“10 years ago, I fell in love with TED talks,” Vivian Lim said in front of a captivated audience during #ConnectedWomen’s “Entrepreneur Mindset: Risk and Reinvention” event in Singapore.

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Lim and her friends were inspired by these talks and wondered if they can have a similar version in Asia. And that’s exactly what they set out to do. As a student taking up a degree in Engineering, Lim had no experience setting up talks or events. However, her passion to spread ideas and build communities was greater than any apprehension she had back then.

Together with her friends, the first series of TEDxNTU talks were held in their school, the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Lim was personally involved with curating these events. Since then, she has been curating for TEDxSingapore and TEDxSingaporeWomen, bringing TEDx Talks to the local communities.

Driven by the community, serving the community

Lim’s vision for TEDxSingapore is that it is “100% a community-driven, serving the local community.”

“So what essentially happens is we create this blank space, open up this blank canvas and then invite the local community to come in and paint and draw and create together something they can call it a common vision,” Lim said.

When people ask Lim about the product or services you sell or deliver, she admitted that she found it difficult to explain that they see ideas as their assets.

“It’s not something that’s very tangible, it’s totally intangible, we are the crazy people who feel that ideas can change the world,” she added.

Lim and her group firmly believes that ideas can impact and do good. From a business perspective it’s volunteer-driven and they don’t even have an office.

“When people ask what are you doing this for? Our standard answer is we are doing it for passion, for people, for purpose,” Lim said.

“So for passion it’s really coming together people who don’t have an idea what they want to do they just know they are passionate about this cause there’s this common belief that hey this works and this is good for the community,” she further explained.

Lim said that they ensure that content is delivered and that the conversations that happen can positively bring about impact in the community.

While the work may sound idealistic and glamorous, Lim said that it is not. Their work is focused on listening to voices on the ground, understanding what the community is talking about, finding out interesting things that’s happening and really seeing how the community wants to drive the conversation. The content is also delivered online so that people can continue to spread the ideas and messages in the digital space.

Stories of women, inspiring other women

Similar to the TEDx Talks, Lim’s next endeavour was also driven by the community – Women In Asia.  In a nutshell, Women In Asia is a “collaborative community that brings together catalysts, thinkers and thought leaders to bridge cultural and gender differences.” This initiative wants to showcase and increase appreciation for Asian narratives and build an open and inclusive community.

“The community decided what it wanted to share more about Asian perspectives. So our community wanted to find out, is there something we can do for Asia? What about Asia?” she said.

Lim said that the problems faced in Asia have similarities as well as differences with women from other cultures. For example, the refugee crisis may be a big issue in Europe and Africa but what many may forget is that Asia is also experiencing a similar situation. She gave the example of groups in Asia who helped the Rohingya refugees.

“We want to showcase cases like that,” she explained.

Another topic that the group wants to highlight is the growing community of social entrepreneurs in Asia.

“How can we build the next wave, not just looking at Alibaba, Tencent, but what about others? How, as a community, can we build and encourage the next generation?” she asked.

For this, they have partnered with the National Library of Singapore to tell raw and authentic stories from the ground – 14 stories of women who are leading with purpose.

One of the stories is that of serial entrepreneur Elim Chew and her mother, Madam Ooi Kooi Tin. Another story is that of former domestic helper Nilu Jayaweera from Sri Lanka who worked in a Singaporean household for 15 years. With enough savings, Nilu started a tea brand that employs women from her village and is now a successful entrepreneur.

“She didn’t want her sisters and friends to go through the same thing of leaving their home country and go to a foreign land,” Lim explained.

Another story showcased was that of a teenage girl, Tan Wei Tian who practices a dying art form of Teochew opera. Lim explained that the girl felt a sense of responsibility to continue this tradition.

“These are just some of the stories, not just to serve as an inspiration,” Lim said, adding that she wanted these stories to trigger people to do something.

In some cases, they are successful in sparking inspiration. One example she gave is a lady in Singapore who started an initiative recycling used bras, send them to women and girls in Asia and Africa who most need them.

“’Hey I also want to do something’ — That’s what we wanted to create with Women in Asia,” Lim said.

Never too late for “elderpreneurs”

Lim’s and her group’s influence extend beyond talks and events. One of her latest endeavours is helping out a senior couple who established 1°C, a brand of cold brew coffee.

She collaborated with the so-called “elderpreneurs” who started this business in their sixties.

“They started this business at age 63. Richard, one of the cofounders, was a senior manager in HP and one day he got retrenched so he decided to grab his wife and say hey let’s do this,” Lim said.

One of the challenges that this couple encountered is that cold brew is often perceived as a young, hipster drink, according to Lim. In fact, when they participated at a farmer’s market, the organizers were confused if they owned the brand since they looked out of place, alongside the young entrepreneurs who are also selling their goods.

“So we created a new series with them,” Lim said.

The question posed to them was how can they reinvent the familiar taste with a Western twist? What the team did was work with local traditional to create a unique blend of Arabica and Robusta beans. The cold brew coffee with an east meets west flavour had a soft launch and is now being distributed in museums and various cafes.

With her different endeavours that gives back to communities around Asia, Lim is actually just getting started.

“Ten years on and I am still building communities,” she said. And for her, doing this type of work is simply magical.

“We see the magic when people from different backgrounds come together and have conversations. This is the magic that keeps us going.”

 

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