Sandbox

A taste of Beirut and Manila

August 31st, 2009 by Andreas Brenner

Tonight I had the chance to bring together the local Sandbox Community for the first time in my function as the Singapore Ambassador. I was very much looking forward to catching up with some of the Sandboxers that I had previously met somewhere else around the globe or that I had been in digital contact with. While talking to a friend about potential venues for the dinner, we happened to come across an inviting Lebanese restaurant by the name of Beirut near Arab street. After the people treated us more than nicely and the waitress offered to prepare her home made Halo Halo for us, I felt this was the right place in an inspiring environment with the right attitude of the staff for a Sandbox dinner.

Since many of the existing community members are currently working or traveling abroad, the circle of 10 participants was mainly made of new potential Sandboxers and their guests. We had talents from India, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Serbia and Singapore around the table. The topics discussed included the Singaporean entrepreneurship ecosystem, dating in Dubai, the quality of Russian and Eastern European Airlines as well as travel experiences from South America and South-East Asia. We also discussed issues in cross-cultural team work, from two perspectives: from Europeans moving to Singapore and Singaporeans moving to America and Sweden. The diverse choice of topics was driven by the diverse backgrounds of the people, where we had an airline consulting entrepreneur, a venture capitalist and blogger, an actress, model and business student, an around the world traveller and economics student, an engineering student and other inspiring talents. Shashank summarized it nicely, when he said that the Sandbox dinners he attended in Singapore and New York were usually the places where he would have the most diverse and interesting crowd possible at one table.

Personally I feel that I learned a lot about the dynamics of Sandbox events and I’m glad I had the chance to meet the people at this dinner. I’m very much looking forward to hosting future events and to do my best to create a strong community with meaningful relationships. I really enjoy being part of this wonderful initiative.

Andreas is currently a student in the Master of Technopreneurship and Innovation program at Nanyang Technological University. He joined Sandbox through our Zurich hub and recently agreed develop our community as Singapore Ambassador. He fell in love with the dessert Halo Halo when he first visited the Philipines and ever since can’t resist going back to spoil his senses. You can find him on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.