Encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship in Singapore

Professor Arcot Desai Narasimhalu, Director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at SMU shared his insights on the role that educational institutions can play in inculcating an innovative mindset and grooming innovative talent. He said that institutions of higher learning have a role to play in helping to realise the value of Singapore’s upstream investments in innovation. He added that there are two ways in which innovations coming out of tertiary institutions are utilised: one is licensing them to large companies, but the much stronger approach would be to create start-ups around these innovations so that countries can create SMEs and even MNCs using those intellectual properties. In Budget 2014, the government has adopted numerous measures to encourage businesses to innovate continuously so as to deepen Singapore’s economic transformation.