Innovation
Made Real

Andreea is an entrepreneur and scientist, currently working with the Singapore Deep-Tech Alliance on commercializing deep tech innovations. She graduated from the National University of Singapore with a PhD-MBA double degree, where she focused her research on nanotechnology, while learning business strategy and entrepreneurship in parallel. From there she found her footing in the deep tech entrepreneurship space, as a founder-in-residence at Entrepreneur First, before she started a new entrepreneurship journey on her own. Driven by a desire to create tangible scientific impact, she is now focused on bringing innovations from lab to market.

Mr Aylwin Tan is responsible for formulating and executing industry promotion and development strategies, as well as key customer engagement for CapitaLand, one of Asia’s largest diversified real estate groups. He is also the Chairman of AIRmaker, a co-innovation platform; and Director of the Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab, an industry agnostic platform that catalyzes formation of co-innovation communities to develop smart cities solutions.

Prior to CapitaLand, Mr Tan held various responsibilities at the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).  He played key roles in Singapore’s regionalization projects in Indochina and China - Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park, and the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park. He also held various portfolios including Head (Electronics); Regional Director (Europe); Executive Director for Asia Pacific Operations; Communications; as well as Chief Information Officer.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from the National University of Singapore and completed his Harvard Business School Advanced Management Program in 2012.

Wounh Tih has been involved in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry for the last twenty years. From leading product innovation and development at Nestle Health Science to managing his own startup in Critical Care Nutrition. He is a strong advocate of the co-innovation process, having personally witnessed and benefitted from these partnerships. Wounh Tih also comes from a rich background in general management, sales and marketing in the Asia Pacific region.

Clara is also an Adjunct Trainer of Due Diligence in the  Advanced Certificate in Venture Capital at SMU Academy. Clara has held senior positions in global conglomerates within the TMT sector between 2004 and 2013 and spearheaded discussions with policymakers in Southeast Asia on digital infrastructure and policies to pave the way for digital innovations. Clara is professionally trained in Master of Laws at Singapore Management University, Venture Finance at Oxford University, and Corporate Governance at Singapore Institute of Directors. An entrepreneur at heart, Clara has built and successfully exited a digital venture which was part of the Unilever Foundry in 2017. 

Dobrin holds MSc in Machine Engineering and Dipl. Ship Engineer from Vaptzarov Naval Academy (IMO accredited), Summa Cum Laude.

After graduation, he had a career in the Merchant Ship industry obtaining the highest engineer COC1 certification (Chief Engineer, Unlimited power capacity).

Later he did a career in the Power Generation industry collaborating with Fortune 500 companies in the Caribbean. Participated in several projects for Hybrid Power plants development (RES+ICE+BESS) and Grid Stability. Dealing with OEM equipment supplied by leading companies in their field like Wartsila, Siemens, MAN, Schneider Electric, and Alfa Laval to name a few he got a solid basis to step on when decided to make a switch and dedicate his time and efforts to the energy transition, energy management, and sustainability matters. Before moving to Singapore, he was running a start-up in the Dominican Republic providing services such as the off-grid net-zero and carbon-neutral project development, execution of Energy Audits, and Integration of IoT cloud-based SaaS products. He is promoting a sustainable solution through a proper mix of vanguard and mature technologies. He is actively taking part in expert pools, events, and volunteering initiatives related to ESG, SDGs, and decarbonization matters.

Dr. AC is currently driving tech transfer and commercialization within NUHS cluster. In his role, AC supports clinicians and clinician scientist to bring their unmet needs Healthtech solutions to productization and licensing of intellectual property.

AC has over 20 years of experience in grant expense management, technology transfer, product development, and commercializing innovative technologies for diagnostic devices and biomedical devices. He was previously the Senior Associate Director at NUS ITO responsible for Startups Venture Development and IP development.  Prior to that, AC was leading the global program management at Amaranth Medical Inc where he was leading the Singapore Manufacturing facility for manufacturing the “Magnitude” and “Defiance” fully bioresorbable scaffolds. A competent leader of the PMO, driving synergy across functions to achieve business objectives, identifying market. Implement Value Engineering in Products, Processes, and Procurement for cost value reduction analysis across functions.

Dr. Aishwarya Bandla, Regional R&D Manager at Paxman Coolers Ltd, drives research, development and translation efforts towards a wearable limb cryocompression device for preventing chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. She is jointly appointed as an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, and Investigator at The N.1 Institute for Health, The Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) in the National University of Singapore (NUS), and the National University Cancer Institute Singapore. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from NUS and her research specializes in wearable medical devices for supportive care in cancer, user-centric design and clinical translation of technology.

She was named to GovInsider's 50 Women in Global GovTech list 2020 and the inaugural Singapore’s 100 Women in Tech list 2020, which celebrates women who have made significant contributions to tech in Singapore and for their ability to influence, inspire and impact on community and industry. Aishwarya was also awarded the Outstanding Young Alumni award 2022 by the National University of Singapore's College of Design and Engineering, and Outstanding Mentor award 2022 by the Wong Hock Boon – Singapore Medical Association Charity Fund.

Aishwarya, an IEEE senior member, serves as the Secretary, IEEE Singapore Section, on the executive committee of the IEEE Asia-Pacific Women in Engineering, and is the immediate past chairperson of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society’s (EMBS) Singapore chapter.

A deep-tech company specialized in IoT and LoRaWAN that leverages innovation to enhance facility management efficiency and productivity.

Chee Chong received his PhD in Electrical Electronic Engineering from Nanyang Technological University and has 4 patents in Singapore and the US to his name.

Recently, Chee Chong and the team secured Net Zero project grants from CapitaLand Innovation Fund and testbedded AST’s energy optimization and renewable energy solutions in the Galen’s Smart Urban Co-Innovation Lab with great success.  The success includes reducing energy bills by close to 40%.

Yong Hsin Ning is an Executive Education Fellow at the National University of Singapore's School of Computing and a serial entrepreneur who enjoys intellectual challenges.  

After spending 20 years as a corporate citizen in Arthur Andersen and Accenture, she successfully transited into entrepreneurship.

She is the Founding Partner of The Biz Lab, a company that focuses on preparing early-stage startups to become investable.  She is also the co-founder of Change Voyage Consulting, a consulting firm dedicated to help companies manage organisational change through change capability building.  

Hsin Ning is also an award-winning educator who teaches highly sought-after business innovation courses to undergraduate students, entrepreneurs and business owners seeking their next S curve.  She has deep expertise navigating the innovation journey together with businesses through capability building projects.  

Through her unique vantage point as an entrepreneur and educator, she obtained many insights on how business owners and corporate employees can make better decisions by changing the way they think and see the world. She records these insights in her podcast series, The Square Apple Podcast Show (https://shor.by/squareapple).  

Hsin Ning graduated from Nanyang Technological University with a Bachelor of Accountancy. She subsequently pursued her interest in the field of Organisational Behaviour at the University of New South Wales, where she obtained a Masters in Commerce specialising in Organisation and Management Studies. She continued her lifelong learning journey by pursuing a Ph.D. in General Management at SMU where she studied the decision-making anomaly of part-time knowledge workers voluntarily working overtime.

Ho Yuen Ping is currently the Lead for Innovation with Societal Impact (ISI), an ecosystem development programme by NUS Enterprise. She is a strong believer in purpose-driven entrepreneurship since an early stint over two decades ago with the United Nations Development Programme. As a researcher at NUS Enterprise, she has published scholarly articles in technology entrepreneurship, innovation management and venture creation processes. She has now returned to her roots as a social impact advocate at ISI, and also works with student entrepreneurs in her capacity as faculty advisor to NUS Social Impact Catalyst. She also sits on the University Global Coalition’s Working Group on Open Innovation for UN Sustainable Development Goals, and on the Deep Tech & Sustainability subcommittee of ACE.SG.

Zaid Khan is currently the CEO of M.I. Cloud Tech Pte.Ltd., a deep tech company He co-founded with Yang Ping during the MSc Venture Creation program at NUS. During the second semester of the MSVC, he joined the NUS deep tech accelerator -GRIP program-and co-filed an invention patent to provide solutions for common sleep disorders such as snoring and apnea. Zaid is driving the commercialization of M.I. Cloud Technology and has made great strides in the past few months by carrying out joint testing with Large MNCs in Asia and Europe. He is also collaborating with researchers and institutes to further diversify the application portfolio of M.I. Cloud Technology. Previously he worked with fortune 500 companies including “Akzonobel” and was founder of a startup dealing with alternate proteins.

Luuk is a business leader and entrepreneur with a demonstrated track-record in innovation and technology across multiple industries and continents. Luuk started his career in the Netherlands and was part of the management team of HighTechXL. In his role, he directly coached and supported the creation of multiple HighTechXL deep-tech ventures such as Accerion and Bambi Medical. Subsequently, Luuk was sent to China to serve as HighTechXL’s Asia CEO where he successfully forged a partnership with XNode - China’s leading corporate accelerator and led all incubation and innovation activities for XNode Group. In that role, Luuk grew XNode’s P&L from 8 MLN RMB revenue to 25 MLN RMB within two years. Additionally, Luuk was involved in advising and fundraising for +200 early-stage ventures from inception to launch and growth.

Luuk then went on to become the co-founding managing partner of SDTA, leading the process of building deep-tech ventures from ground up . The inaugural batch of SDTA currently operates at a 10X unrealized MOIC with SDTA holding an equity share of between 10-20% in the three ventures that were created as part of its inaugural batch. Separately, Luuk personally invested in Incooling - a startup focusing on building cooling solutions for data centers. Incooling counts HighTechXL as one of its early investors. Incooling is finalising a negotiation for 5 MLN EUR at a post-money valuation of 16.9MLN EUR, representing an 8.3X MOIC at the time of writing.

Luuk specialises in innovation and building new ventures from scratch. His core skills include business strategy, Innovation Management, Technology Exploration, Sales and Business Development and Venture Building. Luuk holds a BA in Liberal Arts and Sciences and a MSc. in Innovation Management and Technology Entrepreneurship (Magna Cum Laude). 

My functional responsibility is in advancing ESG-integration standards and driving the evolution of such stewardship through spearheading collaborative ventures with industries. Integral to this stewardship is taking a strategic path to generate sustainable best-practices. I believe in constructive engagement with key stakeholders on ESG and strategic issues to support stronger performance to achieve positive and enduring outcomes in the ESG ecosystem .
My focus and role involves :
- adding impact through data clarity and transparency
-being a conduit within the sustainability eco-system amongst key players, contributors and stakeholders and in so doing so it brings about enduring value through collaborative initiatives to ensure legacy value in the long term.My role focuses on driving initiatives and start ups in Sustainability (ESG) space within the Fintech innovation industry. My functional responsibility is in advancing ESG-integration standards and driving the evolution of such stewardship through spearheading collaborative ventures with industries. Integral to this stewardship is taking a strategic path to generate sustainable best-practices. I believe in constructive engagement with key stakeholders on ESG and strategic issues to support stronger performance to achieve positive and enduring outcomes in the ESG ecosystem . My focus and role involves : - adding impact through data clarity and transparency -being a conduit within the sustainability eco-system amongst key players, contributors and stakeholders and in so doing so it brings about enduring value through collaborative initiatives to ensure legacy value in the long term.

Marcus is the Head, Flexible Workspace & Placemaking at CapitaLand Development Singapore. In his role, Marcus pioneers placemaking and community development initiatives. He is currently developing and shaping the methodology and toolkit to empower real estate asset owners to enhance their assets' value propositions for prospective users through effective placemaking strategies. With a background in computer engineering and data science, Marcus maintains a keen interest in cutting-edge technologies, such as AI and blockchain, and their applications in reshaping products and services.

In 2020, Mathew decided to draw a line under a fifteen year career in financial markets to go on a mission to encourage, enthuse, educate and empower urban communities to grow some of their own food. Fuelled by the pandemic and the belief that city dwellers would all want to live more sustainable, food secure, happier, healthier lives, he began laying down designs to blend modular furniture aesthetics with simple modern farming techniques. In July 2021, the Grobrix micro wall farm was born.

Matthias is a technopreneur with >15 years of extensive experience in cyber security especially in cloud, web and data security.  He is a Cisco Certified Internet Expert (CCIE), Certified Information Systems Security Professional(CISSP), GIAC Certified Incident Handler(GCIH).  He has worked for many leading companies including Cisco Systems, Pacific Internet, ST Electronics, Singapore Computer Systems and has helped many organizations in financial, government and healthcare sectors to build large scale cloud security architecture.  

Matthias is currently the Founder and CEO of an upcoming cloud security startup called Cloudsine with its innovative software, WebOrion, that has two patents and combines web protection, monitoring, restore and review into a single unique platform.  Cloudsine’s product is ISO27001 and AWS certified and is trusted by many companies such as government, enterprises and healthcare agencies, universities across Asia Pacific.

Rainier Natividad is the CEO and co-founder of Armastec. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from NUS, specializing in wearable robotics. Before getting his PhD, we worked in the medical device field, designing orthopaedic implants for total knee arthroplasty.

As Head of JLABS Asia Pacific, Sharon is responsible for setting the strategic direction and overseeing all operational activities for JLABS @ Shanghai, the first Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS in Asia Pacific and the largest in its global network. Her responsibilities include managing the portfolio of JLABS in the region and collaborating with its internal and external business partners across multiple sectors to implement educational programming and drive high-quality company sourcing from innovation hotspots across Asia Pacific. She is a member of the China Innovation Council for J&J China and is a member of the Technology and Innovation Committee of the British Chamber of Commerce Shanghai.  In 2020, Sharon was recognized by Forbes China as one of the 50 Top Women in Science & Technology.  In 2021, Sharon was given a Social Impact Leadership Award Honoree by Serica.

Sharon has over 20 years of experience in the life sciences sector.  Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Sharon was Head of Asia at Aeras, where she established its Beijing office for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and focused on tuberculosis (TB) vaccines. She had previously served as a member of the Senior Leadership Team for Baxter in Shanghai with responsibility for business development and she began her career with Sosei-Hepatares, a Japanese biopharmaceutical company in London.

Sharon received a Master Degree in Public Health (MPH) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA; a Master Degree in Business Administration (EMBA) at IE Business School, Madrid, Spain; a Doctorate Degree in Biochemistry and Cardiovascular Medicine (DPhil) at University of Oxford, UK; and a Master Degree in Molecular Biology and Cellular Biochemistry (MBioChem) at University of Oxford, UK.

• Former CRE Regional Lead - APAC (Fortune 500 MNC)

• Tatler Magazine Gen.T Asia Young Leader (2020)

• Life-Coach & Speaker

• 16 years of CRE industry experience.

Suchi has over two decades of experience in the fields of venture building, product development, GTM (Go-To-Market) strategy, and corporate partnerships, spanning across international markets, with a strong emphasis on Australia and Asia. In her current role as the Director of Advanced Manufacturing & Venture Building, Suchi spearheads innovative venture building projects, effectively translating cutting-edge research into profitable enterprises. She oversees product development, devising commercial strategies, and orchestrating the expansive growth of ground-up Deep-Tech startups.

Before joining SGInnovate, Suchi held the position of Vice President of Sales and Service at Gartner, where she provided strategic counsel to APAC (Asia-Pacific) leaders on go-to-market strategies, business development, and commercial tactics within the Asian market. Trained as an engineer, Suchi harbours a profound fascination for advanced manufacturing, robotics, health-tech, and artificial intelligence. Beyond her professional endeavours, she ardently champions the cause of empowering more women to pursue education and careers in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).

Huay Hoon is the project General Manager for Geneo. In this role, she oversees the overall rejuvenation of Singapore Science Park and seeks to enhance asset value and deliver quality spaces for work, live and play.

Huay Hoon has 16 years of experience in the real estate industry, including planning, development, project management, asset management and leasing. She has worked in a project management role in Mapletree Investments and a developmental role in JTC Corporation.

Cher Hwa is currently the Senior Vice President (Health Innovation Delivery) for MiRXES.

Previously, he was the Director of the National Health Innovation Centre Singapore (NHIC), an entity under the Consortium for Clinical Research and Innovation Singapore (CRIS) of MOH Holdings.  NHIC aims to provide the public clinical research sector of Singapore with funding and guidance to support the translation of an innovation by validating, de-risking or developing it towards a market-ready product. Cher Hwa is the founding member of NHIC and leads a team of innovators promoting the collaboration of researchers, clinicians and industry to better position Singapore to tackle the healthcare challenges of tomorrow.

Prior to joining NHIC, Cher Hwa was at A*STAR’s A*celerate for 7 years as a Vice President in commercialising technologies for the telecommunications and medical technologies sectors.  Cher Hwa had also worked at multinational companies in various capacities on product management, sales & marketing, systems integration, and business development for mission critical and telecommunication systems.

Cher Hwa holds a Bachelor of Engineering (First Class Honours) in Electronic Engineering from the University of Sheffield and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Manchester.

Varun Chatterji is an NUS alumnus (2005) and serial entrepreneur. His first startup tenCube was a pioneer in the field of mobile security and was acquired by McAfee/Intel in 2010. Currently, he's a co-founder at his third startup - Seventh Sense AI. The new startup has garnered investment from notable entities such as CapVista (DSTA), 500 Startups, the Government of Victoria, Australia, Enterprise SG, and a prominent US Family Office.

Vivian Lee is the visionary Founder and CEO of GO!Mama. With firsthand experience juggling work and breastfeeding, Vivian understands the challenges faced by modern moms and is passionate about bridging industry gaps to redefine breastfeeding experiences. With over 15 years of experience as a business development and market growth professional, Vivian now leads a team of 8 to expand the reach of GO!Mama and make motherhood easier for all women. 

Young Chang, CTO, Singrow An experienced agronomist with 15+ years of experience in greenhouse vegetables, row crops, tree fruits, and herb cultivation in the US and China. Specializes in biocontrol, biofortification, and organic farming. Serves as Chief Technology Advisor for China's largest strawberry farm, contributing to the industry's transformation. Holds an MBA and a BS in Mathematics.