Ng Yi Ming

To curb the problems that founders of rising start-ups faced in the blockchain industry, tech entrepreneur Yi Ming and his co-founder Ryan Chew launched Tribe Accelerator in 2018. Backed by Enterprise Singapore, Tribe Accelerator is Singapore’s first government supported blockchain accelerator and is championing to be a neutral platform in driving collaboration and growth of the blockchain ecosystem.

In just over a year, Yi Ming has helped early-stage portfolio companies raise more than $40 million, and counts leading global corporates like AXA, BMW Group Asia and IBM as partners. Tribe Accelerator is part of the Tribe group, which also has an education arm, Tribe Academy, and an innovation ecosystem platform, OpenNodes, both of which Yi Ming also leads.

The pandemic, he says, has been a reminder that one should always be ready for disruption. “Every crisis has a silver lining, you just need to look for it. For us, there cannot be a greater pressing need to drive forth the adoption of blockchain, especially in industries like supply chain and healthcare. Blockchain helps drive trust and transparency across supply chains, which betters businesses and the daily lives of people.”

A key priority moving forward is driving tech education through online learning programmes instead of physical classrooms with Tribe Academy, and, at the same time, closing the gap between education and employability. Earlier this year, together with Ngee Ann Polytechnic and coding assessment platform Indorse, he launched GoSchool, an online programming school providing students the option to pay the course fee upon getting a job. “This is an approach meant to treat students as investments rather than cash cows – a fundamental shift that could finally lift the crippling debt load we routinely push onto students. At the same time, it also ensures that the talent and skill demands of the market are being met.”

Photography: Bryan Foong/Antelope Studios | Art Direction: Audrey Chan | Grooming: Keith Bryant Lee, using Shiseido | Hair: Sean Ang