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| Source: Techventure website. |
Technopreneurs and investors from across the globe are gathering in Singapore for the Techventure 2015 conference and exhibition, organised by Singapore's National Research Foundation, to be held 21 and 22 September at Marina Bay Sands.
The conference on 21 September features panel sessions on investment, technology development and sharing of experiences from successful Singaporean startups. The day will end with top startups in the world pitching against one another at the Techventure International Startup Challenge.
The line-up of speakers and panelists includes Chris Wade, Venture Partner, Octopus Ventures; Foo Jixun, Managing Partner, GGV Capital; and CEO and co-founder of Start Mesh Richard Webb.
The Opening Panel will discuss global trends in technopreneurship, what investors are looking for, and how incubators and accelerators can help startups pivot and grow. Tim Lafferty, Chief Operating Officer, Global Corporate Venturing at Mawsonia will moderate four panelists, including Wade, Foo, Webb and Paolo Borella, Founder, Vertical, the Health, Wellbeing & Wearables Accelerator
The Technology Panel: Tech Up! From Start Up to Scale Up, will discuss how startups can grow their businesses. Cédric Giorgi, Head of Startup & Developer Relations, SIGFOX - a company building a low-power for the Internet of Things - will moderate a panel that includes Duncan Irschick, Professor of Biology, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Timothy Chen, Vice-President, Business Development and Strategy, VIA Technologies, Ho Chaw Sing, Technology Operations Executive, Hewlett-Packard, and Andrew Hessel, Distinguished Research Scientist, Bio/Nano Research Group, Autodesk.
“It is important to start a company in the right way, and with the right people, which is not an easy thing to do. From what I have seen, many startups fail because they were started in the wrong way. Startups need patience. Technology development takes time. Try to find partners, whether they be investors or entrepreneurs who share this mindset, and won't bail out after only a year,” said Irschick.
“The startup environment is growing rapidly in Asia, and that’s why I'm excited to come to Techventure to learn more about exciting ideas and innovations in Singapore and beyond. I live near Boston, which is a hotspot for startups because it has a confluence of entrepreneurs, investors, scientists and universities. Having all of these elements working together is essential, and if you are missing one, it can be crippling to innovators who need both entrepreneurs and investors to gain traction.”
Several success stories from the Singapore tech startup scene, including Nick Nash, Group President from Internet platform firm Garena Online, Lu Yoh-Chie, founder and Executive Chairman from medical device specialist Biosensors International Group, and Klaudyne Hong, CEO, Peach IntelliHealth - artificial intelligence and machine learning for healthcare - will share their experiences in the afternoon’s SG Tech Can Lah! panel.
One of the highlights for the day will be the Techventure International Startup Challenge. Over 50 submissions were whittled down to 14 startups at the inaugural Singapore Startup Challenge*, jointly organised by the National Research Foundation Singapore and the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE). Innovfusion, a medical device company, walked away with the top prize of S$30,000.
A further eight companies were chosen from the Singapore challenge to be mentored by ACE before pitching sessions at the Techventure International Startup Challenge: EdgeBotix (robots for education), Fosera Lighting (devices that rely on solar energy), Igloohome (smart home technologies), Innovfusion, Intraix (home energy management), Nodis (nanotechnology), Sypher Labs (logistics operations) and Tip Biosystems (handheld photometric devices).
"We are pleased to see great diversity in this year’s Startup Challenge submissions. We found them to be well considered; they tackled global issues and addressed huge market needs with innovative solutions. Singapore is in a unique position to take advantage of what Asia and global startups can offer,” said Shirley Wong, Managing Partner, TNF Ventures and a judge of the Singapore Startup Challenge.
Seven winning Singapore startups from the Singapore Startup Challenge will join other winning global startups to vie for a host of rewards in the Techventure International Startup Challenge, including the top prize of S$50,000 cash.
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*The Singapore Startup Challenge is a platform for young startups to pitch against one another and present their go-to-market strategies, value propositions, and business models to a multi-disciplinary judging panel. This competition is open to startups from different areas of technology, such as biotech/medtech, cleantech/energy, general engineering, information communication technology/ interactive digital media, materials, etc.
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