After judging Echelon Satellite Event in Jakarta, I’ve got a chance to visit Echelon 2011 event in Singapore with 5 of my #StartupLokal buddies.

Startup scene is currently very vibrant in Indonesia, and of course as founder of several startups like NulisBuku.com and organizer for one of the biggest startup communities in Indonesia, #StartupLokal, I’m really excited to attend Echelon 2011.

Echelon 2011 is a 2 days startup event organized by e27 at National University of Singapore’s University Cultural Central (UCC). Aside from remarkable talkshows, pitching sessions (there are 3 Indonesian startups in the Startup Launchpad, they are Bouncity, SixReps and Price Area) and seminars, it’s the networking session that hold a very important part in the event.

Met a lot of startup geeks founders from all over the world (especially South East Asia),  my friends startup founders from Founder Institute Singapore (it’s like a reunion!) and of course bunch of new friends, founders & investors, that I learned so much from.

Kal & Rico here met me after series of twitting & mentioning back and forth during the conference, finding each other at the venue 😀 Keep in touch, guys!

At a dinner with friends, I met a very young investor that turned out to share the same passion with me in books. I felt so in-sync and feel his burning passion for building startup. He said, “My offline business is just a business, but that’s not my true passion. If someone said his passion is in oil or something, then that’s weird.”  Well… I must conclude that we, generation Z, are now in passion era where everybody is pursuing their passion.

On the other hand, at Echelon 2011 After Party, I met a very nice senior investor who has invested in a groupon clone site but his main business are all offline stuff. I remembered about what the young investor said to me, and then I asked the question to the senior investor, “I know all the mining, etc is your business, but what is your true passion?” And he said, “What do you mean? I’m an entrepreneur… all these are my passions….” Hmm… his work is already become his passion. Good for you, uncle!

About the pitching session, PlayMoolah, an online platform to educate kids about financial, WIN Echelon 2011 Startup Launchpad. Min Xuan Lee, co-founder of PlayMoolah, did a great job presenting PayMoolah in front of judges. She started with problem that her startup will solve, the solution the startup offers and most important thing: business models. How the startup will make money. All clear and to the point in her 5 minutes presentation. Great job!

To e27 team, congratulations guys, you did excellent job throwing the event. @Joonian , Kathia, and friends… thank you for having us!

After the conference, me and friends decided to spend leisure time in Singapore: watching movies -_-” (Yeah, that absurd whatever policy in our country make us can’t watch box office Hollywood movies)

And of course, can’t missed Universal Studio Singapore! Me, @nataliardianto , @nuniek , @SaGad , @bayu99 , Joshua Kevin @oleeoebi and our friend @shirleydaily really had so much fun together :))

While we were in Singapore, we got good news from friends in Indonesia. They informed that #StartupLokal made it to the first page of printed edition of Kompas, the most influential and widest spread National newspaper in Indonesia 😀 Yay!

Now, we’re back to Jakarta and ready to act on several plans of #StartupLokal. One of them, preparing for Project Eden pitching session at Biz Connect PPKI July 9th, 2011. Get ready, creative people!

Check out complete photos of Echelon 2011 on my Flickr