NUS don calls for greenfield companies, better linkages in innovation ecosystem

Singapore

SINGAPORE needs to create new industries that will spawn new companies and, most importantly, jobs for the future, a professor of the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School has said.

"It must also ensure a Singaporean core in this present-day pursuit of innovation and value creation," Professor Wong Poh Kam told The Business Times on the sidelines of the Druid Asia innovation conference on Wednesday. He added that the Republic can no longer rely on the manufacturing sector for jobs for instance, or on foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) alone for research and development (R&D) and innovation. It needs to install public infrastructure to facilitate the translation of deep technologies - those in medtech, cleantech, cyber-security and SmartNation - into commercial solutions for Singapore and the world.