Overview
Over the past few decades, two trends have helped trace the contours of the modern entrepreneurial scientists, defining their unique role in today's innovation ecosystem. The first is the evolution of research and development (R&D) work away from the big corporate lab model of closed innovation towards a globalised model of open innovation. The second, more recent trend is related to the emergence of the concept of Deep Tech, which refers to technologies based on genuine scientific discoveries that have produced a novel and defensible intellectual property (IP).
In today's world where anybody can theoretically become a technology entrepreneur, there have been efforts to carve out a niche for Deep Tech entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurial scientists. Join us at this online event as we discuss the journey to translate research into commercial outcomes in Singapore, and the opportunities and challenges that entrepreneurial scientists encounter in their journeys.
Date: 13 May 2020, Wednesday
Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm (UTC +8)
Programme:
11:00am - 12:00pm: Panel Discussion on From Lab to Market - Bringing Research to Commercialisation
- Dr Kenath Priyanka Prasad, Founder, Prime Respi
- Jasmine Qiu, Assistant Director - Venture Building, SGInnovate
- Asst Prof Harold Soh, Co-founder, AiTactnology and Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, NUS
- Moderator: Suchitra Narayan, Director of Venture Building, SGInnovate
Speakers' Profiles:
Dr Kenath Priyanka Prasad, Founder, Prime Respi
Priyanka is the Founder of an early-stage respiratory healthcare startup that develops innovations to address the unmet healthcare needs of chronically ill patients with respiratory diseases. At present, she and her team are developing an easy and effective secretion management system as a home-based intervention in the chronic care continuum. Previously, she was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Singapore Biodesign, A*STAR where she led the scientific development and fundraising activities for the secretion management technology.
She was a Biodesign Fellow with Singapore-Stanford Biodesign Program, a healthcare capability development initiative established between A*STAR, EDB, and Stanford University. During her time there, she used the Biodesign methodology to invent quality and accessible health technology solutions in the fields of respiratory and chronic care. In this role, she engaged closely with various healthcare stakeholders across Asia, the United States and Indonesia to identify unmet clinical needs and develop solutions geared towards commercial viability. She continues to be involved with the training of the Biodesign methodology through mentoring of technologists, clinicians and students teams.
Priyanka holds a Doctorate in Bioengineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore for her work on the design and synthesis nanomaterial systems for antibacterial formulations and other biomedical applications. She has more than seven years of research experience and has won multiple awards over the years. She has also completed various entrepreneurship focussed programmes such as the NUS Enterprise Lean Launchpad and 360 SMART Bootcamp.
Jasmine Qiu, Assistant Director - Venture Building, SGInnovate
Jasmine Qiu is a medical doctor by training with three years' medical residency. Before joining SGInnovate, Dr Qiu had gained over seven years of commercial experience assuming a wide range of responsibilities including pharmaceutical marketing, supply chain management, operations and business development. As a part of SGInnovate Venture Building team, she is the Project Lead for NRF Central Gap Fund project Product Development and Verification of a Revolutionary Solution for the Treatment of Glue Ear, leading the activities of product development management, investor and medical device corporates and distributors engagements, market research, commercialisation roadmap formulation and implementation, supplier selection and evaluation, IP licensing negotiation and human resources. She also has provided venture building supports for various SGInnovate portfolio companies, adding values in the areas of market evaluation, product value proposition, business model exploration, fund-ability analysis, deal structure, business plan development, Go-to-Market strategy, product strategy, business development, sales pitch development and POC to scale. Dr Qiu holds master's degree in business administration from Nanyang Technological University. She cleared all three Chartered Financial Analyst exams in three consecutive years.
Asst Prof Harold Soh, Co-founder, AiTactnology and Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, NUS
Harold Soh develops robots that interact naturally with people in the physical world. In his role as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at NUS, Harold directs the Collaborative, Learning, and Adaptive Robots (CLeAR) lab. As Co-founder of Deep Tech startup AiTactnology, Harold builds tactile intelligence for autonomous robots. He holds a PhD from Imperial College London, where his research on smart children's wheelchairs was shortlisted for the UK James Dyson Award in 2012. Prior to joining NUS, Harold held research positions at MIT's SMART Centre and the University of Toronto. He has published scientific papers at the top conferences in robotics (RSS, ICRA, IROS, HRI) and machine learning (NeurIPS, AAAI, CVPR), and his research has been recognised with several best paper nominations.
Moderator's Profile:
Suchitra Narayan, Director of Venture Building, SGInnovate
Suchi has almost 20 years of experience in product management, business development, new product launches and corporate partnerships across global markets, with a strong focus in Australia and Asia. In her current capacity as Director of Venture Building, Suchi provides business building guidance in areas such as business planning, commercial strategy and scaling growth to new and ‘build-from-scratch' Deep Tech startups. Prior to SGInnovate, she was VP, Sales and Service at Gartner where she was providing strategic advisory to APAC leaders on GTM, business development as well as commercial strategy in Asia. An engineer by training, she has a special interest in Artificial Intelligence, and is passionate about supporting more women in pursuing an education and career in STEM.
