Comments on: Funding discrepancies exposed in report by AG raises ire

By: funding discrepancies exposed in report by AGD Singapore at BATTLE.

funding discrepancies exposed in report by AGD Singapore at BATTLE. — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:50:32 +0000

[...] Report of the Auditor-General for the Financial Year 2008/2009Read more here [...]

By: a

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:01:22 +0000

thanks for posting the MDA response. yeah there are good lessons to learn from this. clean and proper management for sure, and also (like you pointed out) a faster response would have been more effective damage control.

By: James Chan

James Chan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:48:51 +0000

Tough luck, I won’t be the one blowing the whistle without any hard facts from first-party and official sources. It’s not professional and nice any other way.

By: James Chan

James Chan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:48:08 +0000

Agree totally with you, Christopher. I for one support MDA’s initiatives and vision wholly – we’re all for the good of Singapore and its nascent IDM industry, and for the ASEAN region for that matter!

I’m guessing the release of the AG report triggered some underlying unhappiness by folks who’ve witnessed (either first- or second-hand) what they deem as mismanagement of public funds by one or more agents of MDA’s Micro-Funding Scheme (MFS), and are taking the opportunity to vent and assert that there is more dirt yet to be uncovered.

By: James Chan

James Chan — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:43:06 +0000

I wasn’t in town, missed their response. However, I saw a post with a scan of a continuation of news coverage on this matter on Sunday. Will try and make sense of it all once I’m all settled from my BKK trip.

Don’t know about the accuracy of the S$350k advancement – would attribute it to hearsay for now.

Would really hate to see any chilling effect resulting from this – fwiw, the MFS is a programme with good intentions. It’s just suffering from some mismanagement and bad PR right now. Still, I feel there’s no smoke without fire. The relevant authorities should dig a ‘lil deeper to ensure that everything’s clean and proper.

Conflict of interests are a big boo boo when it comes to public monies.

By: a

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:08:49 +0000

James: I heard MDA posted a response to this in the newpapers on Sunday (19 Jul). I didn’t manage to get a copy. Are you allowed to reproduce it here?

btw, how did the author of the FB thread get info like $350K advancement? Didn’t see that anywhere in the AGO report. So its just guesswork? Also from what i know, Mentors are SUPPOSED to get advancements (so they don’t have to keep going back to mda for claims?) ALL the mentors, not just any particular one. It just seems like the author took some basic facts, and then wrote it in a manner particularly (and with no other purpose than) to incite anger and controversy.

It is important that our gov agencies are careful with managing taxpayer’s money. But if they were to make sure every single i is dotted and t is crossed before disbursing any money, I don’t know how many start-ups would have already died while waiting for a mere $50K to arrive in their bank account.

Like Meng said, I too would be disappointed if increased scrutiny caused fewer iJam funds/companies to be awarded. It would just completely defeat the purpose of the program to seed and educate as many entrepreneurs as we can.

*disclaimer: my company received iJAM funding.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:30:00 +0000

James, your post is solid and well covered. Remembered we talked about this whole thing surfacing? enough talk from all of us, the ijam program is a good one (intention wise), the people running it is not. so remove the people at mda who are doing this or install a revamp of the program.
as far as the miscue on the mentor, throw the book at him asap, and either close the mentor company up or have another or a new group take over and carry out the process properly.
intentions are right, approach is wrong. Michael and team is not equipped period, they can fix it, its not rocket science.

By: Meng Weng Wong

Meng Weng Wong — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:53:00 +0000

I just hope we don’t get a chilling effect. Most of the startups in iJam will fail, and it’s understood that the government is not really taking risks as an investor, but deploying funds for public policy reasons. I would be disappointed if this increased scrutiny caused fewer iJam funds to be awarded. The overt conflicts of interest can easily be curtailed without hurting the others.

By: Christoph Zrenner

Christoph Zrenner — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:27:38 +0000

I’m surprised about the “mumblings and rumblings” regarding the MDA iJam programme; maybe it’s because I’m still an outsider to Singapore that I don’t have access to these kind of things; or maybe there are differences between the incubators. Just wanted to say that my experience as an MDA/iJam incubatee company (Wildfire) has been entirely positive. The application process was transparent and professional and the incubator has been a tremendous source of support for us, and not just financially. In fact, what I see happening in Singapore in terms of start-up “energy” (iMatch workshops, incubator mentorship, community of entrepreneurs meeting in the F11 space, …) is the reason that our start-up venture is now headquartered in Singapore rather than Shanghai or Hong Kong.
Maybe I don’t understand the real issue that is being raised, but it looks to me like MDA/iJam’s 50k is giving young people with ideas and passion the chance to give it a shot to make it real. Sure thing, new ideas start out immature, many projects fail and the incubators have a tough and thankless job guiding the learning process as mentors. But as long as those people who are serious about entrepreneurship in Singapore get the support they need to just do it, then the programme seems to be working.
I guess all I want to add to this thread is: Go Incubators, go MDA, go Singapore, you’re doing a good and important thing!

By: James Chan

James Chan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:47:36 +0000

Good point Panzer, missed that one. Fixed!