You heard of the Paypal Mafia, but have you heard of the NOC mafia?
It is a 3,300-strong alumni network of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Overseas College program, designed to sieve out, educate and nurture future entrepreneurs.
People always asked me: would there still be Carousell and Xfers if it wasn’t for NOC? I think yes. There would be less of them, but I believe to a large extent most of them would still go on and found great companies even without NOC. Sure the program like many other programs, served as a great catalyst, but it is not a wonder pill that will magically make anyone an Elon or Jobs.
Perhaps NOC exposed them to the amazing world of startups, got them excited faster, sparked their curiosity earlier, but what made them successful founders eventually probably didn’t manifest from NOC per se. What they had, they had within them already, the exposure and friction merely brought it out.
The rigors of the NOC interviews and whole aura surrounding it made anyone think and rethink why they would want to join the program and be a founder eventually. It self-selected for the hungry entrepreneurs amongst the thousands of students.
There are plenty of examples of wildly successful founders who went through an NOC-equivalent program in their life. The hunger, the curiosity, the itch they can’t stop scratching, was there since day 1.
NOC truly was a life-changing experience for many, and all of us learnt something that will stay with us for the rest of our lives.
Now, we are all just waiting for the Unicorns to sprout!
Shout out to NOC, NUS and everyone who was part of the journey. Lets all make NOC proud, one step at a time!
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