Mr Teo Ser Luck, Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Chairman, Action Community for Entrepreneurship, at the Innovfest 2012 on 19 April 2012

Opening Address by Mr Teo Ser Luck, Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Chairman, Action Community for Entrepreneurship, at the Innovfest 2012 on 19 April 2012, 9.15am at the Ochard Hotel

Dr. Lily Chan, CEO of NUS Enterprise,

Dr. Todd Sherer, President of AUTM,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

It gives me great pleasure to be here at Innovfest 2012 and the AUTM

[1]

Asia and Technology Commercialisation Forum.

In

novation and technology commercialisation

As global and regional economic competition intensifies, innovation is our differentiating factor. Innovation is integral to Singapore’s growth.  It has fuelled our economy, created good jobs and is one of the key ingredients to our success story.  Over the past decade, global patent and trade mark filings have increased by over 40 per cent, and this shows the importance of technological innovation to any business.  Given the current global economic conditions that we are facing, the need for innovation and technology commercialisation has never been greater.

Increasing efforts to bring more ideas from basic research to commercialisation is one of the key thrusts under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2015 (RIE2015) plan. To support R&D commercialisation, the Government has set aside S$1billion that will go towards activities such as managing the intellectual property (IP) portfolio, marketing and licensing the IP, translating the IP into marketable solutions, and incubating R&D-intensive enterprises.  

However, despite our government’s efforts to support R&D commercialisation, some companies that want to adopt technology may be unsure how they can do so. They may face challenges in sourcing for and incorporating suitable technologies for their businesses. More can be done to equip our companies with the know-how to innovate and improve.

Also, there is a need for better flow of R&D output to the marketplace. Our investment in R&D has translated into many good technologies that can be better utilised. For more effective technology transfer, we need to strengthen the link between our research institutes and industry. Our research institutions need to continue developing technologies that are of value to the industry, and improve companies’ accessibility to these technologies.

iTwin Pte. Ltd. is an example of such a company with a strong link to a research institute. The company, a spinoff from A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research, has developed iTwin – an award-winning product that provides remote data access by safely connecting any two online computers anywhere in the world. iTwin was launched globally in Jan 2011 and has since then, garnered several international awards for its technological and design innovations.[2]

ACE Tech-Connect Task Force

The Action Community for Entrepreneurship, which I chair, works closely with the private sector to help aspiring entrepreneurs and start-ups. The ACE Start-ups Scheme, which provides a grant of up to $50,000 for first-time entrepreneurs with innovative business ideas, has received some 190 applications since its launch earlier this year. Of these 190 applications, more than one-fifth are technology-based companies.

It is important that our entrepreneurs continue to leverage on technology and innovation to remain competitive in the marketplace. In their start-up journey, they are likely to encounter challenges related to IP and technology transfer. For instance, the tech start-ups will need to learn how to protect their IP so that they can maintain their competitive edge.

In order to help start-ups overcome these challenges, the ACE Tech-Connect Taskforce will be established to support IP commercialisation through strengthening the link and connect between IP and investors starting up companies. The taskforce will be helmed by Dr Steven Fang, Deputy Chairman of ACE and Founder and Group CEO, CordLife Limited, and Mr Philip Lim, CEO of Exploit Technologies.

With support from ACE and the ACE Tech-Connect Taskforce, we hope to encourage more start-ups and companies to leverage technology. For companies that may not have the capability or capacity to undertake research or develop technology that is required for their businesses, we hope to improve their access to relevant technology, so that they too can continue to grow and compete in the marketplace.

Conclusion

Our businesses must continue to innovate in order to remain competitive.

Moving forward, the Government will work with our partners to strengthen our efforts in supporting the drive for technology commercialisation, so that our businesses can better harness technologies and IP to become global players in their field.

I wish you all a fruitful learning journey today.

Thank you.

[1] Association of University Technology Managers

[2] Some of the awards include: Red Dot Product Design Award 2011, Popular Science ‘Best of What’s New’ 2011 Award, CES 2012 Innovations Award and Frost & Sullivan's New Product Innovation Award 2010. It has also been selected for the prestigious TechCrunch50 Event.