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AMRA NAIDOO

Chindian (Chinese + Indian), born in Zimbabwe, living in Australia, working globally.

#socimp #socent #business4good

Amra is the co-founder of Accelerating Asia, a regional startup acceleration program and corporate innovation consultancy. Accelerating Asia works at the intersection of corporate-startup engagement, with the goal of driving corporate innovation and scaling fast-moving tech startups. 

For close to a decade Amra has spearheaded high-impact partnership strategies across both the commercial and non-profit sectors. Her experience successfully executing local, regional and global programs, straddling both business and social impact objectives, has fostered a unique perspective and an ability to apply best-practices from both worlds.  This innovative approach has fuelled a history of campaign and project outcomes that consistently outperform expectations, with her most recent initiative, Project Inspire, recognised as a multi-award winning CSR initiative. During her time at UN Women Singapore, Amra rolled out a number of initiatives including: a pilot corporate engagement program with full implementation in 2016; UNited We Hack (a hackathon for social good); Girls2Pioneers (a local STEM program for girls aged 10-15); Project Aspire (a local social entrepreneurship initiative for Singapore students); and, the Singapore campaign strategy for HeForShe to support the UN Women global initiative. 

Amra’s strengths lie in identifying new opportunities for growth in both the Business and Social domains, and leading and executing campaigns & programs to ensure their success for all stakeholders. Personally, Amra is passionate about working to close the gap between the commercial and social sectors. She is a strong advocate for business driving impact and has facilitated cross-sector partnerships between government; multinational corporations including MasterCard, Facebook, Telstra, Microsoft, BHP Billiton, Unilever, and Proctor & Gamble; media partners including BBC, CNBC, Channel News Asia, and Mashable; government; and, education partners.

Amra is the Curator for the Global Shapers Singapore Hub, an initiative of the World Economic Forum and is the host and creator of the Doing Good Podcast. She has been interviewed and featured as a guest author on industry blogs, including e27, Yahoo and PR Week, is a regular guest on 938Now’s national radio show and named as one of Harpers Bazaar’s Women Who Inspire Others. Amra regularly speaks about the intersection of business and impact, including at global events such as Money 20/20 (Singapore), Singularity University Impact Challenge (Poland) and the Asia Corporate Sustainability Summit (Philippines).

Born in Zimbabwe, with Chinese & Indian heritage, Amra enjoys working in a diverse and multicultural environment. She has a strong interest in technology for social good and the potential that effective cross-sector partnerships and collaborative solutions provide. She is passionate about diversity & inclusion, business for good, social entrepreneurship & social innovation for sustainable & impactful development.

Find out more on LinkedIn

 

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Speaking engagements:

  • Philanthropy in Asia Summit 2014

  • Cosmopolitan Singapore, Fun Fearless Life, 2015

  • Pecha Kucha Singapore, 2015

  • Corporate talks (BHP, British Chamber of Commerce, BritCham Women's Network, Russian Asian Business Union and more)

  • School talks (Raffles Girls School (Singapore), Croydon Girls School (London) and more)

  • Asia Corporate Sustainability Summit & Awards 2016

  • Singularity University Global Impact Challenge, 2018

  • Money 20/20, 2018

  • SparkFest, 2018

  • Launch of the JUST egg, 2018

 
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FeatureD in:

  • Harpers Bazaar's Women Who Inspire Others June 2014

  • Cosmopolitan Singapore's, Fun Fearless Life, 2015

  • Asian NGO for Project Inspire, 2014 & 2015

  • HootSuite Case Study - 'Ending Gender Inequality With Social Media', 2015

  • SIX-SIX News, 2015

  • PR Asia Weekly, 2015

  • Fielfalt, 2016

  • e27, 2017

  • Dealstreet Asia, 2018

  • Asian Entrepreneur, 2018

  • Regular Guest on 938Now, 2017 & 2018

 
ALWAYS blinking for photos 😑 #throwback #hongkong 📸 @standbroad (remembering our meetups in HK fondly 💛)
Back in Singapore and no time to slow down. Straight into Sunday morning chats about micro finance & improving access to capital for FDWs starting businesses in their home countries. Meet the amazing Armi starting her ice-cream business in #IloIlo! Not your average weekend 💫 #business4good
Got the official tee which must mean it’s GO TIME! The Asia Accelerator officially launches its call for applications today. 7 months of hard work has transformed into this! #acceleratingasia #singapore #startup #startupacceletator #foundersfirst #founderftiendly #southeastasia #theasiaaccelerator #startuplife
Brought in the new year with this crew of buccaneers 🏴‍☠️ Happy New Year! #nye #shivermetimbers #yohoho
Spending time with my not-so-baby baby brother 💙
Today’s adventure was with Project Orbis Singapore at their Orbis Mass Blindfold Luncheon! We were blindfolded and to make sure there was no peeking, were led into a dark room where we were served a 2-course lunch. We were looked after by amazing volunteers from Dialogue in the Dark - Singapore who are all blind or vision impaired. Such an awesome experience and I highly recommend you check out both of these incredible organizations! I think the biggest thing you realize is how much you take your eyesight for granted and how simple things that you would normally do without much thought become something that requires A LOT more thought and effort: - We were led into the room blindfolded in groups of 8. You had to hold onto the shoulders of the person in front of you and were guided by our awesome vision impaired volunteers. We had to ask our volunteer to slow down her walking speed because her (probably) normal pace felt so fast to us with our sight suddenly removed - I dropped my umbrella behind my chair and because it was so dark, my first instinct was to ask for help picking it up. I ended up deciding to try reach behind my chair and feeling around for it. Then because it was one of those long umbrellas, had to figure out how to maneuver out of the way and it under my chair. - The plates with lips help you feel the edge so are super useful when you can’t see your food and are chasing it around the plate. A bowl is by far the easiest to use though. - Coordinating cutlery is difficult. There were a couple of times I cut a piece of food and then lost it somewhere on my plate - If my cup didn’t have a lid, I would have spilt water over the table twice - And for a reality check, while we were struggling to just feed ourselves, our assigned volunteers were serving tables of about 20 people, hosting, and helping us figure things out like no big deal. Legends!
Armed with our $200 wedding rings, it was a quick weekend trip home. There were chips & dips, cheesy lasagne and beer. The celebrant couldn't pronounce my name and didn't try because she said it was too difficult. It was a cloudy and windy day. I was thinking about an assignment I needed to do that was due the following week. We were both in sneakers, I had a long black summer dress (because it was more dressy than a short green summer dress) and Mike wore his black polo (because it was more dressy than a t-shirt). We both gave our families strict instructions to dress casual (t-shirts & shorts casual). We were mostly ignored and my dad wore a suit, which spurred a mass change of clothes kicking off with Mike's dad changing into a suit, and ending with Mike changing from shorts to jeans. But that was ok because we were at home and you can do that easily. We had no official photographs or videos. We didn't have a honeymoon and flew straight back to Singapore the next day, in time for our usual Sunday debrief beer to watch the sunset at Level 33. The seemingly uneventfulness of the whole thing was what made it so special. Surrounded by the people we love most, with good food and drink was everything we had wanted. It was all perfect and exactly as it should have been. Since then, we've traveled the world together. We've made tough decisions together and gone for countless sunset beer debriefs. A couple of months ago I accidentally threw my ring down the rubbish chute. But we decided it was ok because I had a 'wifey for lifey' hoodie, and that's almost the same thing as having a ring. Mike lost his ring at the gym a few of weeks ago, but that's ok because he ordered it online from the Gentleman's Smith and they have a policy where you can replace lost rings for half price. And now we can now we can say we even lost our rings together too. 11 and a half years together and 1 year married to the love of my life ❤️
Last week I was in Tianjin, #China as part of the @globalshaperscommunity to attend the Annual Meeting of New Champions, hosted by the @worldeconomicforum . Accelerating Asia also had the opportunity to extend the invitation and bring along a few startups from our #FoundersCommunity. A big shoutout to Jenny Pan, Founder of @flycarepod, Krish Sridhar, Founder of Know App, and Rupam Biswas, CEO sendhelper! Rupam also had the opportunity to speak on 'Rethinking Platform Dynamics', exploring how new industry players continue to be nurtured via innovation and open competition. Go team, go! 🙌🏽 #AMNC18 #startups #startuplife #womeninbusiness #womeninstartups #womenintech #accelerator #founders #acceleratingasia
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Because I’m so bad at remembering to take photos in the moment... here’s a #selfie outside the gates of where I was today 😂 Spent the day volunteering with @aidha.sg as a judge for the Aidha Business Accelerator. Heard from 7 incredible entrepreneurs who not only have full time jobs as foreign domestic workers here in Singapore, but are working hard to get their businesses up and running (and in some cases expanding!) in their home countries. I’ll be mentoring one of the ladies who is setting up an ice cream business in the #Philippines for the next year. Stay tuned for updates. I can’t wait to see her kick some major butt over the next 12 months!! 💪🏽 #girlboss #womeninbusiness #entrepreneur #philippines #singapore #hustle Shoutout to @sendgrid for your super comfy t-shirt too! Reppin hard here 😂 #sendgridlovesstartups