Homepage NUS Resilience and Growth Initiative: FAQs for Entrepreneurship Traineeship NUS Resilience and Growth Initiative: FAQs for Entrepreneurship Traineeship NUS Resilience and Growth Initiative The COVID-19 pandemic will weaken the job market, but students graduating from the National University of Singapore (NUS) this year will get a timely boost from their alma mater. NUS is launching the ‘Resilience and Growth’ (R&G) Initiative, which offers: (1) 1,000 full-time salaried positions and paid traineeships in diverse professional roles in multiple fields; (2) a comprehensive suite of courses and programmes to sharpen graduates’ competencies. The Initiative provides meaningful employment and development opportunities so that NUS graduates can kick-start their careers and prepare themselves for exciting opportunities in the future. For more information about the R&G Initiative, please visit http://www.nus.edu.sg/cfg/rg FAQs for the Entrepreneurship Traineeship As part of the NUS R&G Initiative, NUS Enterprise will be running the Entrepreneurship Traineeship programme, where trainees will work in teams with the purpose of turning an idea or technology into a business. More details of the programme can be found here: http://www.nus.edu.sg/cfg/rg/traineeships/entrepreneurship Below is a list of FAQs specific to the Entrepreneurship Traineeship. For generic FAQs, such as relating to stipends/CPF/benefits, etc, please refer to: http://www.nus.edu.sg/cfg/rg/traineeships/faqs When is the application deadline? Collapse Application is now open and offers will be made on a rolling basis, until all traineeships are filled. All traineeships must commence by 30 December 2020. How may traineeships are available under the Entrepreneurship Traineeship programme? Expand Up to 80 traineeships will be made available under the programme. What is the rationale behind the team-based application, and the requirement on team composition? Expand Successful ventures are not built on one person, but a strong team with complementing strengths, capabilities, and experience. To drive the best outcome, a team should include at least one student who has completed the NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) Programme, since an NOC student would have gone through an important startup experience that would give the team a boost. On the other hand, too big a team would mean there are fewer teams/ideas that we can support. We have an eligible team of 3/4 members. Are we able to include additional members who do not meet the eligibility criteria? Expand Each team must have only 3 to 4 members, all of whom must meet the eligibility criteria. What if a member decides to pursue other paths during the traineeship. Can the team still continue? Or what if member(s) leaves the traineeship midway and the team is reduced to less than 3 persons? Expand This traineeship is not a short term programme that fills the gap while applicants are in transition: whether in waiting for a job to start, to go back to school or graduate studies, or while looking out for another job. We hope applicants are committed for a 12-month period, to be fair to both their team mates as well as to the programme. However, we understand that plans do change. If you decide to leave the traineeship before completion, you can do so with a two-week notice if you have good reasons. How would applications be evaluated? Expand Teams which meet the eligibility criteria will be asked to make a pitch of their venture ideas and/or capabilities, interviewed, and evaluated by a committee chaired by Associate Vice President (Innovation & Enterprise). Will I be informed if my application is not accepted? Expand At the application stage, applications which do not meet all the eligibility criteria, or do not provide all required documents will be rejected automatically. Therefore, do read the instructions carefully. You may contact the Point of Contacts for this traineeship if you have questions not answered by the instructions or the FAQs (please note that we will not reply to questions whose answers can be found in the FAQ). After the interview stage, all applicants will be informed of the outcome. I do not have a team / know anyone from NOC. Will NUS be able to match me with other applicants/teams? Expand Team formation cannot be forced. Chemistry and complementarity of skills, strengths, and experience among team members are paramount for the success of a startup. We can and will facilitate some match-making for students who have problem forming teams. However, ultimately, whether you can be successful in being part of a team depends on you and other applicants. Team formation is a personal responsibility. But if you really have trouble doing so, please email RGentrepreneurship@nus.edu.sg and we will try our best to help in match-making. Do we need to have a business idea to apply to the traineeship? Expand Teams can come with: their own business idea and/or technology as a basis for their venture, or their capabilities to hack NUS intellectual property/technology into commercialisation. For teams in category (b), please visit GRIP MAKE to learn more about the training provided to create new deep tech ventures from NUS Intellectual Properties (IPs). What are the desired objectives and outcomes for this traineeship? Expand The purpose of the traineeship is to prepare and train students in creating their own jobs, through venture creation. The desired outcome for teams at the end of the traineeship is to be able to have a minimum viable product that can be demonstrated to raise funds and start their own companies. What are the requirements for teams at the end of the traineeship? Are we required to incorporate an entity? Expand Teams are expected to spin-off through incorporation at the end of the traineeship. Is it possible for any trainee or team to fail this traineeship? Expand This is not an academic exercise/programme. There is no pass/fail. This is a traineeship. There will be periodic feedback on your performance from your supervisors, coaches, mentors. We hope trainees will take the programme seriously, but just like any job, underperformance and inappropriate conduct can be reasons for termination. What is the programme structure and schedule like? Expand The traineeship has a duration of 12 months. There is no formal and fixed structure because every team is different. The pace of development will be different depending on the capabilities and experience of the members. Teams will be assigned coaches and mentors to give them the appropriate level of guidance and support. This is with the exception of GRIP MAKE participants, who will undergo a 3-month intensive hands-on guided programme on market assessment and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) development. Learn more about GRIP MAKE at http://nus.edu.sg/grip/programme/grip-make/. Besides the stipend, will there be any funding for teams during the traineeship? Expand Each team will be provided up to $10,000 in funding to support approved expenses for related activities. Will NUS take equity in our incorporated entity at the end of the traineeship? Expand NUS will take a 10% equity option/stake upon spin-off of your company at the end of the traineeship. What additional sources of grants / funding can teams tap on post traineeship? Expand There are three NUS mechanisms to support the teams, post traineeship. Teams can apply to one of the following: Startup SG Founder Grant with NUS Enterprise as the Accredited Mentor Partner, for up to $50,000 Funding pitch to the NUS I&E Investment Committee for up to $40,000 NUS GRIP with NUS Industry Liaison Office (ILO) for up to $100,000 investment funding and 12 months of guided new venture creation incubation support for deep tech project Who can I contact if I have more queries about the traineeship? Expand Please send your queries to RGentrepreneurship@nus.edu.sg
