Mentors

CHAK KONG SOON

Chak has been a part of the ICT industry for over 30 years. His passion in building and nurturing organizations led him to collaborate with several prominent partners to start Stream Global Pte Limited, a local “Venture Catalyst”.  Stream Global invests in and partners with entrepreneurs to help them realize their full potential. Chak is also passionate about developing the skills and professionalism of the ICT industry in Singapore.

 

He contributes by lending his industry experience to several education institute and non-profit organizations related to the ICT professional and manpower development. He currently serves as a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the IT schools in Institute of Technical Education (ITE), Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore University of Social Sciences and SMU Academy.

DR JAMES ONG

Dr James Ong is an entrepreneur and community builder who has incubated, invested and mentored various technological startups in Singapore, China and US. He possesses more than 30 years of digital transformation experience with AI, Mobile Internet and Enterprise Software; serving Fortune 500 clients across multiple industries.  James is currently the Founder and CEO of Origami, an Adjunct Professor at SUTD and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Artificial Intelligence International Institute (AIII), a think tank advocating Sustainable AI. James accelerates startups based on a FUSIONOVATION methodology to leverage startup-ecosystem fit with talents & expertise, scientific research, technology & products, customers & market and investors.

Tan Wee Jin

Wee Jin is a spirited serial entrepreneur with the widest diversity of international experience. He consulted for blue-chip companies in UK, Ireland and China such as J Sainbury, Goodbody Stockbrokers, Irish Tax & Customs, Beijing Telecom, and Vodafone, on projects with regards to customer relationship management, process engineering and technology implementation.

 

He started his first company in technology intellectual property management and consumer electronics trading based in Hong Kong which subsequently expanded to Shenzhen. Wee Jin also founded Hotel Kai in Singapore by redeveloping a dilapidated, conserved building into a 33-room boutique hotel. A pioneer in the micro-hotel concept in Singapore, Hotel Kai enjoys one of the highest achieving revenue per square foot in the industry while offering wallet-friendly prices.

 

Wee Jin is also concurrently the Director of Engineering of Conint Pte. Ltd., a building, construction and engineering company. He also serves as an Entrepreneurship mentor in Institutes of Higher Learning such as NTU and SUTD.

Jeffrey paine

Jeffrey Paine is a Co-founder and Managing Partner of Golden Gate Ventures, an early stage technology venture capital fund based in Singapore investing in Southeast Asia with over US$175 million under management investing in over 45 companies since 2012.

 

Jeff started and manages the Founder Institute in Singapore where he is currently overseeing its expansion in Southeast Asia, and Japan. Since 2010 the Founder Institute in Singapore has graduated over 100 companies. He is a recipient of the Founder Institute Director Award 2012 for “Greatest Ecosystem Impact” Worldwide (Singapore).

 

He is a Singapore native and graduated with a Bachelors of Business Administration (Information Systems) from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Shiyan Koh

Having spent many years in a mix of investing and operating roles in companies such as J.P. Morgan, Institutional Venture Partners and Bridgewater Associates, Shiyan is a highly experienced venture capitalist in her own right. Shiyan is also a skilled businesswoman whose work at Silicon Valley-based company, NerdWallet, helped scale the business from its initial 10 members to 300 employees and approximately US$150 million in annual revenue by the time she left. 

 

After returning to Singapore, Shiyan co-founded Hustle Fund, a pre-seed fund investing in Southeast Asia and North America. She currently serves as its managing partner, investing on behalf of the pre-seed fund in Southeast Asia. Since Hustle Fund’s founding in 2017, the team has since grown to 14 employees working across 4 time zones, invested in 212 companies across North America and Southeast Asia.

Eldon Teng

Eldon Teng is currently a mentor/investor in start-up companies. He is a mentor for the NTU Lean LaunchPad programme. He returned to SINGAPORE in 2020 after spending 17 years in China. Prior to his repatriation, he was the CEO and a member of board of directors of Lierda , a Chinese local company , where he spent 9 years transforming the company from an electronic component distributor to a company that designs and manufactures wireless modules/systems needed in IOT industry in China. He also lead the company’s public listing in China.

 

Prior to joining Lierda, Eldon was with Texas Instruments for 25 years holding different positions in various countries. Beginning as a factory engineer in Singapore to project engineer, quality engineering manager , product marketing manager/director, business unit GM and VP of Texas Instruments Asia based in Taipei and eventually Business Development Director based in Shanghai.
Eldon has extensive management experience in IC design and manufacturing, electronic modules design and manufacturing, product quality management , product marketing , sales operations, business development , business transformation and business P&L .

Adeline Ng

Adeline Ng is the co-founder and CEO of Virtual EMDR, a pioneer in digital mental healthcare. Launched in 2014, Virtual EMDR was a disruptor that made EMDR available to everyone in the privacy of their homes. Today, over 10,000 people use it to overcome depression, anxiety, trauma, addictions, and more.

As co-founder, Adeline started this business from scratch. She taught herself many aspects (often through trial and error): from product development, UX/UI, web design, software development, digital marketing, customer service, to partnerships, strategy and finance.

Prior to this, Adeline had senior leadership roles in consumer goods/FMCG (most recently, Coca-Cola and Danone WhiteWave) and consulting. She graduated from Harvard Business School and the London School of Economics.

Adeline is available to help aspiring entrepreneurs in B2C businesses, particularly in disruptive business models, product development, go-to-market strategy, and digital marketing.

ad ketelaars

Ad Ketelaars has over 30 years of experience as a CEO and Managing Director in the Telecom, Electronics and IT Industries. In those years he worked for Dutch, French, American, Japanese and Israeli companies. He has co-founded a number of start-ups and has invested in over 20 of them.  He moved in January 2015 to Singapore and became an investor and advisor for B to B Tech start-ups as well as a venture partner for Entrepreneur First.

 

Ad holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Technical University Eindhoven in The Netherlands and an MBA from INSEAD (MBA 87). 

ong chee beng

Chee Beng is a business leader with more than 30 years experience in the information technology industry currently advising local tech startups in Singapore to grow regionally and globally. Most recently with Amazon, Chee Beng positioned as the Country Manager is leading the teams that are responsible for Amazon Web Services (AWS) business in Singapore. Previous roles include business and sales leadership positions in companies such as Salesforce, Oracle, IBM, Sun Microsystems. 

Hossein Nejati ​

Hossein Nejati, co-founder and CTO of KroniKare has a PhD in machine learning and image processing from NUS and was a postdoctoral fellow at SUTD and MIT, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Hossein has been working alongside nurses and medical practitioners in Singapore and the US, publishing 30 papers in the field and participated in developing core machine learning and data analysis modules.

JRAN DE LEE

JD Lee is a serial tech entrepreneur with a strong background in advertising technology and experience executing across South-East Asia. He was part of many businesses and startups, including Streetwave, a skateboard business that won Singapore’s President’s Design Award in 2011. JD was also the Co-Founder and CEO of Pocketmath, a mobile demand-side platform for advertisers, raising over US$20M to scale globally.

VEERAPPAN SWAMINATHAN

Veera is the CEO of Sustainable Living Lab, a sustainability consulting firm with operations in Singapore, Indonesia, India and the US. He is concurrently the CEO of edm8ker, an edtech firm which delivers teacher professional development. He has more than a decade of professional experience in the domains of sustainability, foresight, corporate innovation, ed-tech, and digital skilling.