Teach a Youth to Fish...

*** and you feed his community, as Bamboo Builders' Gabriel Tan discovers in raising a new generation of impact entrepreneurs.

- MARY LIM

Gabriel Tan could have pursued a “proper job” as a financial analyst, marketing consultant, or operations director with his business management degree. Instead of making money, however, he was more excited about making an impact.

So, after graduating from Singapore Management University in 2019, Tan became a full-time programme manager with a vocational training centre for persons with disabilities. For more than a year, he juggled the job with Bamboo Builders, then left it altogether two years later to focus on his start-up.

Founded during Tan’s second year of studies, Bamboo Builders equips youths with entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and empowers them to become changemakers in their communities.

It took shape when Tan, at the age of 13, embarked on a community service trip to Chiang Rai, Thailand. Seeing how children and youths there struggled with extreme poverty changed his life.

“I participated in more than 10 community service trips throughout South-east Asia to identify the root cause of the poverty so I could better help the people,” says Tan. “In these regions, parents would rather their children work than study because this puts food on the table.”