Graduate Interview

Entrepreneurial Engineers

WITH a fund of $80,000 from Spring Singapore under the new Entrepreneurship Talent Development Fund (ETDF), five Ngee Ann (NP) engineering researchers hope to commercialise their super computer chip in the near future.

Calling themselves Project Proteus, the team took about two years to develop a configurable computer chip that works at a speed of 100 standard computers combined.

“The grant will go into funding equipment and manpower cost,” said lead researcher Darran Nathan, 24.

The ETDF is a grant scheme to encourage students from Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) to start their own business. NP is the first local polytechnic to receive the funding under the scheme launched last June.

Darran said about juggling his role as an engineer and entrepreneur: “As a researcher, I just have to do my stuff in the lab. But now, I’m more concerned about how people will use our product, so we have to go out and talk to people to find out the usage pattern.”

His teammate Wong Jit Chin, 24, said: “When you are an entrepreneur, there’s the risk of cost. But engineers also undertake risk because we have to be responsible for what we design, so we must ensure our products are safe.”

Project Proteus also won the second prize at the fifth Start- Up@Singapore National Business Plan Competition last year.