There are many ways to turns ideas into reality, but what does it take to make it a functioning business case? Water & Wastewater Asia speaks with PUB’s senior assistant director Winnie Tan, and senior manager, Wong Xin Wei, who shed insights into PUB’s commercialisation programme to address the challenges today’s water start-ups are facing.
As Singapore’s national water agency, PUB has been leveraging technologies to overcome the republic’s natural water constraints. The agency constantly invests in water research, and grows its water technologies through collaborations with universities and private companies to develop new solutions that can support its mission of supplying good water, reclaiming used water, taming stormwater, and resisting rising seas.
To enhance the commercialisation outcomes of promising locally-developed technologies and in line with Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025’s focus on translation and commercialisation, PUB kick-started a pilot commercialisation programme in collaboration with 500 Startups, a US-based accelerator and global venture capital firm.
The commercialisation programme is aimed at supporting start-ups by building their capabilities and accelerating their growth, and is targeted at growth-stage start-ups and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Furthermore, it is part of the range of initiatives at the Singapore Water Exchange (SgWX) to help water companies collaborate and co-innovate, so as to build a global marketplace of innovative water companies.
Elaborating on the purpose of the commercialisation programme, Winnie Tan, senior assistant director at PUB, told Water & Wastewater Asia that it hopes to help water start-ups in Singapore “hone their business model, sales and marketing strategies, pitching skills”, and impart to these start-ups the knowledge, frameworks and tools needed to grow their business and access new partners or markets.
She emphasised that the start-ups that have participated in this programme have innovative technologies that are “key to Singapore’s water management”. Furthermore, PUB plays an active part in the programme curation to blend structured lessons with dedicated mentorship to help the start-ups develop new capabilities.
The full article is published on the latest Water & Wastewater Asia Sep/Oct 2021 issue. To continue reading, click here.
