Charity puts the bite on Singapore execs

The sharks are doing their bit for charity

SINGAPORE -- Forget shaving your head for charity, how about a quick dip in a tank full of sharks?

That's the planned fate for five carefully chosen communications executives in Singapore next month.

In a bid to raise about $400,000 (Sing. $700,000) for the annual President's Challenge charity, the executives -- one each from Accenture, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and MobileOne -- will be lowered into the shark tank at the Underwater World aquarium on Sentosa Island.

The event, organized by Accenture, will be the culmination of a fund-raising walkathon to be held on the island on August 31, according to Singapore's Straits Times newspaper.

The shark tank contains several specials of sharks, as well as other potentially dangerous sea creatures such as stingrays.

The sharks on Sentosa are no strangers to having strangers in their watery world, however.

Earlier this year a Singapore couple took their wedding vows in the shark tank in a bid to raise public awareness of the extinction threat to many shark species through over-fishing.

''We can't wait to get into the pool, to see if the sharks eat us, or otherwise," Microsoft managing director Natasha Kwan is quoted saying.

There was no recorded comment from the sharks.