Meet the First Five Young Leaders Selected As YAP Fellows

We are excited to announce the first roundup of YAP (Young Achievers Program) Fellows—an initiative to recognize bright upcoming talent and ideas in the crowd economy—for Crowdsourcing Week Global Conference 2015. These YAP fellows are remarkably unstoppable in pursuit of purpose and passion as they embark on different projects and campaigns in crowdsourcing, coming from across Asian countries.

The Young Achievers Program was founded to recognize and nurture promising leaders and global innovators, forming an exclusive membership and support system for collaboration. This current class of YAP fellows will join us in the upcoming CSW Global 2015 (April 20-24) in Singapore where they can harness their skills and ideas as well as learn from and network with top-notch global crowdsourcing experts and influencers. Crowdsourcing Week is always on the lookout for new talent and go-getters in the space.

Here are the first five YAP fellows who will join us in the upcoming global conference. Do you want to join? Applications are still open; apply now to be considered for the next announcement round.

Gretiano Wasian, Jakarta, Indonesia

LinkedIn

I’m developing Crowdol, an internet based donation crowdfunding web cross-portal, which provides environment act to support renewable energy used in FI 2015. As I see global growth of crowdfunding portal, I need to learn more about crowdfunding ecosystem; what I should do and don’t. I’ve absorbed and learned a lot from experienced and expert people in this field. I could use my experience to grow my startup and start help and support community to build a better environment.

Work focus: Together with my team, we focus on crowdfunding and crowdsourcing for environment act. We start to develop a web portal for providing tools for the community to do bigger cause, we just not stop in building space but also provide assistance to made best campaign and more connected to backers. My participation can boost up my experience in crowdfunding ecosystem to widen my perspective to build crowdsol and gain bigger cause for our environment.

Tessa Voon, Singapore, Singapore

I’m building a crowdsourcing platform for community action projects in Singapore. Attending CSW would be a great opportunity for me to explore various forms of crowd-sourcing platforms and seed more ideas. On a personal level, I am inspired by how crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter has facilitated the makers movement, how open source technology has sped up innovation in so many industries, and how competitions like X Prize manage to solve grand challenges and achieve the unthinkable through reaching out to many innovative minds.

Work focus: I focus on social enterprise with a mission to empower members of the community to crowdsource meaningful projects. I believe that the collaborative consumption and sharing economy model will prevail in Singapore as she transitions to becoming a smarter nation. It will be tremendously useful for me to learn more about the global crowdsourcing scene and contribute to the transition.

Puwanan Chumtong, Bangkok, Thailand

Since I started my own hardware startup, I have been studied about crowdsourcing for awhile in order to turn my innovation into a real world product. I have joined many startup communities to build a connection with many talented people. However, it is very difficult to find a good crowdsourcing community in Thailand. I believe that being selected as a CSW fellow would let me see what we are missing in Thailand, and learn more details from experts. This will help me building a better crowdsourcing community in Thailand which could also support other young leaders.

Work focus: I love hardware startup, science and technology, and crowdfunding. (1) Sharing ideas and experience with other young leaders is a great way to get inspiration and see the world in a different angle. (2) Networking with talented people may accelerate a startup growth by any means such as partnership and mentoring. (3) Being a part of this big community would allow me to quickly access all important information for a startup to growth on a global level.

Leow Jonathan, Singapore, Singapore

LinkedIn | Twitter 

Because I want to further get a broader grasp and understanding of what crowdsourcing and crowdfunding can do for startups and businesses. I then wish to take that message of crowdsourcing and propagate it to Singapore businesses and startups. I have an interesting story to share about how I crowdsourced for a good marketing message/angle for a product launch in the previous startup company I worked in 2014. This eventually was largely responsible for a viral and successful Indiegogo campaign that raised over $100k. I have previously also spoken before too for FundedByMe APAC launch conference.

Work focus: I’m especially interested in helping Small-Medium Businesses in Singapore adopt crowdfunding as a powerful tool for getting cost effective publicity, funds, and drive deeper customer engagement. I foresee the day will soon come when crowdfunding becomes a mainstream financing tool for SMEs, amongst the many others.

Pawel Kuznicki, Singapore, Singapore

LinkedIn

I’m a fintech entrepreneur with McKinsey and Rocket Internet experience. I founded the Capital Match, which is one of the pioneers of peer-to-peer lending in Singapore and Southeast Asia. We can continually bring expertise in and experience from the crowd-lending area to the community.

Work focus: Together with my team, we are running a peer-to-peer lending platform in Singapore providing loans to SMEs funded by professional investors.

Join us in congratulating our YAP Fellows on LinkedIn & Twitter. We all will surely be seeing more of them in the future!