By Azreen Azirinee Azizi
œBelieve you can and youre halfway there. ” Theodore Roosevelt.
To be listed in a ‘Forbes 30 under 30’ is like a dream for anyone and Tengku Ahmad Syamil Tengku Ibrahim, a 24-year old Singaporean, has showed us that a dream could come true.
On February 25, Forbes has revealed its first ever œ30 under 30 Asia list to celebrate the work of young and talented people, and Tengku Ahmad Syamil, is among the young people who was listed as Forbes Asia ’30 under 30′ for social entrepreneurs.
Standing on the same stage with other young entrepreneurs from different countries, is this third year Business Administration student who proved that “we can achieve our dream if we put our passion and hard work in doing it.”
Tengku Ahmad Syamil who was surprised and felt honoured that he got listed, said, œThis kind of acknowledgment, somewhat gives me the confidence that I am doing something right and it helps me to keep pushing and doing what Im doing right now.
Known as the co-founder and CEO of SkolaFund, Tengku Ahmad Syamil is also a co-founder of Urbane Academy where his journey as a social entrepreneur began. His love for social work and entrepreneurship has helped combine these two things to become one social entrepreneurship.
He, who placed prominent figures like Steve Jobs as a role model also thinks that his parents have played an important role in shaping good values in him. Tengku Ahmad Syamil also said that Imran Ajmain and Dato Fazley Yaakob are among the people who he looked up to as they always support him with SkolaFund and gave business advice.
This young and talented youth has shared with us a few tips he practised to achieve his goals.
Schedule
Schedule is one of the practices he does to organise his time. As a student who is also active in social entrepreneur, schedules have helped him to sort out the task according to priority.
He said that schedules have helped him to organise things he has to do for school work and SkolaFund work.
Prioritisation
œWe have this Pareto principle which says that out of 100 percent things you do, only 20 percent of the things matter in whatever you are pursuing. The 20% will bring you the 80% of the result, he said.
Prioritisation is often not been applied in our lives as some consider themselves as multi-tasking, but by prioritising, it could help our lives to be more organised and become less hassle.
Prioritising is important to him to figure out if they are willing to sacrifice certain things that make them lead to their goals. œPrioritising things that can make you lean toward certain goals and be out of your comfort zone, he said. “By prioritising, it could help you to become closer with the things you want to achieve no matter how complicated it is.”
Goals
David J. Schwartz once said, œThink little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success.
That is what Tengku Ahmad Syamil has been doing to come to this level. He has set a few big goals he wants to achieve since his teenage years. Doing social entrepreneurship has been one of his goals as he wants to help people, at the same time he loves entrepreneurship.
At the age of 18, he has set his goals and started planning on how to achieve certain goals. His goals didnt stop here as he has a new goal he wants to achieve, which is to become a millionaire five years from now.
He said, œI hope there would be richer guys who are more community-centred.
Support
To reach somewhere, there will always be challenges we have to go through and Tengku Ahmad Syamil and his team have gone through a lot of challenges to build SkolaFund. One thing that keeps him going on with SkolaFund is the support he received from his team. He is thankful to meet his team that have the same passion.
œSome friends are great to hang out with, some friends are great to work with,said Tengku Ahmad Syamil. He feels blessed to be connected with his co-founders who are always with him no matter how hard things would go.
œThey are all here to be better together, he added.
Support from his family, Imran Ajmain and Dato Fazley Yaakob have been one of the driving forces for him to continue his journey in social entrepreneurship.
Tengku Ahmad Syamil, who keeps pushing himself out from his comfort zone, would want to encourage more young people to explore entrepreneurship because he believes there’s always the need to have social change makers.***
