom line is the happiness of his company.

It may surprise you that his definition of happiness is the not commonplace belief in the 5 C’s. Freedom is the buzzword for him as he believe control over his life is far more fulfilling than just material pursuits. Anol strongly advocates not falling into society’s trap of success as having the 5 C’s. His final words for us? “stop one second and let’s think for a moment and let’s not be bound by the socioeconomic label of the 5C’s”

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Mark Cheng - Avelife

Avelife (Limited) Vision

To be an educational platform for effective Green Innovation for Active learners and Corporate leaders.

Mission
A. To match Green innovation ideas with the relevant resources.
B. To instill resource management values to the Corporate, Youths and Children.
C. To impart green values through Service Learning using Arts as a medium.
D. To organize competitions with green themes as awareness campaigns.
E. To be the leading green events organizer.

Mark Cheng


Mark Cheng is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Avelife

Foundation, Author of a best seller book, It’s I’MPOSSIBLE, Founder of Project POSSIBLE, and the Chairman of Queenstown’s Project STOMP (Student Tutor Open Mentorship Program). He was formerly the Executive Officer of Community Partnerships for Zech Studios Ceramics and AMBER.

Mark is also a National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) Gold Award recipient, and a member of the NYAA Gold Award Holders' Alumni EXCO, People's Association's Youth Executive Committee (PAYEC) Vice Chairman for Community Service and Social Development, an EXCO of CDAC B3 Community Outreach committee and sits on various advisory committee of various aid agencies in Singapore.

He was awarded the Best Community Service Award from Singapore's Rotary Club in 2006 and has obtained numerous accolades in recognition for his contribution to the community. In 2010, he was awarded a fellowship to read Strategic Management in Non-Governmental Leadership in Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government.

He was also involved in APEC 2009 Voice of the Future and East Asian Seas (EAS) Conference 2009 as a youth delegate, represented Singapore as a Youth envoy to international ministerial forums and conferences, worked on Executive Committees of nation-wide environmental, community events such as World Water Day, YO! (Young-Old) Forum, Queenstown Repainting project, National Youth Environment Conference and been to a number of overseas humanitarian trips to China, Indonesia and Timor Leste. He also did a short research stint on Palliative Care at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School and was currently inducted as a National Environment Agency Youth Environmental Envoy (YEE).

Mark is a young, passionate and active campaigner for environmental conservation. He is an excellent leader who dedicates himself to his followers. This can be seen from his favorite quote, ‘Leadership is action, not position.’

In his free time, he enjoys participating in marathons, reading, skiing, spending family-time and taking long beach strolls.

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Graham Perkins

Graham Perkins is from the media and technology industry. Graham came to Asia in 1996 and has had the pleasure to continue his creative approach to life working at Adobe, Apple, MTV, and Republic Polytechnic and is now the chief protagonist of Next-Media Experiences with Elasticity and Rune Entertainment. Elasticity is protagonist of next-media experiences with fresh ideas for new canvases. Leveraging from new technologies such as holography, LED and 3D imaging, Elasticity integrate these technologies to develop a platform of interactive ideas in the areas of design, art, media and entertainment. Overall, Graham Perkins has been working within the Design and Publishing industry for over 25 years.

He has also been guest speakers for various events like Ad Tech Singapore & Pecha Kucha Night where he speaks about how creativity and technology can be integrated to form the next big thing in the arts and media industry.

Graham Perkins believes in being different. For new innovation, one should not copy what has been done. Think out of the box and never give up. It’s not about having a good business process and operating system but most of the time it’s about having the right mindset to keep it going. To be an entrepreneur, one has to be prepared for failures however not everyone is suitable to be an entrepreneur. There is always a role for everyone; ultimately do what you enjoy best and you will go far.

“If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.” - Sir Ken Robinson

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