If you have lost hope in the current generation of university students, seeing the exhibition at InnovFest in Singapore recently would have restored it. I met a group of blockchain founders who are all current students or recent graduates of the National University of Singapore’s Enterprise incubation program. 

The university is Asia’s highest ranked, while its Enterprise program is its entrepreneurial arm and promotes funding, innovation and entrepreneurship by enabling student founders to build their startups on campus. The Singapore Blockchain Innovation Program is a national initiative aimed at strengthening Singapore’s blockchain ecosystem through research, commercialization and events. Based at the National University, the innovation program highlighted four of its startups recently at InnovFest. 

One of the startups, Verazt Security, focuses on detecting bugs and preventing financial loss in blockchain transactions. Co-founder Minh Ho stressed the importance of security in blockchain, particularly for financial transactions processed by smart contracts.

Tezsign is a digital signing platform utilizing blockchain to store document signing histories and AI to streamline contract drafting. 

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“A lot of people now are thinking of distributed computing,” Tezsign co-founder Tareq Al-Ahdal said to me in an interview. “One thing that I see as a big bottleneck is the computing power and resources that AI needs in order to run an AI model. It takes a lot of energy, and when you add blockchain to that, it's even more so. One of the challenges is the computing power. However, if the cost reduces, then I can see a lot of possibilities.”

MECAnywhere is working to solve this issue by offering a blockchain-powered platform for sharing underused computing resources. 

“We are still actively looking for collaborations with companies or government agencies to promote the solution,” Guoyu Hu, MEC Anywhere co-founder, said in an interview.  

IP8Value, co-founded by Zhongkai Huang, combines intellectual property management and commercialization systems to help investors better manage and monetize their IP. Despite still being in its early stages, the startup believes there is significant potential for their solution within the blockchain space.

Always happy to find women in tech, I spoke with Dr. Khushboo Khullar, co-founder of Rebit Labs. Based in Singapore and an alumna of the National University, Dr. Khullar is also a  partner at Lightning Ventures, a U.S.-based venture capital firm focused on Bitcoin-native startups. Rebit Labs develops software  and developer tools for integrating with the Bitcoin Lightning Network, a layer-two payment solution. 

Rebit Labs launched in February and has been growing steadily, she said. The startup has witnessed pivotal moments in the Bitcoin landscape, such as the launch of Bitcoin ETFs. “I believe in the technology and I believe in this space,” Dr. Khullar said. “The timing is right.” 

Singapore’s new digital blueprint

Singapore announced a new policy aimed at fostering the development of the digital economy with a focus on artificial intelligence and more support for cybersecurity. 

Tan Kiat How, Singapore’s senior minister of state at the Ministry of Communications and Information and Ministry of National Development, announced the Digital Enterprise Blueprint May 29 at the AsiaTech x SG conference. Although the minister acknowledged that he was most likely, “preaching to the converted” in a hall filled with technophiles, he said, “Let us embrace technology, and be at the forefront of change.” 

Amazon Web Services, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce have committed to supporting the new digital policy. The minister also announced a $3 million AI accelerator known as Ignition in partnership with chip-maker NVIDIA, Tribe and Digital Industry Singapore. 

The government of Singapore is hoping to lure business in the digital economy to the island city-state by creating an ecosystem that supports startups from the research stage to mass implementation. 

Noting the challenges faced by small to medium-size enterprises in embracing new technologies, Tan highlighted the importance of empowering them through digital transformation such as more integrated solutions and scalable architecture that is safe, simple and cost effective. 

lead image: (left to right): Dr, Khushboo Khullar, Kunpeng Ren, Tareq Al-Ahdal, Guoyu Hu, Minh Ho, Zihao Wang, Zhongkai Huang