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Singapore expands its Global Innovation Alliance to Beijing to help Singapore tech companies access opportunities in China

Singapore expands its Global Innovation Alliance to Beijing to help Singapore tech companies access opportunities in China

Above image: IESingapore – CapitaLand Tech & Innovation Summit in Beijing/ Credit: Capitaland (from CapitaLand’s Twitter page)

Singapore’s Minister for Finance, Mr. Heng Swee Keat (third from left), officially launched the Global Innovation Alliance (GIA) (Beijing) in Beijing, China today, at the International Enterprise (IE) Singapore – CapitaLand Tech & Innovation Summit 2017.

The GIA was a key recommendation in the Committee on the Future Economy (CFE) 2016 report. It aims to strengthen linkages and partnerships with leading innovation hubs around the world, increasing access and opportunities for Singapore students and enterprises. The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) set up a GIA Programme Office (GIA PO) to coordinate the overall initiative with other government agencies.

Led by IE Singapore, the GIA (Beijing) effort strengthens connections between Singapore technology companies, entrepreneurs and investors within China’s established digital ecosystem of accelerators, incubators, tech giants, start-ups and venture capitalist funds. This is expected to help more Singapore tech companies access opportunities and find business partners in China, strengthening Singapore’s vibrant local tech sector.

Mr. Ho Chee Hin, IE Singapore’s Group Director for China, said, “China is a huge market that acts as an attractive end market for Singapore tech companies and partner for co-creating solutions. With China’s innovation ecosystem now a hotbed for technologies and innovation, Singapore companies should consider sourcing for technologies here and adapt them for Asia.”

With the GIA (Beijing), IE Singapore will look to establish launchpads for Singapore companies to connect with the business and innovation community in China.

This includes access to talent, capital, customers and partners in major innovation hubs within China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou and Wuhan. In line with this, IE Singapore signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with  AIRMaker (accelerator), NTUitive (enterprise arm of Nanyang Technological University) and 36Kr (top Chinese media platform) in September this year.

This supports Singapore tech companies through customised accelerator programmes to understand the market, test-bed products and partner with Chinese companies to implement solutions. To date, 32 Singapore startups in fintech, medtech and Internet of Things (IoT) have participated in business missions organised by IE Singapore and partners to showcase and pitch their products and services in China.

Today, IE Singapore signed a MOU with Singapore-based real estate company, CapitaLand, and leading Chinese co-working space operator UrWork to customise accelerator programmes to facilitate exchange of ideas between Singapore and China start-ups.

IE Singapore has also partnered CapitaLand on a Tech & Innovation Summit 2017 in Beijing, where CapitaLand can tap new innovative solutions pitched by Chinese and Singapore start-ups. The pitch competition is based on CapitaLand’s three main scenarios of work, live, and play [working, shopping, living]. Winning teams get to testbed solutions at CapitaLand’s office buildings, shopping malls, residential and integrated developments in both China and Singapore.

The session will see nine start-ups pitch to nearly 300 representatives including Chinese government agencies in Beijing, incubators, accelerators, co-working space operators, venture capitalists, research institutes, as well as corporations and technology companies.

Of these, three of the start-ups are from Singapore:

  • M-DAQ is a fintech company that aims to disrupt multi-currency conversion through its unique algorithms to offer a volume weighted average price for foreign exchange. Its main application scopes are e-commerce/ payment gateway, cross border mobile wallet and international securities trading.
  • Smart Clean provides end-to-end automatic solutions for Facility Managers, with real-time monitoring and alerting by intelligent algorithms that evaluate toilet cleanliness, standardises cleaning operations and ensures clean toilets at all times.
  • ViSenze is an artificial intelligence company that develops
    advanced visual search and image recognition solutions to help businesses in
    e-commerce, retail, content publishing and online advertising.

During the last decade, China has created one of the largest digital economies leading in ecommerce and mobile payments. One in three unicorns in the world is a Chinese company, commanding 43% of the global value of these unicorns.  Local governments across China are promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialisation of research and development.

IE Singapore is involved in several initiatives to help local companies gain access to Chinese markets, as well as technology. In August 21 2017, IE Singapore and Ascendas-Singbridge launched the Singapore Manufacturing Innovation Centre (SMIC) in Guangzhou, a one-stop shop to facilitate partnerships between Singapore Industry 4.0 technology solutions providers and Chinese enterprises looking to adopt such solutions. On November 2, 2017, IE Singapore announced the successful facilitation of a partnership between Surbana Jurong (SJ) and two SMEs, iFocus Pte. Ltd. (a hardware company) and S3 Innovate Pte. Ltd. (a data visualisation company) to clinch their first lift monitoring project in Guangzhou city.

Yesterday, Collaboration in the areas of professional services, innovation and urban renewal, which would enable Singapore companies stand to capture greater trade flows and opportunities, were discussed at the 11th Singapore-Jiangsu Cooperation Council (SJCC) meeting in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of the National University of Singapore and NUS (Suzhou) Research Institute (NUSRI) is launching BLOCK71 Suzhou today, to help Singapore companies and start-ups access the innovation ecosystem in Jiangsu.

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Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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