On Nov. 18, Infocomm Investments Pte Ltd (IIPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), and Cisco today signed a memorandum of intent to identify and nurture Singapore-focused start-ups to participate in the Cisco-Technopreneur Action Group, Platform Accelerated Start-ups (TAG.PASS) Smart Innovation Programme.
The programme will help start-ups create innovative applications using sensors, big data, analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) across industry verticals like healthcare, the public sector, education, manufacturing and financial services, to enable the country's Smart Nation vision.
TAG.PASS is a pre-acceleration programme of IIPL that helps aspiring entrepreneurs develop their minimum viable product, and prepare them for other acceleration programmes or work with corporate innovation teams. An extension of that is TAG.PASS Corporate Innovations which this Cisco-TAG.PASS Smart Innovation Programme is modelled after.
Over the last ten years, Singapore has invested more than US$22 billion in research and development to help companies develop, test and commercialise new products and solutions. Public sector investments have supported about 400 tech start-ups and generated 800 licenses over the last four years. Singapore boasts the world's densest start-up ecosystem at JTC LaunchPad@one-north, which houses 500 start-ups and a community of accelerators, incubators and venture capitalists.
Dr. Alex Lin, Head of IIPL, says, "I'm excited about this partnership with Cisco, as it provides a beneficial platform for Singapore start-ups to gain access to Cisco's global wealth of resources and access in smart city tech, such as IOT. Through initiatives in the MOI, such as the exchange programme with Cisco Barcelona, we are helping to create a collaborative ecosystem throughout the world, nurturing innovation regardless of geography. Cisco is a great example of corporate co-innovation with start-ups that delivers strong value. I look forward to start-ups with innovative IoT solutions making use of this opportunity to develop their product that in turn, enables and drives our smart nation mandate."
Selected start-ups in the Cisco-TAG.PASS Smart Innovation Programme will be eligible to participate in the Cisco® DevNet, a community that provides developers with the tools, the resources, and the code needed to build innovative, network-enabled solutions. They will get the chance to visit Cisco's implementations for Smart Cities around the world. Start-ups will also have access to TAG.PASS' development platform training, domain knowledge sharing, networks, mentorship and coaching from domain experts or other entrepreneurs.
In addition, they can apply to participate in an exchange programme to co-innovate with Cisco at the Cisco Barcelona Internet of Things Centre in Spain. These companies can then apply for IIPL's international exchange program, to learn about Singapore's start-ups ecosystem and meet mentors.
"Cisco is a thought leader in innovation, and we enable new, valuable partnerships to form pioneering solutions to emerge for market consumption. The Entrepreneurs in Residence Programs, Cisco Innovation Challenge, the IoT World Forum Young Women's Innovation Challenge, our global investments in start-up accelerators and an innovation fund in ASEAN, as well as Cisco DevNet are good examples of our innovation strategy at work," said Thiam Guan Ang, Managing Director for Cisco in Singapore and Brunei.
"I was particularly pleased to see a Singaporean start-up, Subnero, make it to the finals at the Internet of Things World Forum in Chicago. This collaboration with IIPL will provide opportunities for participants with successful pilots to work with us on projects, reinforcing our country's position as a Smart Nation, with smart businesses, people and government," Thiam Guan continued.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Singapore is one of the leading innovation-driven economies worldwide and comes out top in Asia for using new technologies. With its world class business environment, low rates of corruption and ease of doing business, Singapore nurtures and encourages start-ups by means of financial support, government policies and local entrepreneurship programmes, ranking first in these conditions among similar economies.
