This story was first published in Issue 029 of Enterprise SPARKS, our quarterly newsletter, here (pages 10–12).

NUS’ entrepreneurial reputation has been established by pioneering initiatives such as the NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) programme and BLOCK71. But with incubators and accelerators now ubiquitous in the landscape, Professor Freddy Boey, NUS Deputy President (Innovation & Enterprise), recognises the need to do more. “NUS has done amazing things, but looking at its next phase, we need to innovate ourselves. We need to innovate innovation.”

The strategy: focus on venture creation.

The term, coined by Professor Chee Yeow Meng, NUS Associate Vice President…

Contributed by Jermaine Ng

For many years, we have seen plots in sci-fi movies where robots learn faster and more intelligently, and henceforth eventually taking over the world. In today’s context, there are indeed many applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence to robots where we are seeing a positive transformation to our day-to-day operations and leaning towards a smart city.

In this Kopi Chat Deep Dive, we navigate deep into the potential and opportunities for the next generation of robotics technology, and how this is enabling the smart factories of tomorrow. The industry experts who formed this panel are:

• …

Contributed by Chen Yi Ting and Jermaine Ng

As part of Singapore’s shift towards a knowledge-based economy powered by intellectual capital, Smart Nation Singapore was launched in 2014 with more than a billion dollars invested by the government. This is in line with the global digital transformation in more economically developed countries like China, which has major top-down initiatives to promote new digital infrastructure across its cities.

Participants from start-ups, large corporations, institutes of higher learning and research labs attended our Kopi Chat Deep Dive session focused on uncovering Singapore’s digital ecosystem. The specially curated panel is formed by:

• Deepak…

Singrow, an agri-tech start-up, specialises in developing indoor vertical farming technologies as well as novel crops and cultivation methods to produce temperate and exotic crops within the tropical climate of South-East Asia. Their cultivation techniques are all 100% organic, pesticide-free and rely on non-GMO crops. Presently, their core products include their patented Crystal strawberries, locally grown Japanese Komatsu spinach, Dutch cherry tomatoes, and Persian saffron.

CEO and co-founder Bao Shengjie is a plant scientist by training and has spent over a decade in the field before pursuing this venture. Co-founder Xu Tao is currently pursuing his PhD and is in…

Held from 27 February to 6 March, the NUS e-Open House drew an impressive 6.8 million visitors to the event’s associated websites, livestreams, webinars and social media sessions.

NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) took the opportunity to showcase the “out-of-this-world” entrepreneurial experience it provides to students, spotlighting the more than 15 start-up hotspots around the world it is present in.

This year, NOC put together a microsite (http://bit.ly/NOC-eOH2021) to feature the start-up internship experience in the different locations, and held three Facebook Live sessions on 4 March to allow the audience to engage with those that had embarked on the programme.

Bite-sized wisdom from Kopi Chat Deep Dive: Digital Health

From shelves of consumer wearables to scores of innovative applications promoting healthy habits, digital healthcare is now increasingly accessible to the average consumer across communities around the world. The rise of predictive analytics and artificial intelligence has also significantly boosted the capabilities of on-demand healthcare. With the right data and right technology, digital health can lead the much-needed transformation in this new age of healthcare. However, are humans really ready for this change?

To answer this question, we assembled a panel of health experts to join us in discussing the social, ethical, and legal challenges that plague healthtech solutions in…

Alvin Ryanputra, a final year student from the July 2020 NOC Silicon Valley programme, participated in the K-Startup Grand Challenge (KSGC), a Korea-based accelerator programme, on behalf of Movel AI — the start-up he was working for. This happened in the middle of the pandemic, and he shares more about his unique experience on this journey.

In September 2020, I had the opportunity to travel to Korea alone to participate in an accelerator programme on behalf of Movel AI. In this article I hope to share a little more about my NOC experience thus far.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic…

Corals in 3D printing? AM.NUS — This could be a future reality

Corals and human implants — what do they have in common? While seemingly unrelated to the layman, the NUS Centre of Additive Manufacturing (AM.NUS) sees a novel way to 3D-print medical and advanced human implants using cultured corals as a base material. AM.NUS has signed an International Technology Development Agreement with Taiwan-based Popeye Marine Biotechnology Ltd. (Popeye) in December 2020 to collaborate in this area.

Why corals?

Coral is an important high-quality ceramic biomaterial used in medical applications. It possesses high biocompatibility and a natural interconnected pore structure…