ON the 28th floor of the impressive HSBC tower on Queen?s Road in Central, Hong Kong, six teams of students dressed in their best business attire shook off their nerves and prepared to outpresent each other in the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Awards (HYEA).

The teams were from Malaysia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Brunei, Philippines and Thailand. All were champions from their respective national competitions. The silver and bronze teams from each country were there to give support and to partake in the week-long activity which was geared towards opening young minds to the world of business and entrepreneurship.

?First launched in Hong Kong in 2000, the HSBC Young Entrepreneur Award is an annual business plan writing competition which challenges young people to work together to create innovative and commercially viable business ideas.? According to the event?s program, ?it is designed to cultivate young people?s interest in entrepreneurship and enhance their business acumen.?

Based on the roster of judges, this was no small-fry competition. It included high-level executives of HSBC and DHL co-founder Po Chung. The head judge was HSBC CEO Sandy Flockhart.

The students had to impress these judges with a 10-minute presentation and answer all their questions to be considered the ?Best of the Best.?

Strong and confident

Team Malaysia was up first, coming on strong and confident. Their idea was a patented biodegradable oil control film, much like the facial oil-blotting blue paper we always see in the trash cans of restrooms in clubs and malls.

The Bangladesh team?three young men in smart suits?was a nervous wreck. Their voices cracked and their hands showed their fear. Their product was aimed to help solve the water crisis in Bangladesh, but the moment the Q&A began, their business model began to fall apart.

The Hong Kong team came on much stronger than Malaysia. Two young men and a lady in color-coordinated gray and black suits came in. Their presentation was like a dance. One would speak, another would pick up and then they?d finish together. They walked across the stage and proved to have humor and were very much engaging. They were, apparently, the team to beat.

But, as usual, the Q&A made them break down. They rehearsed so well that when something came up that wasn?t in the script, they forgot their stride. They took too long to answer questions and they basically repeated their presentation without really answering them.

The Brunei team was the most fun to watch because one of the members seemed more like an announcer from the Home TV Shopping network. He was full of guarantees. He was a ham and he was good at it. He made the audience laugh and he got people?s attention.

Unfortunately, their product was not well thought of and their business model wasn?t ironed out to perfection. One judge commented, ?You have lots of imagination but I don?t think you can make this real.?

Team Philippines was next, composed of Ateneans Karl Santinitigan and Timothy Huelva. Dressed in snappy barong tagalog (nice touch!), they came on strong and impressive. Their presentation was very logical and feasible, so much so that the judges were hard-pressed to find questions for the team. Judge Po Chung instead asked, ?So, when can I invest??

Next, Team Thailand had an interesting gimmick, but they didn?t see it to the end. Their presentation began as a news report, but halfway through, the business model was unveiled. The Q&A showed they were too conservative and tprofits would not make the whole process worthwhile to future investors.

The decisive Q&A for the Philippine team clinched the deal. The Ateneo tandem was named ?Best of the Best? and won a prize of HK$ 100,000.

Flockhart said afterwards that the Philippines won because ?it was a combination of a lot of things?one is practicality, two is that it was environment-friendly, and three, they actually had a working model. They had the product with them.?

For his part, Huelva said, ?When Po Chung asked when he could invest, that was when we knew we got it.?

Mock presentations

In preparation for this competition, Huelva and Santinitigan went through many mock presentations in front of their dean, Rudy Ang (who went all the way to Hong Kong to cheer for his team), and a group of professors and a team from HSBC Philippines to make sure their presentation was as perfect as possible.

More than just a competition, the HYEA was also a study tour. The week-long activity included company visits where the students (winning teams and second and third placers as well) toured various businesses and met with company executives. These gave them a valuable peek into the world of big business.

The students also visited Ocean Park and discovered how it continues to thrive despite the presence of Hong Kong Disneyland. They visited Cathay Pacific and met its CEO?s assistant Ari Boyd. They got a first-hand look at the reality of the airline business and found out how it is coping with the financial crisis and recurring oil shocks. There were leadership workshops and lectures from esteemed businessmen on how to be good entrepreneurs. Po Chung himself gave a talk on his life as an entrepreneur.

At the end of the study tour, the 40-plus students from six nations across Asia had become friends. They had all added each other on Facebook and had started their own group page to easily catch up with each other. They had night-outs at Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong?s nightlife district and bonded with each other.

They will no doubt treasure this experience not many students get to have.