(Update: Center of best practices is hiring. For those of you interested in software engineering positions, check out the details here)

Based on dictionary.com, Neoteny is defined as the “retention of juvenile characteristics in the adults of a species”. Wikipedia refers to Neoteny as  “juvenilization” i.e. the retention, by adults in a species, of traits previously seen only in juveniles. And when you put Neoteny and Labs together, you get a world of opportunity and creativity never seen before in the Singapore startup ecosystem where startups, like children, never stop learning and exploring new ideas.

Neoteny Labs + Pivotal Labs
While the web technology industry in Singapore has been gaining traction over the last few years, one fundamental problem that has yet to be addressed is the lack of relevant software engineering talent available in our shores. Hugo Angelmar, co-founder of iSyndica, summed up this problem really well when he shared how hard it was to look for the right computer scientists in Singapore. Sure Singapore universities churn out computing students by the masses. Based on the latest data from NUS alone, almost 400 computing graduates earned their first degrees. However, a small fraction of them, maybe even none, are equipped with the essential skills needed for rapid iterative innovation.  The combined forces of Neoteny Labs and Pivotal labs can potentially change that by establishing a Centre of Best Practices, essentially a high-end software consultancy practice. This center will hire good software engineers and put them through on-the-job training by solving problems faced by global tech firms, and in the process expose them to Agile methodologies, Ruby on Rails and cloud computing.  While working on these projects, the engineers are also encouraged to start up companies of their own. The centre could also attract startup founders to be Entreprenuers in Residence (EIRs) where they will get to work on their ideas and tap on the design and software development expertise of the center.  The thesis is that in so doing, these fledging startups can significantly enhance their success rate at building a product with exponential growth.

Details and Who’s Involved?
The specific details of the collaboration between Neoteny Labs and Pivotal Labs will be announced at the upcoming Neoteny Singapore Camp, taking place at SMU from 12th – 13th December. However, it will be interesting to note that world class entrepreneurs and investors have already given their commitments to this bold project. The main guys behind this gig would be none other than:

General Partner: Joi Ito, CEO of Creative Commons, Investor in Twitter, Last.fm, Six Apart etc.
Investment Committee Chairman: Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn, Investor in Facebook, Zynga etc.
Investment Manager: James Chan, Former investment manager at Walden International and IIPL

The dazzling array of highly accomplished mentors who will be supporting this include:

Cory Ondrejka, former CTO of Linden Labs
Shawn Fanning, Founder of Rupture (acquired by EA),  SNOCAP (acquired by imeem) and Napster
Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager at Facebook
Folks from IDEOf
Folks from Pivotal Labs
John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist at Xerox Corporation
Jun Murai, known as the “father of Japan’s Internet”
Ryuichi Sakamoto,  Academy Award, Grammy and Golden Globe-winning Japanese musician and composer
Tim O’Reilly, Founder of O’Reilly Media
Lawrence Lessig, Founding Board Member of Creative Commons, author of “The Future of Ideas”

Though the experiences and knowledge of the members mentioned above span far and wide, the focus for Neoteny Labs will be on nurturing startups and ideas revolving around the following space: consumer Internet, mobile applications and consumer hardware and electronics design. Interestingly, Asia is the primary focus for all this, and I am really excited about that!

My Thoughts on This
Startup founders all across Asia have been deriding the lack of suitable mentors. Funding is abundant in countries like Singapore and Malaysia, but the missing piece of the puzzle has always been the missing group of credible mentors. Hence my first reaction to this was THIS IS IT! We finally have a group of highly experienced and relevant mentors willing to spend time and effort in nurturing Asian based startups. These guys have, undeniably, the right networks and the right experience, making them mentors to die for. I am a strong believer of the fact that the success of a startup is highly dependent on the advisers and mentors involved with the company. They are the ones who are going to evangelize the founders visions and connect him/her to the right partners, users and potential clients. They are the guys who could potentially aid in the startups next round of funding and add that much needed credibility to the startup. Another thing I wish to add is the sheer ability for Joi Ito and his Band of Brothers to attract the best minds from around the world. Judging from the speakers list and attendee list of the upcoming Neoteny Camp, there are some pretty big names flying down just for this event.

While exact details on the involvement of the mentors is not yet available, this is definitely a step forward in the right direction and and overall boost for the technology industry in Asia. There’s also much to look forward to at the upcoming Neoteny Singapore Camp, where further details will be announced. Hence, I’m highly optimistic on this initiative, and I can see potentially big changes coming to the startup landscape. Whoever who put this initiative together deserves a big pat on the back. We can finally stop bickering about the lack of mentors and start creating world class companies.

Note: Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia.org