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In late 2009, I was invited to speak at Singapore’s Innovation and Enterprise Week 2009, an event held at Biopolis and sponsored by A*STAR, the world-class research organization of the Singaporean government, in collaboration with Exploit Technologies, the tech transfer arm of A*STAR. While I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss our book, the important thing to me was the opportunity to learn more about that amazing country and their bold approach to promoting innovation and technology. In my presentation for the large crowd at Innovation and Enterprise Week, I discussed the fascinating parallels between the Singapore experiment and the evolving experiment in innovation in my state of Wisconsin, where the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery represent a brilliant approach to combining the best of public and private innovation.
Below are three video segments from my presentation. A couple of friends in Singapore took the video. There are a few gaps in sound and so forth, but I hope you can understand it. Don’t miss my lame magic trick in segment 3. They seemed to like it–proof again of the great courtesy that one finds in Singapore. In all seriousness, I think there are important lessons about innovation that can be gleaned by inspecting both the Singaporean system and the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, which include the Morgridge Institute for private sector research and the public Wisconsin Institute for Discovery. Madison and Singapore are on opposite sides of the world, but on the same side of the innovation spectrum, at the leading edge.
Update: On April 24, I posted a newly recorded and shortened Pixetell presentation covering the basic information I shared in Singapore, without the magic or other excursions.
I am deeply grateful to the many people who kindly shared their time to help me prepare for the presentation, including Sangtae Kim, John Wiley, Charles Hoslett, Carl Gulbrandsen and Janet Kelly from the Wisconsin side (Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery and WARF), plus Boon Swan Foo, Seito Wei Peng, and Sze Tiam Lin at Exploit Technologies in Singapore.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Global Entrepreneurship Week Starts Today
Posted by: | CommentsGlobal Entrepreneurship Week starts today. This event was started by the Kauffman Foundation, leading champions of entrepreneurship and education, and Make Your Mark, a British group reaching out to young people to inspire innovation. The goal of this global initiative to inspire young people to embrace innovation, imagination and creativity. They want millions to join a growing movement of entrepreneurial people, to generate new ideas and to seek better ways of doing things. Events are taking place around the world this week.
During my recent visits to Singapore and Mexico, I’ve been inspired by the culture of innovation that I’ve encountered. Singapore excels in advanced technology and a powerful approaches to advancing and funding R&D that will create leadership in targeted areas such as biotech and data mining. Mexico has an amazing university system with some wonderful centers for R&D, but what impressed me most is the culture of innovation at the personal level, where individuals are ready to go the extra mile to create success and find better ways of doing things. If this mindset can be fortified and amplified with governmental support and vision, Mexico could become a real leader in global innovation. Innovation can come from anywhere across the globe, but each nation has its own limitations and challenges in terms of regulations, taxation, educational support, infrastructure, capital, markets, and talent. Each nation should have a high-level commission exploring the challenges of innovation at the personal level (one of the key issues we explore in Conquering Innovation Fatigue) to ensure that the voice of the innovator is heard and unintended consequences of government policy are not choking innovation success.
Almost like something out of a Utopian science fiction novel, two neighboring research communities, Fusionopolis and Biopolis, stand as R&D beacons to scientists and companies across the globe, rising from the small island nation of Singapore and its remarkable research park, One North. Fusionopolis and Biopolis are visible fruits of a dramatic new focus on innovation in Singapore. Not just innovation in biomedical fields, the specialty of Biopolis, or innovation in advanced science and engineering at Fusionopolis, but innovation in innovation itself. The leaders of Singapore, recognizing that innovation is the key to the future of this small nation with so few natural resources, are developing new ways to innovate, to collaborate, and to stimulate commercialization. As they find new ways to collaborate with companies and researchers around the world, they are striving for the upper end of the Ascent of Collaboration scale, guided by the nation’s most prominent scientific ministry devoted to innovation, the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, or A*STAR.
Singapore, whose name comes from the Malay word for “Lion City,” has been a riddle to the West for years. The 5th wealthiest country in the world based on GDP per capita, it is also one of the smallest (250 square miles) and one of only four remaining city-states in the world. It is truly a melting pot, a nation of multiple ethnicities and religions among its 5 million people, with four national languages: English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. How can such a small island city with few natural resources have become so prosperous? How can a community with so much diversity seem to have so much unity? How can a country known for order and discipline be a hotbed of creativity and innovation?
Boon Swan Foo and A*STAR
Boon Swan Foo, Executive Chairman at Exploit Technologies
Singapore’s booming emphasis on science, technology, and innovation were on my mind when I contacted Boon Swan Foo, Executive Chairman of Exploit Technologies, the strategic marketing and commercialization arm of A*STAR. A*STAR’s mission is to foster world-class scientific research and to develop human capital for a knowledge based Singapore. It funds billions of dollars of research, drives collaboration between global companies and Singapore, and works to commercialize the fruits of its R&D work.
A*STAR comprises the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC), the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL), the A*STAR Graduate Academy (A*GA) and the Corporate Planning and Administration Division (CPAD).
Boon oversees the commercialization and spin-off activities for A*STAR’s intellectual property and technologies. Under his leadership, A*STAR has accumulated a portfolio of close to 3,000 active patents, granted more than 250 licenses for its technologies, and created a portfolio of two dozen spin-off companies. Estimated business revenue to be generated by licensees from sales of products and provision of services using or incorporating A*STAR’s technologies is projected to be over S$500M.
Insights from the Interview
Boon Swan Foo proudly explained that his nation is pursuing and promoting innovation in numerous ways, not just by funding world-class R&D centers. Singapore is innovating in its educational systems, in its airlines and airport system, in its management of ports, in its roads and traffic management, and so forth.
“Our civil servants are very enterprising,” Boon explained. “One does not have to be an entrepreneur to be an innovator. They are intrapreneurs rather than entrepreneurs.”
The economy of Singapore is often described as an entrepot economy, in which imports are purchase and given added value which are then exported. Singapore imports numerous raw materials that are then converted to pharmaceuticals, chemicals, computer chips, electronics, and other goods for export. The Port of Singapore is the world’s busiest. Further, it has an exceptionally well educated work force as a result of the nation’s education policy, which helps achieve success in their business operations and in innovation.
Now R&D is becoming an increasingly important part of Singapore. Over 3% of their $200 billion GDP is spend on R&D. They know innovation is the key for a bright future. The goal is to develop pools of ideas in targeted fields and also to develop deep pools of local talent. Read More→