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Well done PAP! Telegraph.co.uk calls Singapore "the next Silicon Valley"!

Rogue Trader

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Singapore 'the next Silicon Valley'
Singapore has taken a step closer to being Asia’s Silicon Valley as prominent US entrepreneurs and venture capitalists target the island

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Tech-savvy Singapore could become Asia's equivalent to Silicon Valley, pictured
Photo: SiliconValleyStock / Alamy

By Justin Harper

9:23AM GMT 29 Feb 2012

The country has always been a popular destination for multinationals given its ease of doing business, use of English as the first language and location as the gateway to Asia. But recently it has been targeted by hi-tech players, internet start-ups and incubator funds looking to tap into the region’s entrepreneurial and tech-savvy spirit.

The latest entrant is a US$10 million incubator fund called Golden Gate Ventures (GGV) which aims to build a partnership between Silicon Valley and Asia.

One way of doing this will be to send high-performing Asian entrepreneurs to the US to work with leading start-ups in Silicon Valley.

One of the venture capitalists behind GGV, Vinnie Lauria, said: “I see a lot of opportunity here. Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley. But in this region there are a lot of new tech start-ups coming who are going to do really well and we want to be a part of that.”

Plans are already in the pipeline to fly successful mentors and entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley to work alongside big names such as the founders of Bit Torrent, MySpace and YouTube.

GGV will also be targeting other south-east Asian markets such as the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia. It will be looking for internet companies and suitable start-ups to invest in.

British expat Dan Truman has been working with a US-based start-up in Singapore for two years. He said: “There is a real buzz that Singapore can turn into a hub for successful start-ups and maybe unearth the next Google or Apple. You also have the option of outsourcing R&D to neighbouring countries with cheaper labour costs.”

Singapore is attractive as it ranks number one in the world for ease of doing business and number four for starting up a business, according to the World Bank.

Universities and polytechnics now have entrepreneurship programs, as well their own incubators, and private players are seeing the opportunity to mentor young people starting out.

While having a market of just five million people, investors usually park their money in Singapore but then invest in much bigger markets close by, such as Indonesia, which is the world’s fourth most populous country, with 238 million citizens.




 

Sarcastic

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But what the clowns at MDA doesn't know is that the i can access websites blocked by them and paysites blocked by their webmasters for free. Strange. :rolleyes:
 

Rogue Trader

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5 Singapore tech inventions that rocked our world
The Sound Blaster, Razer mouse, USB flash drive, Match.com -- all household names that have their roots in the littlest island state

By Larry Loh 22 March, 2010


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The X-Mini capsule speakers -- they're small and cute but sure packs a wallop

So we're the nanny state, that country that banned chewing gum, the fine city that lets everyone know exactly what they can't do and how much they'll be fined if they do. But stop to think and you'll realize that Singapore is also a breeding ground for some outstanding IT inventions and tech gadgets. We round up five of the best.

Creative Soundblaster sound card
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There wasn't always sound on all PC computers. In the Dark Ages Of No PC Audio, a small but enterprising start-up company called Creative, led by a then-young Sim Wong Hoo, created and started mass-marketing the original Sound Blaster expansion card in 1989. Lo and behold, suddenly gamers had sound coming from their machines rather than the tinny pops and pings generated by the computer. The Sound Blaster may not have been the first audio expansion card and it did have a lot of limitations, but in less than a year it became the top-selling expansion card for the PC. Every geek and kid with a computer had to have one, or risk being seen as less than cool.

The Sound Blaster family of sound cards became the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until a pesky software company called Microsoft came up with Windows 95, which together with improvements in PC design, led to audio functions being integrated with the motherboard (which means you didn't need an extra sound card to have audio, for those who don't speak geek). But till today, Creative is still the leading company for PC audio, coming up with bigger and better devices for sound -- the early Creative Nomad Jukebox was one of the earliest hard drive-based digital music players before Apple came along with the iPod. All hail Sim Wong Hoo, Singapore's favorite (tech) son.


Trek Technology Thumb Drive
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You may not have heard of Singapore-based Trek Technology, but you probably have at least one of their products in your bag already. It's called the Thumb Drive, aka. flash drive, aka. USB memory stick, aka. memory key, aka. that little thing on your keychain that stores like a gazillion digital files. The USB flash drive (as it's more commonly known now) is so ubiquitous, it almost single-handedly did away with the floppy drives and disks of yore -- think about it, when's the last time you saw a floppy drive on a laptop or desktop?

But the road to universal acceptance wasn't easy. Trek Technology partnered with 'Big Blue' IBM to sell the first USB flash drives commercially at the end of 2000 -- the original Thumb Drive had a storage capacity of 8 MB, more than five times the capacity of the then-common floppy disks, which is laughable now, but at that time was mind-boggling in its scale. Countless manufacturers saw its potential and started rolling out their own versions. It was only with a series of patent lawsuits that the bigger ones backed off and started paying royalties. But even today, there are still cheap knock-offs around -- chances are good that the cheap no-brand flash drive you bought doesn't follow Trek's patent rights. But still, can you imagine modern life today without the USB flash drive?

Match.com

match-com_INLINE.gif


You've heard of it, that online dating company which reportedly has more than 20 million members (of which 1.35 million are subscribers), websites serving 37 countries in more than 12 different languages, and made nearly US$350 million in revenue in 2008. It's not really that big in this corner of the world and wasn't built or designed here, but what you may not know is that a Singapore 'technopreneur' by the name of Peng Tsin Ong played an instrumental role in creating the massively popular dating site in 1993.

Back then, Gary Kremen started working on Match.com with Peng as a proof-of-concept project for Electric Classifieds, a company which Peng Tsin Ong co-founded. Peng also helped architect the initial system for Match.com with Kremen, building up the Internet portal until it went live in 1995. The rest, as they say, is matchmaking history. He went on to create Interwoven, Inc., which makes software to control the development, management, and deployment of business-critical content. More recently, Peng served as one of the twenty members of Singapore's high-level Economic Review Committee to review the economic plans for the future of Singapore. He now splits his time between Asia and the United States to help nurture technology startups and to foster collaborative business opportunities between the two regions. Now, if that's not a Singapore rainmaker and tech legend, we don't know who is.

MTech FeverScan S3000

Singapore_Changi_Airport_Thermal_Scanning_INLINE.jpg


Near the height of the SARS breakout in 2002-2003, a Singapore company which specialized in military-grade scanners and imaging systems called MTech Imaging dropped what it was doing to quickly put together one of the most important pieces of equipment in combating the outbreak. The invention was called the MTech FeverScan S3000 and it's used to detect passengers running a fever (one of the first signs of SARS infection) with the use of precise thermal imaging.

While the fever scanning machine wasn't particularly sexy-looking or earth-shaking, it was a great example of local ingenuity rising to the challenge and turning death-dealing technology into potential life-saving devices. The FeverScan S3000 was quicklydeployed at Changi Airport and distributed to government and airports all around the world as a way of controlling the spread of SARS and other epidemics, and it's still in use today. How's that for saving the world quietly?

X-Mini capsule speakers
x-mini-capsule_INLINE.jpg


Audio speakers used to be big boxy things that weren't really portable. Laptop users had to pick between good sound quality and size, and there just wasn't really anything compact that could deliver great bass and volume. And unless you're using an oversized desktop replacement type laptop, built-in speakers just don't cut it at all. Then along came a little Singapore setup called XMI Pte Ltd who were determined to change all that. They created a pocket-sized ball speaker with a patented "pop-up" vacuum design that acted like a mini sub-woofer, and produces a level of bass and volume that is mind (and ear) blowing considering its itsy-bitsy size.

Numerous awards later, including winning the prestigious Red Dot Design Awards (Germany) and the Infocomm Singapore Award, the X-mini Capsule Speaker is now in its second generation and is being shamelessly ripped off by OEM manufacturers all over -- it's a sure sign that something's really good is when the OEM pirates start rolling out their third-party versions. We're hardly without one in our laptop bags these days and they're great for presentations or just setting up an impromptu disco hall, but more importantly, we don't need to carry an extra bag just for the speakers.

And there you go, the tech innovations that changed our world. We don't think we covered the list exhaustively -- there's still Hyflux's water filtration technology and Razer, the company that produces some of the best gaming mice around (did you know it was started and co-founded by a Singaporean?) -- but that's the beauty of technology. You don't need to be some giant corporation to change the world.



 

matamafia

Alfrescian
Loyal
:biggrin: Stupid PAP are so hard up to be flattered by desperate Ang Moh beggars who are tricking PAP to dump our last few dollars into their pockets. :biggrin:

PAP will fall for that - 100%

They will be tricked to spend OUR remaining few CPF dollars into worthless Ang Moh craps and loan them cash.

:oIo::mad:
 

rectmobile

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5 Singapore tech inventions that rocked our world




Match.com

match-com_INLINE.gif


You've heard of it, that online dating company which reportedly has more than 20 million members (of which 1.35 million are subscribers), websites serving 37 countries in more than 12 different languages, and made nearly US$350 million in revenue in 2008. It's not really that big in this corner of the world and wasn't built or designed here, but what you may not know is that a Singapore 'technopreneur' by the name of Peng Tsin Ong played an instrumental role in creating the massively popular dating site in 1993.

Back then, Gary Kremen started working on Match.com with Peng as a proof-of-concept project for Electric Classifieds, a company which Peng Tsin Ong co-founded. Peng also helped architect the initial system for Match.com with Kremen, building up the Internet portal until it went live in 1995. The rest, as they say, is matchmaking history. He went on to create Interwoven, Inc., which makes software to control the development, management, and deployment of business-critical content. More recently, Peng served as one of the twenty members of Singapore's high-level Economic Review Committee to review the economic plans for the future of Singapore. He now splits his time between Asia and the United States to help nurture technology startups and to foster collaborative business opportunities between the two regions. Now, if that's not a Singapore rainmaker and tech legend, we don't know who is.


Match.com is viewed as a US made product.. So what if the backend is done by some singaporeans, does singaporeans make it its own product and market it and make a name for it? No... Nobody think that Match.com is made in Sg but made in USA.. You got to let people know that. it only mean that Sg churned out workers but not sellers. You got to be a seller to make a name for yourself.
 
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chupacabra

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Whether its possible or not, it's way too late. Silicon valley itself is gonna retire in a few years time.
 

Froggy

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I love this new article. We should have news like this every Monday morning to have a laugh and loosen up for the week ahead.
 

chupacabra

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With the lack of intellectual property laws, i doubt so. The world will get back at china by copying the chinese ideas, producing it in china itself and selling it at a high price elsewhere. china now copies everyones idea and and have to sell it cheap abroad.
 
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Cestbon

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Very funny very soon in 5 year Seagate and HP will move at least 50% of there operation in Singapore to oversea.That they 2 largest electronic manufacturing in Singapore. When these 2 out many small/contractor support the companay will also bust.
 

red amoeba

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for a moment i thought silicone valley has something to do with breast implant, and thought shldn't that be Bangkok or Seoul?

SG be the silicone valley ? Come on, we have River Valley thats about it. Silicone valley?

Where is the entrepreuner spirit? Where is the get going spirit in the youths? Where is the not-afraid-to-fail attitude? where is the supporting infrastructure? The education system is still in transformation.

If Openet can continue dragging their feet regarding a national project, we can be silicon wasteland in no time.
 

no_faith

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Match.com is juz a website for ppl to find free fucks, why issit got to do wif tech???
if ttz case might as well include SBF. LOL:biggrin:
 
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