TechInnovation advances innovation ecosystem in Singapore

Source: IPI. Dr Koh tries out the Triumfland mobile game for chronically ill children. The health-oriented game from Triumf helps foster behavioural change that, in turn, has potential to improve the player’s health.

The 7th edition of Singapore's annual technology-industry matching event, TechInnovation, has kicked off with several announcements contributing to a vibrant innovation ecosystem in Singapore.

Held on 18 and 19 September at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre, TechInnovation is organised by Intellectual Property Intermediary (IPI) and fosters open innovation collaboration opportunities between technology seekers and providers. Eighty-eight thought leaders in business, technology and research, as well as 165 exhibitors from 28 countries will present insights on emerging innovation trends and promising technologies with industry impact across a wide range of sectors.

Over 4,000 delegates from more than 50 countries are expected to attend the two-day conference and exhibition. Over half of the exhibitors are first-time participants, including innovators from Brunei, and Vietnam.

Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Dr Koh Poh Koon, officiated the opening of TechInnovation 2018. Dr Koh noted that when the inaugural TechInnovation was launched in 2012, it was the first of its kind in Singapore, with 24 exhibitors and 500 delegates.

"Over the next two days, we will welcome over 160 exhibitors and 4,000 participants comprising small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), large corporations, research institutes, and technology centres coming together with the common objective of partnering to achieve business growth through innovation and technology adoption," he said.

"To thrive in an uncertain future, our enterprises must continue to build capabilities and stay relevant to customer needs. Technology and innovation will be key in enabling our companies to improve productivity and grow their revenue, through developing new products and services that offer a differentiated value proposition and give us an advantage over our competitors."

In his opening speech, he emphasised that innovation is key to help SMEs build differentiating capabilities, scale up and compete in a challenging environment and that the Singapore government is committed to supporting businesses in their innovation journeys.

"SMEs are an important part of our economy, accounting for 65% of our workforce, and nearly half of our GDP. They are crucial to Singapore’s economic resilience and vitality. The government is proactively supporting SMEs by providing resources and platforms that can help SMEs realise their business goals," Dr Koh said.

He also acknowledged that IPI plays an important role as an intermediary and connector, to help Singapore SMEs identify, assess and source for technologies and knowhow to meet their needs.

"Since its inception in 2011, IPI has engaged over 1,200 companies through various platforms, and has facilitated over 570 technology transfer and R&D projects between technology providers and seekers," he said.

One of the memoranda of understanding (MoUs) signed at the opening of the event involved IPI and Innovate UK, to promote UK-Singapore technology transfer and research and development (R&D) collaboration through the exchange of technology profiles as well as participation and support in mutual events. Innovate UK is a part of UK Research and Innovation, an organisation that champions research and innovation in the UK.

“Helping innovative companies collaborate so that they can grow and scale globally is best done by working with trusted partners. Innovate UK is very pleased to be signing an MoU with IPI and to build further on the great relationship that already exists between the two organisations,” said David Golding, Deputy Chair EUREKA, Innovate UK.

Source: IPI. IPI signs MOU with Innovate UK to promote UK-Singapore technology transfer and R&D collaboration. From left, front row: Professor Lam and David Golding, Deputy Chair, EUREKA Innovate UK. From left, back row: Alexandra McKenzie, Deputy British High Commissioner; Dr Koh; Peter Ong, Chairman, Enterprise Singapore and Ted Tan, Chairman, IPI.

“The MoU signings at TechInnovation underscore IPI’s commitment to drive business growth through technology partnerships and open innovation. We are excited to bring likeminded partners with our international network of technology partners to co-create innovative solutions that in turn tackle pressing needs of today’s society,” said Professor Lam Khin Yong, Executive Director, IPI.

TechInnovation’s exhibition floor showcases 400 enabling technologies. Complementing the thematic conference tracks are technology pavilions with exhibitors presenting their technologies in food innovation, urban agritech and logistics innovation. The latter two tracks debuted at the event in 2018.

Innovation highlights include EON Reality’s augmented reality platform, which provides field operators with a safer and faster way to communicate information in real-time at the Logistics Innovation pavilion.

At the showcase from budding startups and universities from the ASEAN innovation community the Electronic Nose Company, a startup from Mahidol University, Thailand demonstrated technology for monitoring and analysing smells for applications in the food and beverage, cosmetics and healthcare industries.

From Europe, first-time exhibitor Innovate UK Hub features 15 companies that have been shortlisted from Innovate UK’s Global Accelerator Programme. They include artificial intelligence company Intellegens and Medibiosense, a provider of digital solutions for healthcare.

Innovations from Slovak companies supported by the Slovak Business Agency include the smallest contactless sensors in the world by RV Magnetics and a flexible graphene temperature sensor by Danubia Energy.

Startups and SMEs will be able to engage technical experts from different industry sectors to help them innovate through a new TechExpert platform from IPI.

The TechExpert platform complements IPI’s online technology marketplace which matches technology seekers and providers for enabling technologies. Through TechExpert, enterprises will be able to crowdsource and search for the right technical experts beyond their own network to solve their technical challenges or to seek expert opinion on various topics. These may include seeking advice on technical and commercial potential of new technologies and requesting experts to help the SMEs and startups strengthen their in-house capabilities.

Technical experts on the platform are curated by IPI and support sectors such as chemicals, electronics, energy, healthcare, infocomm, manufacturing and materials among others. Similarly, the experts will be able to search for new collaboration opportunities with the industry and promote their expertise, increasing their visibility beyond their own personal network.

IPI is collaborating with the Institution of Engineers, Singapore to bring on board technical experts and with JTC to engage the startup community at the JTC Launchpad. Enterprises will be able to tap on the expertise of industry experts to support product design, prototyping, hardware development and testin while startups can make use of the platform to identify the relevant expertise for their innovation projects.

Besides supporting SMEs in their innovation journey, Dr Koh shared that IPI also works closely with lead agencies to drive adherence to Singapore's Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs). For instance, IPI is supporting the ITMs’ efforts through thematic tracks at TechInnovation.

TechInnovation is a partner event of the Singapore Week of Innovation & TeCHnology (SWITCH) 2018.

Details:

The TechExpert platform is currently in beta. Interested technical experts and companies seeking technical expertise can register for the service.