With Singapore in “Circuit Breaker” mode, most of us would be studying and working from home for at least a month. How can we make the best out of this period as we #stayhome and limit physical interactions with others?
I’m a tech startup enthusiast and my team of decade old friends and myself started out our company a couple years back while picking up programming, designing and other key skills by taking up courses online, watching youtube tutorials and reading up on documentations.
Maybe it’s because we started out our entrepreneurship journey as students, or the simple fact that we aren’t loaded which resulted in our mentality of spending cautiously while getting as much as possible.
So as a self declared expert of staying home, spending as little money as possible and a cheapo knowledge hoarder, I decided to share on what you can do with $0 and an additional ~60hours during the Circuit breaker!
Pick up new skills and certificates
By now I think I made it pretty clear that I’m a sucker for discounts and free stuff, #SingaporePride, here’s a list of classes and certificates that you can take for free this month!
I’ll start off with a list within a list, Business Insider came out with a really detailed and well compiled article on FREE COURSERA COURSES! There is 100 online courses from Coursera here from Health, Programming to learning new languages (Valid till May 31).
Pluralsight also started a #FREEAPRIL month that allows you to make use of their platform to get up to 7000+ expert led video courses across various skills. After going through multiple learning platforms and MOOCs, I’m going to say that Pluralsight probably have the best UIUX (my opinion) and the content is great so far, try it out!
Want to pick up programming? Then Codeacademy is the one for you! This is where our team first picked up our programming skills years back. Codeacademy is an awesome free platform to learn by doing programming exercises, you’ll go through structured learning and build stuff with whatever you learn! They are also giving 10,000 pro memberships to students during this #stayhome season so make use of it if you can!
On the note of programming, Google also partnered up with The App Brewery for a lifetime access course for “Introduction to Flutter Development Bootcamp Using Dart” (Google’s Language and Framework). The site states: “Our Flutter development course teaches you how to code using Dart and build beautiful, fast, native-quality iOS and Android apps. Even if you have ZERO programming experience”, find out more with the link above!
Another amazing one I chanced upon is Moz Academy, they are a SEO education platform and I’ll say that it’s pretty well done! (I’m currently going through it, join me!) Remember to use their promo code “WEGOTTHIS” to check out their courses for free, valid till 31 May.
And of course, the marketing platforms themselves have their own courses and certificates for digital marketing and other relevant skills that go along with it (data analytics, content strategy, etc). You can find them at Google Digital Garage , Facebook Blueprint and Hubspot Academy. These has always been around but I figured it might be a good time for people to pick them up now!
BONUS: If you’re a Singaporean Citizen thats >25 years old, there’s also online courses and alternatives on Skillsfuture that’ll be subsidised/sponsored by the government.
Help others around you
Everyone is fighting this war and we shouldn’t take what we have for granted, if you’re one of the luckier ones, do considering helping others out with some of the amazing local initiatives below.
Join “Hawkers United — Dabao 2020” facebook group to get the latest deals and discounts for buying takeaway hawker food, some of them even offer free deliveries with a minimum spending! The group is created to support the less tech savvy hawkers and will require you to make purchases via a call/Whatsapp but hey, we all know it’s worth it!
Have some spare stuff lying around that can help others in need? put them up for the less fortunate or those who need it on Carousell’s Free Items Section. Please only put things that you believe will be useful for others, don’t try to make yourself feel better by putting up things that you don’t want!
Want to check out the coolest local startups and what they have to offer? Browse and help Singapore’s local startup ecosystem with #supportstartups , a ground-up movement to support startups in this time of uncertainty. This movement is championed by The founders and team behind reputable VC firms Openspace Ventures, 500startups and Cocoon Capital.
Planning to go grab your meal/groceries? did you know that you help to run errands for people around you and get paid for helping? Just this week alone, Outside facilitated multiple deliveries and groceries purchases for individuals with Stay Home Notice (SHN) and also remotely assisted a taxi uncle with his tax filing remotely! Want to be your community’s hero and start helping? Join Outside App and start helping others today! #shamelessplug
GET MORE REST
The most important thing that you should be getting from the circuit breaker? SLEEP.
There is no shame at all in resting or enjoying the extra time with your family, it’s a crazy time we’re living in, before you look at growth, ensure that you’re getting enough rest and taking care of your own body.
Let’s all play our part, be responsible and things will be back to normal soon!
Connect with others (online)
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve actually been able to attend interesting webinars/fireside chats hosted by Golden Gates Ventures, AngelCentral, e27, NUS Entrepreneurship Society, Young Founder’s School and several others just by hopping between different urls. (yay to not needing to dress up or commute)
Thanks to the power of the internet, the panelists are now about to “Zoom” in from all around the world, making them much more accessible compared to before. I’ve gotten so much great information, advice and inspiration from these sessions, hearing from amazing founders and individuals in the ecosystem also reminded me that everyone is fighting the same war on different fronts.
I couldn’t find a centralised list of these startup events but since I found them on their own social media pages, I decided to link them above instead (I’m sure there’s many other great sessions around but it’ll be too exhausting to collate them all). Do your own search in areas you’re interested in and make sure to take this chance to hear from people who are usually hard to reach and learn as much as you can from them!
I hope this helped you think about what you can do this #CircuitBreaker, let me know how you’ll be spending your time in the comments section!
Want to connect with me? I’ve allocated parts of my days so that we can have a virtual coffee together! Book coffee time with me here!
Nicholas started his entrepreneurship journey with his decade old friends while they were in school, he is a tech startup enthusiast, ex-military dog handler, seasonal baker and the Co-Founder of Outside, a community tasking app that makes it fun and easy for users to help each other. Find out more about his team’s journey here!
Credits for photos used in article:
Skills and Certificate: Nick Morrison on Unsplash
Help others around you: Kat Yukawa on Unsplash
Get more rest: David Clode on Unsplash
Connect with others: Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash