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Can Singapore Build Global Tech Giants? · EU-Startups Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 0: You are now listening to the EU Startups
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this special episode of The EU Startup's podcast!
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: We're here at A-Five X Conference in Singapore by Mitation, National University of Singapore.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Throughout these next few days we'll be chatting about innovation funding, and the developing bridge between Southeast Asia and Europe.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Not to mention The Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon whose winner is going show up at our very end of this series in a special episode.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So I hope you're looking forward to hear us talking about the challenges?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the innovation And how we are all comparing when it comes to localized markets such as Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe... ...and even global challenges not to mention the lessons that can be learned from each other.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you Dr.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Tan for joining me here at the You Starves podcast.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it's a pleasure to have you on.
• 1:00
  Speaker 0: It's a Pleasure To Be Here
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: great.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to our chat now because i think its gonna be A great opportunity to kind of get an overview over NUS Over A-Five X and really just what we're all doing here And why it matters.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: so before We Get Into That Maybe Just Gives A little bit Of Background As To Who You Are And What You Do.
• 1:17
  Speaker 0: Okay So My Name Is Tan Dr.
• 1:20
  Speaker 0: Tansien Wei And I'm the Senior Vice President in charge of innovation, as well as enterprise at The National University of Singapore.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Great!
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Just yesterday on the first day when I attended to begin ceremony there was a lot talk about this one billion, right?
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: And we hear that for lives affected the figure as well.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted us to maybe chat a little bit about what that means too specifically and may be more concrete goals around what you want NUS Enterprise to be achieving in the foreseeable future and how you see A-FiveX conference evolving.
• 1:59
  Speaker 0: Okay so first of all Right Singapore is actually very young In terms its maturity As country that is embarking on technopreneurship.
• 2:11
  Speaker 0: So we've only had PhD programs for the last twenty-seven, twenty eight years and so you know were relatively early in terms of developing as well as refining that capability by... Singapore has spent about sixty billion euros over the past twenty seven years right?
• 2:34
  Speaker 0: In funneling it into research and development.
• 2:37
  Speaker 0: So we've reached a point now and just like, you know any good wine right requires grapes to grow into the ground.
• 2:46
  Speaker 0: We are starting to hit some very interesting technologies that we'd like to share with the world.
• 2:54
  Speaker 0: so With regard of three goals Right?
• 2:56
  Speaker 0: That's what we want do for next ten or twenty years And over time, right?
• 3:02
  Speaker 0: You know we need to build a lighthouse deal.
• 3:06
  Speaker 0: I call it the Lighthouse Deal from homegrown technologies specifically NUS Technologies To be a global company and We wanted write two actually create jobs as well as have revenues Right into.
• 3:22
  Speaker 0: more importantly built trust right and As importantly the confidence right for us too push forward in this very fast developing world.
• 3:36
  Speaker 0: So the second thing is we have a lot of technologies here, We've got approximately sixteen hundred research professors and if I think about my past right?
• 3:49
  Speaker 0: And companies that i was involved with having billion people affected.
• 3:56
  Speaker 0: It's actually not as difficult as people think.
• 3:59
  Speaker 0: For example, if you have a software protocol that ends up being in parts of phones or chips or whatever-have-you I mean... You can get to scale that In five ten years.
• 4:14
  Speaker 0: So with the research strengths we believe it can proliferate right into these fields And so we're looking at those and also right from a monetary perspective.
• 4:29
  Speaker 0: It's important to clarify that.
• 4:30
  Speaker 0: the fund, right?
• 4:31
  Speaker 0: That we have built out... We are investing in venture capitalists as well as making direct investments into companies that we spawn off.
• 4:42
  Speaker 0: but our goal is not The classic venture capital game of zero-to-a hundred In ten year or twelve-year structure, I believe that we should look at it as an evergreen fund and rather than the zero to one hundred.
• 5:00
  Speaker 0: We're looking a developing the minus one two thirty of forty because thats where are right now alright?
• 5:07
  Speaker 0: We have technology And its very early on so Its not exactly sure That product will come out.
• 5:16
  Speaker 0: So our goal is develop their technology into prototype and from the prototype into a product.
• 5:24
  Speaker 0: And this requires multidisciplinary teams, and Singapore being where we are geographically these will require international teams in order to do that.
• 5:35
  Speaker 0: because of number one failure any deep tech startup especially one for research institution which classically looks at technology push.
• 5:47
  Speaker 0: I've got little technology.
• 5:49
  Speaker 0: I'm sure that it's going to work for this industry, but then you know the reality is right?
• 5:53
  Speaker 0: The market may not agree with you.
• 5:55
  Speaker 0: So we have to build in such a way so that It actually tests the hypotheses and there Is a true-market poll.
• 6:05
  Speaker 0: And You can only do This with teams globally distributed Teams.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: well if you've mentioned so much i think There are lot of natural questions from what your talking about But I think the one point that I want to start off with is, the idea here.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you talked about international teams.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: You've mentioned it and also mention your own background in entrepreneurship outside of Singapore.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: so i'm curious what you're looking for from your experience inside of Singapore into how entrepreneurship should be developed especially within academic institutions?
• 6:36
  Speaker 0: Yes!
• 6:37
  Speaker 0: So Europe was fortunate that you've got a home market of five hundred and fifty million, six hundred million people.
• 6:46
  Speaker 0: And we don't.
• 6:48
  Speaker 0: our closest market is five hours away from here right?
• 6:53
  Speaker 0: So we have to think more creatively as how we access those markets.
• 6:59
  Speaker 0: so that creates a two prong problem.
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  Speaker 0: first of all We have to get real time information.
• 7:08
  Speaker 0: First of all, the development of product but in a longer term also research that may apply to these markets three years out into future.
• 7:24
  Speaker 0: So it's kind like playing football.
• 7:26
  Speaker 0: so if you are looking at Barcelona they pass ball where player is going be and its same game.
• 7:35
  Speaker 0: But in order to do that, you have to read the game properly.
• 7:39
  Speaker 0: So that's what we want to do with our venture funds and Silicon Valley.
• 7:48
  Speaker 0: soon in Europe as well as China We will be having locations there which are fully staffed by our people With a mix of talents.
• 8:01
  Speaker 0: When I say mixed talent, it means typical profile would be somebody with a PhD in the certain field, has industry experience.
• 8:10
  Speaker 0: Maybe some start-up experiences as well and we've got two team members up here right now.
• 8:16
  Speaker 0: one is a Phd in Immunology but she was partner at VC fund and it's an internet VC fund.
• 8:24
  Speaker 0: so We need to find people that are intrinsically curious That can look at multidisciplinary angle to certain technologies and see things that other people can't.
• 8:36
  Speaker 0: And this information should be fed back here, right?
• 8:39
  Speaker 0: So we could develop novel products because especially given our situation it's not good enough just to be twenty percent better than the competition.
• 8:51
  Speaker 0: if you want something venture funded my rule is whatever your developing as a technology its performance divided by the cost has to be five times or more.
• 9:06
  Speaker 0: for a venture-funded deal, meaning if your technology is ten times better than an existing solution and costs twice as much then it fits that bill.
• 9:15
  Speaker 0: So that's the minimum right?
• 9:17
  Speaker 0: We are looking now at semiconductor technologies homegrown I may add Right And It will probably one of the largest deals If not the largest deal we have ever done coming out of a research institution, but that one has the chance to revolutionize things in semiconductors.
• 9:38
  Speaker 0: And we're talking about an increase in memory and interconnects by anywhere from a thousand-to-a hundred thousand times in performance right?
• 9:48
  Speaker 0: So those are things which can at least be potentially investable.
• 9:55
  Speaker 0: I
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: mean, is it fair to describe Singapore then as kind of an entryway into Asia?
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Is that offering?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: you could be potentially providing two European founders entrepreneurs who are interested because many the ones we talked about talk about them.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: That they look for a way in Asian market and thats difficult for Europe at this moment.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Could Singapore place its middle ground on that?
• 10:24
  Speaker 0: history of Singapore to be an exchange point for goods and services, has been for the last centuries.
• 10:31
  Speaker 0: And now with a knowledge economy as well more advanced things coming we see both ways where it could be that European businesses or European startups want look at certain and let's say take advantage of supply chain resources in Asia to be able get the price points that they want.
• 11:00
  Speaker 0: And also, conversely there could Asian companies come to Singapore because they want entry points into Europe.
• 11:09
  Speaker 0: This is where I think future is heading
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  Speaker 1: And on an academic level too, right?
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Because we're talking about entrepreneurs and the way they could be exchanging immobilizing.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: But at an academic levels then there also has to interest in making sure that Singaporean academic programs have entries into Europe.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I know we chatted with Helmut over TUM so it had a lot of focus even before we talked about founders market fit and their abilities to mobilize?
• 11:43
  Speaker 0: Yes, so it's really a talent pipeline.
• 11:48
  Speaker 0: A technology pipeline ,a capital pipeline .
• 11:52
  Speaker 0: And then an impact pipeline that we're thinking about step by step-by-step.
• 11:57
  Speaker 0: So on the talent portion of things.
• 11:59
  Speaker 0: We've been operating The National University Of Singapore overseas colleges program for over twenty years now.
• 12:07
  Speaker 0: It started with Silicon Valley And we built other locations around the world also.
• 12:13
  Speaker 0: Now, our statistics show that forty percent of students actually go through a program and have about five thousand alums.
• 12:23
  Speaker 0: Of these right?
• 12:24
  Speaker 0: Forty percent went to Silicon Valley sometime in their careers.
• 12:28
  Speaker 0: they started company.
• 12:30
  Speaker 0: now what's interesting is number two on this list is Stockholm at thirty six percent and it's very interesting to see that.
• 12:41
  Speaker 0: And I've concluded from my observations, the reasons for this are actually cultural because the Swedes though direct also have in their culture something called Fika.
• 12:58
  Speaker 0: so Fika is a way of working together collaboratively.
• 13:05
  Speaker 0: give you really critical feedback, but then they'll find a solution around it.
• 13:09
  Speaker 0: So I think for young students because most of their mind is third year define that to be much better learning environment rather than just being tossed into startup getting sometimes get yelled at if make mistake.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Okay and while we're on this topic academia and students.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I think one of the more interesting things to chat about when talking university, in University people is that there's so many great ideas on universities but not all them make it market right?
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: And how do you see a US enterprise or just wider ecosystem involved with tackling this distinction?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: what they even do if an idea says academic value might have actual product-market values.
• 13:56
  Speaker 0: So what we've done over the past six months is to develop a tool called NOVA.
• 14:04
  Speaker 0: And NOVA, it's an AI tool that we developed in-house and has the entirety of our knowledge in terms of our PhD thesis or invention disclosures.
• 14:21
  Speaker 0: And going forward, it'll be actually tracking real-time developments in all our staff here.
• 14:28
  Speaker 0: Papers that aren't published for example or data that's basically being collected.
• 14:33
  Speaker 0: and what we have done with this is to look at naturally occurring pathways
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: right?
• 14:43
  Speaker 0: For these technologies take root.
• 14:46
  Speaker 0: so for by looking at all the clinical trials that are done globally, right?
• 14:54
  Speaker 0: We can see exactly how a particular technology could fit in let's say attacking certain cancers.
• 15:02
  Speaker 0: We can rank them we can find a competition to these technologies.
• 15:08
  Speaker 0: a proposal for the pharma companies to actually look at and take seriously.
• 15:17
  Speaker 0: So it's with use of all these tools, including right?
• 15:21
  Speaker 0: The input-of-the outposts in this locations that would make more complete picture.
• 15:28
  Speaker 0: That reduces risk of bad product market fit.
• 15:32
  Speaker 0: so thats number one before anything.
• 15:35
  Speaker 0: is there even possibility because In the thousands of invention disclosures that we get every single year, The reality is sitting inside.
• 15:47
  Speaker 0: there could be next ten companies built out a certain technology.
• 15:51
  Speaker 0: There it would have been the next hundred licensing deals or the next large corporate partnership for universities.
• 16:00
  Speaker 0: so We need to address this in very targeted way but also nuanced ways.
• 16:07
  Speaker 0: And you can only do this with people that have experience, right?
• 16:12
  Speaker 0: In both worlds.
• 16:13
  Speaker 0: When I say both worlds... I mean in the industrial sense of the word and the venture sense of a world also the academic sense.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Well, now that we're on this topic of NOVA which was announced here at the conference and it is quite interesting I kind want to then get to the idea of AI in entrepreneurship.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And we did actually chat about this previously lunch.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: but i think for the audience its good to re-pass over It Is where do you see AI impacting Entrepreneurship?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: And even investing.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and I say This with a context That our coverage In The past two To Three Years has jumped insanely to have an AI focus.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, let's say eighty percent of the pitches that we receive are about companies whose main focus is AI and our built foundation being AI.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: so how do you see AI impacting all this moving forward?
• 17:05
  Speaker 0: Tremendously because entrepreneurs right can start from a clean sheet.
• 17:13
  Speaker 0: they're not encumbered like larger organizations which actually has structure and processes that you need to change in order to derive clear benefits from using AI.
• 17:29
  Speaker 0: So with a clean sheet, right?
• 17:30
  Speaker 0: You can have... And I'm pretty sure this will happen very soon because the entrepreneurs are coming to me and these are very seasoned entrepreneurs with three-digit style valuations right now on some even higher And they're saying that, hey you know we want to start with a small team and were going try basically make a billion dollar company from four-to six people.
• 17:57
  Speaker 0: Right?
• 17:59
  Speaker 0: Fully using agents at all.
• 18:01
  Speaker 0: I think it can get fair way there right.
• 18:05
  Speaker 0: so if your able to start the clean sheet all bets are off.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: well then to wrap this up.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: final question then Im interested in just how u see NUS progressing Because we've spoken about where you want to see it go, the ideas how its going to be interplaying with Europe abroad Asia.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: How do you then a successful development of NUS Enterprise and even A-FiveX Conference five ten years in future?
• 18:35
  Speaker 0: Yes so now that were called NUSX right... We are rapidly building skill sets and teams necessary for this function.
• 18:45
  Speaker 0: So what we hope to see in the coming months is the first of many deals that involve our technology, that can have tier one venture capitalists from around the world as investors.
• 18:59
  Speaker 0: And so I think this would be the first signs for it and over time if we could grow right?
• 19:09
  Speaker 0: The numbers that are interested in doing something out of this and have quantifiable and qualifiable successes, meaning they've started companies which are deriving revenue.
• 19:25
  Speaker 0: They're employing folks maybe less folks with AI right now but it's becoming steady and we got processes there.
• 19:35
  Speaker 0: We are signing licensing deals with pharma companies, we're doing multinational collaborations in drug discovery for example.
• 19:45
  Speaker 0: So those would all be characteristics that we'd looking right now.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Okay perfect well thank you very much Dr.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Tan.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's been a pleasure to have you on.
• 19:54
  Speaker 0: Thank
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: You.