People, Evidence, and Context: Lessons from NUSSP 2026

A year ago, during my NUS exchange, I discovered the NUS Enterprise Summer Programme in Entrepreneurship and set a goal to return. This July, I did.

I joined NUSSP 2026 as a newcomer to entrepreneurship, eager to learn from founders and leaders and to exchange perspectives with peers from different countries. Over 12 days, I came to see entrepreneurship not simply as building a business, but as understanding people, testing assumptions, and creating value in context.

I returned to learn how ventures are built. I left understanding that meaningful ones begin with people, evidence, and context.

Leadership Is About Building What Comes Next

Philip Yeo broadened my view of leadership from managing organizations to building talent, institutions, and industries. His perspective showed me that long-term leadership is not limited to achieving results within one organization. It is also about creating the conditions in which people, capabilities, and entire ecosystems can grow.

Jeffrey T.’s PatSnap story showed how curiosity, resilience, and trust can turn a technical pain point into a global venture. Seng Choon Koh added a practical truth: passion matters, but it also needs time, learning, capital, health, and judgment.

From Inspiration to a Method

NUSSP then turned inspiration into method. Through sessions with Laina Raveendran Greene and Kae Fong Tay, I found a familiar parallel with research:

• Understand the market before committing to an answer.
• Form hypotheses about customer jobs, pains, and gains.
• Validate the problem before becoming attached to a solution.
• Revise the idea when evidence challenges the original assumptions.

An MVP is therefore not just a smaller product. It is a tool for learning. Customer discovery is not a box to check at the beginning of a venture; it is a process that continues as the market, product, and team evolve.

Context Changes the Product

The learning visits placed these ideas in context. ACE.SG (Action Community for Entrepreneurship) highlighted the role of local networks and startup ecosystems in helping founders learn, connect, and grow.

At Grab, Sriram Iyer explained why products cannot simply be copied across Southeast Asia. Culture, language, behavior, infrastructure, and local frictions all shape adoption. A solution that works in one market may need a different value proposition, operating model, or user experience in another.

Huawei Singapore connected technology and commercial viability with sustainability and long-term responsibility. The visit reinforced that technical capability is only one part of innovation; a solution must also make sense for customers, organizations, society, and the future.

Building aila.bandung with Team 6

Our Team 6 applied these ideas to the Zhou and Eesley Family Foundation’s problem statement on AI adoption for ASEAN SMEs.

With Tushar Desai’s mentorship, we narrowed a broad market to food-and-beverage SMEs in Bandung based on evidence rather than assumption. We developed aila.bandung, an AI promotion co-pilot that turns scattered business signals into profit-aware recommendations.

The project forced us to move repeatedly between a broad ambition and specific customer realities. We had to decide whose problem we were solving, what information they already had, where daily decisions became difficult, and what an AI assistant could realistically improve. Kristav (Kris) C. also gave us valuable advice that helped sharpen our Demo Day pitch.

The People Behind the Experience

The programme was also shaped by the people around me. Team activities, cultural exchanges, conversations between sessions, and friendships across countries made the experience much more than a series of lectures and visits.

What I Took Home

I entered the programme thinking about entrepreneurship mainly as the process of building a business. I left with a broader view: entrepreneurship is a disciplined way of learning about people and acting under uncertainty.

The strongest ideas do not begin with technology alone. They begin with a real problem, a clear understanding of context, and the willingness to test what we believe. Leadership is not only about directing a team; it is also about building talent and systems that can continue creating value. Innovation is not simply transferring a solution from one place to another; it requires respect for local realities.

These lessons also strengthened the connection I see between entrepreneurship and research. Both require curiosity, hypotheses, evidence, iteration, and the humility to change direction when reality tells us something new.

My sincere thanks to all speakers who welcomed our questions and shared so openly. Your stories gave me renewed energy to keep learning and taking on new challenges.

Thank you to Claire Cheong, Beverly Teoh, and Nabihah Z for hosting us so warmly and for everything that went into making the programme possible; to Team 6, Clan 12, the Viet crew, and the friends I met; and to NUS Enterprise for this opportunity through the NUS ASEAN SPARK Fellowship and Vietnam National University, Hanoi for its support.