Singapore leads the way in innovation

SINGAPORE has once again stood out as a hub for innovative thinking.

Early this month, Accenture, in its first global digital hackathon, challenged young, talented people from 11 cities to prototype digital solutions that create a truly-human city environment. Close to 500 recent graduates, undergraduates, entrepreneurs and individuals from startups in more than 100 teams took part in the event across the 11 cities (Bangalore, Chicago, Dubai, Istanbul, London, Manila, Mexico City, Monterrey, Rome, Shanghai and Singapore).

The winner was from Singapore. Team Wombat developed a prototype for an early-warning system to detect and prevent outbreaks of dengue fever and other vector-borne diseases. The system, named Dragonfly", is a system that attracts arthropods such as mosquitoes and identifies their species. In their presentation at the hackathon, the team presented a model of a flytrap that uses blue light to attract mosquitoes. Leveraging on Internet of Things technology, the system transmits the breed of arthropod and sends the data to the health authorities for analysis.