Heng Swee Keat, Minister for Finance and Deputy Chairman of the National Research Foundation, made the announcements at the opening of SWITCH

The Singapore government has announced new plans to drive the commercialisation of deep tech projects developed by startups and research agencies, as well as help polytechnic students and alumni grow their business ventures.

Heng Swee Keat, Minister of Finance and Deputy Chairman of the National Research Foundation (NRF), unveiled the slew of initiatives at this year’s SWITCH (Singapore Week of Innovation & TeCHnology), a government-backed tech innovation conference, during his opening address.

“Innovation is unpredictable — you can never predict exactly when or where the ‘Eureka’ moment will strike…there are some critical ingredients, and when they come together, innovation and value arise,” he quipped.

To that end, he emphasised that there are three ingredients required to foster a healthy innovation ecosystem. They are: smart capital, technology transfer, and technopreneurial talent. He then elaborated on the new schemes, which are stated below.

National IP Protocol

Heng said that the government will launch an enhanced IP framework, called the National IP Protocol. This framework will help public R&D agencies grant exclusive and non-exclusive licenses, as well as IP, to startup and enterprises to help them commercialise their products.

The government will also continue to nurture IP talent to help publicly-funded innovations go to market.

“These efforts will enhance the innovative capacity of our companies, and create more opportunities for public-private partnerships, including research spin-outs, joint labs with industry and industry-academic consortia,” said Heng.

Smart Capital

Heng said that research-heavy tech projects have long developmental cycles; so in order for them to commercialise successfully, they require the backing of smart capital — this is especially important for very early-stage deep tech startups.

The NRF and Temasek will thus be working on new commercial entities to build and invest in deep tech startups that have conducted their R&D in Singapore. The startups will be able to benefit from not only funding, but also the entities’ deep networks and expertise.

“This will complement other government support schemes for startups by connecting technical and academic innovators to smart capital,” said Heng.

Tertiary institution initiatives

Universities and polytechnics are ideal breeding grounds for fresh ideas and entrepreneurial talent.

To further cultivate this environment, the government will launch the National Lean LaunchPad Singapore, a scaled-up version of the Lean LaunchPad Programme, which debuted in 2013.

The 10-week programme was first piloted at the NUS Enterprise and was supported by a three-year grant from the Ministry of Education (MOE). Since then, the programme has helped developed over 100 early-stage technologies, over the course of eight cycles.

The new scaled-up version was launched in August this year, helping research scientists and engineers were able to acquire go-to-market strategies, such as customer discovery and market validation, by engaging with real world customers.

It will also provide S$8 million (US$6 million) of funding over five years. This programme will be led by the NUS Enterprise, which will then establish satellite nodes in other Singapore universities, including Nanyang Technological University (NTU)l, Singapore Management University (SMU) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

Other partner tertiary institutions, such as the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and other polytechnics, will also benefit from the funding.

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The goal of this programme is to develop over 300 commercially-viable technologies within five years, as well as build up a pool of over 1,000 tech talent, who would also go on to become mentors to the next generation of entrepreneurs in the future.

One beneficiary of the original pilot programme was Cardiogenomics, which developed a cardiac risk assessment algorithm to predict coronary artery disease risk. The team tested their product with patients, doctors and hospitals to help test their business assumptions and helped refine their service. Currently, its risk-assessment tool has been deployed at several specialist clinics in Singapore.

Polytechnics will additionally benefit from a new incubator programme called Pollinate, a joint venture between Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic.

This incubator will offer services and tools help current students and alumni of these polytechnics build and grow their startups, and develop market-ready solutions.

Some of these services include shared service pods which offer data analytics and digital marketing solutions; international industry networks to help startup expand overseas; and a university alliance programme that will connect startups to universities to leverage on their programmes.

The deep tech landscape in Singapore

Since the establishment of SGInnovate, a deep-tech focused collaboration centre, last year, the Singapore been stepping up its drive to cultivate a healthy deep-tech ecosystem in the Singapore.

Over the course the year, complementary programmes, such as Entrepreneur First (EF), in Singapore, have been established to support this drive And these programmes have already borne fruit. Heng said that EF Singapore’s 11 teams have already applied for six patents and attracted interest from over 60 investors, just six months after the programme’s launch.

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The NRF has also awarded grants to 9 public-private cybersecurity research projects, which are working with cutting-edge applications such as blockchain and other privacy-preserving technology. Major industry players such as Kaspersky and Attila Cybertech are helping to support these projects.

With the new initiatives on the horizon, Singapore’s deep-tech ecosystem looks set on a healthy growth trajectory.

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