Rewriting The Future

This year’s Prestige Vanguard Award 2020 recipient is NG YI MING, a visionary fintech entrepreneur who enables blockchain technology to improve lives. The young achiever and co-founder of Tribe Accelerator tells Annabel Tan how he is championing Singapore as the blockchain and deep-tech hub of the world.

- Annabel Tan

For the better part of an hour, Ng Yi Ming deftly unravels the mystery that is blockchain to me, a writer whose tech expertise barely extends beyond Excel. Decoding deep technology for the layman has become second nature to the 29-year-old, who has been running Tribe Accelerator, the Singapore-based blockchain accelerator he co-founded and is managing partner of, for over two years now. I am just one of those he enlightens every week, given the enigma that is blockchain and the fact that his company is one of the few of its kind in the world.

Tribe Accelerator is Singapore’s first government-supported blockchain accelerator and aims to enable start-ups to leverage blockchain solutions. It counts more than 40 global corporates including AXA, BMW Group Asia, Citibank, IBM, Intel, Temasek and more as partners. In just over a year, it has raised more than $40 million for its early-stage portfolio firms. The accelerator is the main arm of the Tribe group, where Yi Ming is co-founder and CEO. He likens it to a “professional matchmaker of the digital age” as it provides a neutral platform to connect corporations, governments, universities and technical talent in one ecosystem.

TECH FOR GOOD