Speech by MOS Teo Ser Luck at the launch of the Materials Centre of Innovation (COI) at the Institute of Material Research & Engineering (IMRE)

Professor Andy Hor, Executive Director, Institute of Material Research & Engineering,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1.             Good afternoon. I am pleased to join you here today to announce the launch of the Materials Centre of Innovation.

Centres of Innovation (COIs)

2.             As Singapore’s economy undergoes economic restructuring, our SMEs need to improve productivity and move toward higher value-added activities. For our SMEs to do so, they need to innovate to produce new and improved products and services. Harnessing technology can help our SMEs to do so, and allow them to stay ahead of the global competition.

3.             Innovation is not easy, particularly for SMEs that have limited resources. To help in this, the Government provides financial support to companies for innovation activities in the form of grants or tax incentives. In addition, the Government has supported the set-up of Centres of Innovation, or COIs for short, to help SMEs with technology innovation.

4.             To-date, SPRING Singapore has supported the set-up of 6 COIs at polytechnics and A*STAR’s research institutes, each with a specific area of technological capability. These are in the areas of food manufacturing, marine and offshore, environmental and water, precision engineering, electronics and supply chain management.

5.             SMEs can tap on the COIs to develop new product concepts, build prototypes, and test-bed new applications. At the same time, the COI also benefits from engaging SMEs from the industry, gaining practical experience to strengthen its expertise and widen its knowledge repository, which it can then apply toward improving the quality of its research.

6.              The six existing COIs have undertaken more than 1,800 projects for SMEs. One example is 1RWave, which is a design and consultancy firm that develops embedded wireless modules. With the help of the Electronics COI at Nanyang Polytechnic, 1RWave was able to develop and validate a low-power active RFID tag that can last more than five years whilst powered by a coin-cell battery. It has since successfully engaged customers in the healthcare industry such as St Luke’s Eldercare and Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s Geriatric Medicine Department for the deployment of this RFID system, providing them with end-to-end systems to ease tracking of personnel and assets.

The Materials COI

7.             The Materials COI we are launching today

[1]

, at A*STAR’s Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, will be the seventh such centre, and is expected to support 450 SMEs over the next three years. SMEs can approach the Materials COI for projects involving materials design, analysis, and detection. By making advanced materials technology easily available to SMEs, the Materials COI is expected to benefit a wide variety of SMEs across different industries.

8.             As some SMEs may not be aware of how materials technology can help their businesses, the Materials COI will also actively showcase product ideas to SME through industry outreach events, such as this morning’s InnoVent

[2]

. Coolglass

[3]

is an example of an interesting idea from this morning. It is a ceramic glass coating which reflects infrared light and keeps the temperature of buildings and automobiles constant. Compared to commercially available products, Coolglass allows more natural light to pass through and will help reduce energy bills for buildings. I hope that companies will use the ideas presented this morning as starting points to work with the COI on projects for their own businesses.

SMEs can benefit from materials-based solutions 

9.             The COI has gotten off to a good start, with companies already finding it useful since it started operations in September last year. Many SMEs lack the resources to help themselves, so we need the COIs as a channel to be able to co-develop some of these products or applications.

10.         What we are trying to do in our policy direction is to cluster COI into the different needs of the sectors. There will be those SMEs which do not belong to any cluster, so we encourage them to approach any COI or SME Centre for them to be guided by the experts. I hope that COIs can perform that role, I hope that these partnerships can go on with all the different institutions and help to transform our SMEs. Our SMEs are facing a very challenging time. This is a time of tightened labour and it’s not easy. SMEs need to review their processes, restructure and thereafter, re-position. Technology is one big part in helping them to achieve that aim.

11.         In closing, I would like to encourage our SMEs to take a close look at the various solutions offered by the Materials COI and the other COIs. The technologies that they offer can give our SMEs the innovation edge they need to develop groundbreaking products and expand markets. On this note, I wish you a fruitful afternoon ahead.

[1]

The Materials COI has been operational since September 2013.

[2]

Participants in InnoVent 2014 will pitch their product ideas and prototypes bearing IMRE’s materials technologies to an audience comprising SMEs who will vote for the winning ideas.