Forum on Corporate Involvement in Social Business
Using innovative social business models, Professor Mohammad Yunus and other social entrepreneurs have shown how Bottom of the Pyramids (BOP) market opportunities can be successfully tapped. In recent years, a growing number of global corporations have initiated collaborations with such entrepreneurial social businesses to successfully enter BOP markets.
Co-organised with the NUS Business School's Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (ACSEP), this Forum brings Professor Yunus together with the leaders of these far-sighted global corporations to share their experience and insights in embracing social business models to do good AND do well. At the end of the Forum, selected innovative social businesses being incubated by GCL@NUS will showcase their social ventures at the event and pitch to potential corporate partners and social venture investors.
My crew at home.
I've been spending quite a lot of my leisure time watching youtube music videos of popular Korean, Japanese and American/English music groups and it struck me that I could also be trawling youtube to search for interesting business learning opportunities relating to topics of interest.
This was partly sparked off by the fact that I'm already spending time on youtube for leisure, why not for business? I also happened to read an article about how educators should consider harnessing youtube, blogs etc. as part of teaching and learning to enhance the interactiveness of teaching relative to the traditional methods of teaching i.e. lecture/teacher speaking most of the time.
Technology today is such as enabler of better business processes in various fields and internal auditing is no exception. I realise there is really tremendous potential for harnessing youtube for learning and sharing opportunities.
This youtube video by Deloitte is more for marketing but it's quick slick and gives a sense of what data analytics is about.
Ever since I volunteered with ISACA Singapore Chapter as an office bearer, I had started doing public speaking engagements relating to IT audit and security certifications. Over time, when I joined an IT systems integrator company and was delivering training as part of my job, I began also to share in conferences, formal classroom training sessions on topics related to IT audit, security, governance.
Over the last three years in internal audit and governance areas, I have been speaking on internal audit, procurement risks, data analytics and related areas.
This post is to help me remember the speaking engagements and also for continuing education hours tracking.
Internal Audit is actually an interesting career niche for those whose background are in accountancy, business or finance. Most internal auditors are accounting or finance trained but there are many quality auditors, IT auditors, process auditors that are from other disciplines. To get a sense of the demand, one should look to the job sites for careers in internal audit.
I've done some career counselling for my ex-staff who left to pursue full-time undergraduate studies on choosing a possible career niche in internal audit with accounting qualifications. The thing about internal audit is that it's a fairly specialised niche hence the number of jobs are not as many as compared to accounting and finance jobs. But because experienced internal auditors are less common compared to finance and accounting staff, the smaller supply situation is matched by a relatively small demand resulting in a number of choices of jobs for those who manage to get into an internal audit role with 3-5 years experience. If you have regional experience, i.e. carried out audits across regional operations, subsidiaries and countries, that makes you even more valuable to those who need experienced auditors who understand business proceses, internal controls, compliance and even value-for-money issues in internal audit.
If you can do IT audit and business process audit, then you will in high demand especially if you gain some seniority as internal audit heads are typically expected to run both internal (business) audits as well as the IT audits. If you are interested in an career in internal audit, can just drop me a note for free career guidance at yekker at gmail.com.
I recently worked with an intern who is currently studying University of London's Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance in SIM. She helped in some of the projects we did to enhance our department's quality assurance as well to help in some data import and analysis in building an audit risk model. I realised from that experience that it was useful to bring someone in to assist in working on projects that would be more challenging to do whilst we are busy with day-to-day operational work requirements.
If you are currently pursuing an undergraduate programme with a recognised university (public or private) in Singapore with an interest in internal audit or internal controls or data analytics using computer-assisted-audit-tools, you can drop me a note at yekker at gmail.com to register your interest. Basically, I can take in one intern at a time. If your course of study is in business, accounting, finance and even IT related, you can consider applying. Our organisation pays $800 a month and the internship period can range from 3 to 6 months.
I am not particularly fussy over the course of study as I'm taking in only those who have interest in internal audit, controls or data analytics related areas.
This opportunity is available starting from August 2011 whilst the internship is still vacant as my previous intern has completed her two month stint with us. Email me at yekker at gmail.com if you have an interest in the areas I've described or wish to find out more.
24 May 2011 (Tuesday)
I managed to set up Amazon account and purchase Kindle eBooks and read them on my iPad without having to get a US credit card. Your mileage may vary and the systems may change but here's how. The critical bit is actually to use a proxy or in my case a paid VPN service based in US.
Remember to login to the VPN (to make sure your source IP is in US) before going amazon.com to buy your kindle ebooks. VPN is not needed for iPad (but it's a good practice for better IT security) Your mileage may vary, but the above steps worked for me and I referred to the following source as reference:
References:
http://www.pluitsolutions.com/2010/07/25/how-to-purchase-kindle-books-from-singapore/
