Founders of Singapore start-up PlayMoolah win prestigious APEC Young Women Innovators Award

Singaporean duo Audrey Tan and Min Xuan Lee, founders of startup PlayMoolah, were honoured as Young Women Innovators at the 2013 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Women and the Economy Forum(WEF) held on 6-8 September 2013 inBali, Indonesia.

The Young Women Innovators Honour is given to entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 40, who are successful in the field of ICT or whose ICT innovation has allowed other women to participate more broadly in the economy. In this instance, Playmoolah innovated the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) field – a field traditionally male dominated.

The founders of Playmoolah, a start-up company which leverages technology to design new and entertaining ways to learn about money and making smart decisions, were nominated by Singapore’s Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), having won “Top Startup” title at the Innotribe Challenge showcase in Singapore last year, and subsequently becoming the overall winner of Innotribe Startup Challenge 2012 at Sibos in Japan.

Co-founder Min Xuan Lee on why Playmoolah was started:

• “PlayMoolah was started in response to the global financial crisis a few years back. We noticed that in spite of the financial turmoil surrounding us, most people were still unaware of the personal finance issues affecting them. We soon realised that these problems originated from families that were struggling to develop this core life skill. That’s when we started Playmoolah to address this critical need.”

Added Audrey Tan, CEO and Co-founder:

• “PlayMoolah will always strive to empower young people and children to understand money in different perspectives. That’s when we started thinking of ways to make financial literacy fun, which naturally pushed us toconstantly come up with creative ways to package the material in an engaging way.” 

Their accolades have not gone unnoticed. Elim Chew, a well-known entrepreneur and community leader in Singapore, commented:

• “It’s a joy to see the next generation of young entrepreneurs adding tangible value to our society and at the same time being recognised far beyond our shores.”