Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards Winner
From exchanging healthcare with garbage to installing portable toilets to improving farming methods to fight malnutrition, these young entrepreneurs deserve a round of applause for their innovative ways to enable fulfillment of basic needs in difficult environments 🙂
Disney is pretty dam amazingly unrealistic! Rats are awful when you see them scurrying between drains in Central streets of Hong Kong but yet Disney had us rooting for the little chef (heya, isnt that me?) Remy like there’s no tomorrow! I loved the movie Ratatouille and I love how they are gonna set up a section dedicated to movie in the Paris theme park nonetheless!
I wonder what the next Frozen-inspired section is going to be like – Open only during winter time, a snowman shows you around the beautiful frozen castle, parts of which glow blue at your touch and children go crazy over the spectacular ice slides! Surprise us Disney!
Today I found my passion or at least as close as I have ever gotten so far to a passion that I can turn into a career. I’ve had a back/shoulder/leg problem for the past couple years so I’ve been on the search for that elusive pair of shoes that marry comfort with style and I think Ive finally found it! Well, these shoes still have room for improvement in the aesthetic department but functionality-wise, they have arch support, cushioning, stretchable leather and enlarged but longer front so it’s more comfy and the shoes still look slim and elegant! But how does all these translate into a passion/job?
Basically, I found these shoes in this tiny basement store. It’s the only branch in Hong Kong. I have never heard of the brand before. The benefits are clear to me cos I’ve been on this arduous search for a good pair of shoes and bugged the shopkeeper on numerous details but probably not as evident for the average shopper. The shoes can look better but are already a huge improvement from some of the other ‘health shoes’ out there.
My first thought was “I want to bring these in to Singapore!” But aside from being a distributor, I find that the marketing of the brand could be extended to a much wider audience and the benefits are not sufficiently publicized. The design of the shoes may be tweaked to be more trendy or just classic, potentially without compromising on comfort. If your crocs and birks and fitflops can be such huge hits, so can these shoes! Especially for the working class ladies! I am really excited both as a consumer and simply thinking about how many amazing ways there are to better promote this great product! Whether or not I can turn it into a business opportunity is such a huge question mark but for the first time in forever (echoing the Frozen theme song), there is passion, I see a chance!
Yesterday, I visited this travel-themed cafe called The Alchemist at Yau Ma Tei. It’s very local, kinda quaint, the decor has a home-made feel to it, lots of travel pix and knick-knacks/souvenirs that you’d pick up on your travels. Point is I went there on a friend’s recommendation and was really excited to hear that there was a whole wall of shelves dedicated to travel books. So I went by hoping to be inspired for my next travel destination! Well, I should have expected that 80% of the books were in Canto, but what’s disappointing is that most of them were travel guides ie your lonely planet, eye witnesses and their equivalents in Cantonese, which were very informative but not inspiring at all. Which led me to think about it as a startup idea. What if I had an app/site that allowed people to write about their travels in a manner that will inspire the next man to pack his bags and head right over? Your first thought will be how’s that different from Tripadvisor? Well, Tripadvisor is also more informative than exciting, what I had in mind is more of a Mr and Mrs Smith concept, except not just in the luxury hotel segment. It will be for a bunch of travel enthusiasts to share their experiences in a lively manner that transports you to the very place and cause you to daydream about that golden beach with its gently lapping waves or that mysterious temple that overwhelms with its rich history and dark tales. You know who does this pretty well? Airline magazines, understandably with side intentions. In fact, The Alchemist did have a few travel-themed “inspiration-like” books, but the poor printing just didnt quite cut it. Hence I think the internet offers much better graphic options. If you like my startup idea, please “like” this post!
How to Know Your Life Purpose in 5 Minutes: Adam Leipzig at TEDxMalibu:
I’ve been following a lot of Tedx videos recently, trying to get more inspiration as I looked around for a new job. What I related most to in this particular video was how he described with extreme accuracy the uneasiness many people including myself feel when answering that “so what do you do?” question and how to twist it around to your advantage 🙂 into becoming your perfect elevator speech
A Smile A Day 