When Weilyn Chong’s name and photo appeared on a Times Square billboard from the Nasdaq Tower, it instantly went viral, inspiring many young Singaporeans to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors.

Weilyn acknowledges the value of entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia despite the fact that the majority of her work with founders is focused in the US.

Growing up, 20-year-old Weilyn Chong has lived from one place to another between Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Netherlands which made her immersed in varied cultures.

Weilyn’s global exposure enabled her to be more flexible in dealing with many kinds of people especially since their family annually joins in Singapore Global Network events.

Despite their frequent moves, Weilyn’s mother made sure to give them a strong sense of connection to their roots by taking them to see their grandparents, spending time with family, and eating Singaporean food. 

The Singaporean third-year economics student at Princeton University expressed how being among passionate individuals inspires her.

Weilyn started a podcast about women entrepreneurs with her failure project for “The Other ‘F’ Word” class when she was still a freshman, and she has since enjoyed it.

Together with her high school friend Ali Debow, she even converted it into a regular extracurricular activity by co-founding The Entrepre女ers Network, a podcasting startup that connects and promotes female entrepreneurs with topics including design, young changemakers, and Gen Z female founders.

Weilyn wants to increase the visibility of female business owners and give them connections opportunities. Her team has spoken with over 130 creators in a year and increased their listenership and social media reach to 30,000.

She said that they hope to get young females to dream of being an entrepreneur and understand that entrepreneurship doesn’t have to look a specific way.

Learning that bias happens between genders in the global arena as only 2% of total venture capital funding goes to women because they are women, she attended a conference put on by the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center (NEC) to address the complex issue of inequity in venture for entrepreneurs of color and women entrepreneurs.

There, she met people from the Center and expressed her interest to get involved in the work they do in any capacity. 

She was asked to join the NEC board in order to represent Generation Z and put a spotlight on young entrepreneurship.

“I grew up thinking those two things are mutually exclusive – either you do charity work or you make money. But what we’re seeing is that you can raise a lot of money and make a positive impact on the world,” she said on CNBC.

Both Filipino educators, Camille Ona and Marvin Paclibare found a different world and passion out of their classrooms during the pandemic as teachers-turned-entrepreneurs and founders of Taho Klasiko, a special milk tea-inspired taho shop.

Breaking free from their first-loved profession, the two sculpt their name as entrepreneurs who choose to walk into another path.

Marvin said that if not for the pandemic, he might still be teaching now just as he thought that he would forever be a teacher. He also added how he realized that there is a bigger world waiting outside teaching.

With people becoming more mindful of their health, especially during the onslaught of the pandemic, Marvin said that they eyed tendering a healthier version of milk tea.

The shop attained a grand slam as the two now earn 6-digit figures per month, an amount far way better than their incomes as teachers in the Philippines.

Camille mentioned in an interview that although they are still passionate about teaching, they just chose to be practical.

Despite entering the world of business, the owners are still having the vibe of teaching as entrepreneurs who are open to learning and improving their craft just like when they were still teaching.

They also shared that they hired working students to extend help to them. 

As a piece of advice, the former teachers said that would-be entrepreneurs should go outside of their comfort zones and open their ways to many opportunities.

“It’s not enough that you have a dream; you need to work hard to make it a reality,” Camille added.

Mark Lin was only 17 when he started selling food-scented slime out of his Burbank, California garage in 2020. 

He then won over venture capitalists on an episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” with his zeal for pitching and the amazing yield his company was generating, where $300,000 was a net profit out of the $540,000 in sales he obtained at the time.

With the assistance of a couple of his buddies, whom he employed for packaging and shipping, Lin, a high school freshman and novice in the industry, developed the slime successfully, enabling him to make $50,000 in sales in his first year of operation.

CNBC reports that Lin’s sales increased to $580,000 the following year.

Sliimeyhoney now sells edible and food-scented slimes with flavors like banana milk, hot cocoa, and birthday cake batter for between $10 and $16 per six-ounce jar utilizing Tiktok as his marketing platform.

The company consistently achieves sold-out sales for its weekly introduction of new products to its almost one million followers.

After a thorough negotiation with Kevin O’Leary and Daymond John, Lin secured $150,000 for 20% share from the two.

This, according to Lin, will be beneficial in moving his company from his garage into a warehouse and gaining mentorship while he still pursues his studies.

John was quoted saying “I believe in you, and we’re going to make sure you go to school, and I will help you with this business.”

Lin is now a first-year college student at UCLA with his company continuously rising.

Taking it from her unforgettable and scary experience involving safety and security, Rajia Abdelaziz realized the importance of women’s self-protection which made her put up Invisawear, now a leading safety device manufacturer.

Together with her best friend and now business partner Ray Hamilton, they designed a piece of wearable tech that allows the user to call for help and alert emergency contacts at a double-press.

InvisaWear is jewelry that can save lives. Although their components resemble ordinary accessories, they are actually safety devices supported by America’s top security supplier (ADT).

The devices have a secret panic button that can be set to dial 911, send a pre-programmed text message to five emergency contacts, and send a GPS location to the emergency services. They are worn on the body so they are nearly always available.

The co-owner was quoted saying “InvisaWear also partnered with ADT to provide access to video streaming, voice activation, and self-defense classes as a way of “equipping people to protect themselves,” 

Compared to a cellular phone, it is a more accessible safety device which comes in the form of a charm necklace.

Considering women’s safety as a very important issue, Abdelaziz rejected high-paying job offerings related to her electrical engineering training just to prioritize her advocacy even if she struggled with many challenges in starting it up.

Though laborious, Invisawear was able to raise millions of funds for the safety device.

Five years after its founding, the business has grown to produce more than just gold and rhodium-plated jewelry. It now makes fitness bands, hair accessories, and keychains, all of which have timeless appeal and fashionable, practical designs.

According to Abdelaziz in Forbes, several of their items are now also available in unisex versions since they discovered that safety wasn’t just important for women but also for some guys.

The business intends to grow in Europe and the Middle East and just announced a new cooperation with a Canadian security company.

Invisawear is a technical advancement that has significantly improved people’s lives.

Abdelaziz emphasized “One of the best moments of my life was the first time one of our devices saved someone’s life,” she says, “a young woman had been badly injured in a car accident and her keychain saved her life. Her dad was able to get to her and be with her while they waited for an ambulance, who knows how long it would have taken to find her otherwise.”