Ep 80: Ee Ling Lim, Executive Director of Global Programs, 500 Global & Co-Founder of Smarter Me + Young Leaders Summit Asia

Ee Ling Lim leads the Global Programs team at 500 Global,
overseeing the strategic development and implementation of
programs for 500's network of startups all over the world. In her
role, she also advises governments, corporations, and foundations
in designing and developing startup ecosystems and innovation
programs. Prior to 500 Global, Ee Ling was an Investment Banker
with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and CIMB Investment Bank,
executing M&A, equity and debt capital market transactions in
Southeast Asia.


Ee Ling is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Smarter Me, a K-12
edutech startup headquartered in Singapore, that equips primary
and secondary school students with the skillset, mindset, and
heartset to define their own success and happiness in the future.
Through digital technology and entrepreneurship education,
students develop mastery in problem-solving, critical-thinking,
collaboration, and creativity. She also hosts Young Founders
Summit Asia, a leading startup program in Asia that provides
aspiring teenage founders with workshops and mentorship to launch
impact-based startups.  


In this episode, we discussed Ee Ling’s journey as an
entrepreneur - including why for the longest time, she never
considered herself an entrepreneur and how that perception
changed, and how she shares her struggles with her own daughters,
including having to fire people. We also delved into the topic of
youth entrepreneurship: whether children are too young to learn
about entrepreneurship, what they care about, and setting up a
DAO.





Highlights:


3:13 Setting up her own preschool

4:43 Founding her first startup

7:49 The problem that Smarter Me is trying to solve

10:23 Determining the curriculum

12:08 Are children too young to learn about entrepreneurship?

14:49 Why Ee Ling wasn’t comfortable with calling herself an
entrepreneur

17:10 Sharing her struggles with her girls

18:43 Young Founders Summit Asia

19:56 Organising the inaugural summit

28:53 What the youth care about most

30:30 Launching an NFT project with a DAO element

33:22 Managing the community

35:09 How funds in a DAO are managed

36:14 Biggest challenges

37:39 Why kids were writing off NFTs/DAOs

39:29 How to bring people from the Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 world

40:51 Great DAOs to look at

42:23 Being the Executive Directorof Global Programs at 500
Global

44:17 Main elements of a successful accelerator

45:23 How founders can make full use of accelerators

46:46 Going virtual

49:17 Having “People & Intention” as her 2022 driving
words

52:40 How to be a good leader & lead others






Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/80
            
 





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