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Mr Aaron Tan
Aaron’s passion in IT started long way back.
At a young age of 13, Aaron Tan had already started immersing himself in the different programming languages for web application development. His only aid was computer books from the nearby community library and a computer.
His hobby soon developed into an online business. He started eShock Web Solutions to sell his web design and development services online. Over the next few years Aaron developed countless web sites with over 90% of his customers from the United States.
By the time Aaron reached 16, he began diversifying his business focus from design and development to hosting and advertising. His aim was to provide a one-stop solution to any business that wants to make its presence felt on the web.
A couple of years later, with a US$100 investment, his web hosting business became formalized as Onehost Web Hosting which he managed from home with servers hosted in the U.S. He developed a full suite of customer-relationship solutions from front-end marketing, account registration to account creation. He ensured he handled the technical support issues with the customers via email. Though faced with intense competition, Onehost generated a recurring net gross of more than US$40,000. He managed his sound business planning, wide business network and also his willingness to learn and fine-tune along the way.
During his 3 years of enriching IT education in the School of InfoComm Technology of Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Aaron won numerous book prizes for being the top student in various IT modules. He was in the Director’s List of students, receiving the Diploma in Information Technology with Merit and the Gold Award in Core Curricular Activities.
Aaron represented Ngee Ann Polytechnic in the World Skills Singapore (WSS) 2004 in the Web Design Category. He emerged as the National Champion and was awarded the Gold Medal. Having won the World Skills Singapore Competition, he was selected to represent Singapore in the coming 38th World Skills Competition held in Helsinki, Finland. He received intensive training from the lecturers of the School of InfoComm Technology of the polytechnic to further polish his skills to compete at the international arena.
Aaron’s strong belief about being an outstanding person in society, one must not only achieve academic excellence, he must also excel in other activities and have a community spirit. “Doing what one does best in is not an unusual feat. It is bringing out the best in what one does worst that is worth admiration for.”
With no background in sporting activities, Aaron joined the Ngee Ann Athletics Club and represented the polytechnic in several national sport meets. He was subsequently made President of the club and soon started promoting the usage of IT for various activities within the club.
He also represented his polytechnic, as a student leader in various events and functions, most notably, the International Youth Symposium. A person who believes in contributing to the society at all times, he had also volunteered to be a student-coach to conduct a Course on Web Designing for a group of hearing impaired students.
As always, Aaron is prepared to try new and innovative ways of managing his business, to further enhance its efficiency. Facing various setbacks while managing Onehost, he decided to create a totally new web hosting business, 27Host. This business boasts a better backend program that he developed. It attempts to solve shortcomings of the existing web hosting business. He hopes to enhance efficiency by empowering more business automation, thus freeing up more value-add for the human.
He had explored an intelligent helpdesk support system to assist technical support staffs, known as IntelliHelpdesk System.
Over the seven years as an technopreneur, besides managing the business, he had to play the role of a web designer cum programmer, and work with teams of programmers on various tendered projects. These programmers, whom he had hired, were on a part-time project-based contract, and were mainly from India, United States, Russia and Ukraine. He had to coordinate various tasks between programmers of differing time zones, and ensure that the projects were on schedule while juggling with school projects and sports commitment.
In summary, Aaron is not only technology savvy, he is also a young leader who loves to inspire, an athletic who believes nothing is insurmountable, an artist who paints his artworks using computer, a volunteer who contributes to the society, a businessman who constantly thinks, an innovator who continues to improve and a youth who dares to dream. He has the same belief as Ngee Ann’s School of InfoComm Technology where he comes from – “Make a Difference”.
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