Media Release For Immediate Dissemination Total: 7 pages A*STAR S I 2 R UNVEILS REACH@I 2 R (REsearch And Commercialisation Hub) TO BOOST DEEPER INTEGRATION WITH INDUSTRY Innovations within REACH @I 2 R: Over SGD$50 million invested by our industry partners to further develop leading-edge technologies for translation into industry impact 1. Singapore, 13 March 2014 A*STAR s Institute for Infocomm Research (I 2 R) officially opened REACH@I 2 R (REsearch And Commercialisation Hub), adopting a Whole-of-I 2 R approach in bringing the diverse and relevant range of scientific capabilities to engage with local and global businesses on a long term strategic basis. The various economic verticals include the Energy, Finance, Healthcare, Media and Entertainment, Telecommunications, and Transportation sectors. Located on one floor within I 2 R s premises at Fusionopolis, the hub comprises 13 joint laboratories, a result of I 2 R s collaborations with local and international organisations such as: Baidu Inc; BYD Company Limited; DBS Bank; McLaren Applied Technologies; National Healthcare Group; NCS Group; NEC Asia Pacific; Land Transport Authority; Ping An Insurance Group; Singapore Power Group; SingTel; ST Electronics; Topcon Corporation, Japan. Details of the individual joint laboratories are available in Annex A. 2. The joint laboratories represent sustained collaboration engagements from I 2 R to apply its dedicated resources to meet the specific needs of the industry and accelerate technology capabilities building with its partners. The joint laboratories have garnered over SGD$50 million investment from the joint laboratory partners, with I 2 R contributing laboratory space and research expertise. Currently, there are more than 130 R&D personnel working in these joint laboratories and I 2 R expects these numbers to increase as more research projects are defined and initiated down the road. 3. The first I 2 R joint laboratory collaboration kick-started in July 2012 with Baidu Inc., the leading Chinese language internet search provider. Since then, the research and development areas of the jo i nt laboratories collaborations have spread across multiple
technology verticals to include intelligent speech technologies, healthcare, communications, data analytics, autonomous vehicle technologies, and grid networks. To date, successful innovations that have been developed include: A voice recognition unlock feature with Baidu for the Lenovo A685 smartphone Vision-related technology in the areas of visual acuity assessment, augmented reality laser surgery and eye disease detection through the Advanced Vision and Technology Alliance (AVATA) I 2 R-NHG Innovation Lab with National Healthcare Group Eye Institute @ Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Technologies that detect major eye disorders and diseases such as myopia, glaucoma, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) faster and more accurately, as a result of the ATLANTIA lab with Topcon Corporation 4. Building on the momentum gained from these 13 joint laboratories, I 2 R will be establishing more joint laboratories with key strategic industry partners in order to promote a vibrant infocomm ecosystem that addresses the needs of the various industry verticals. 5. Dr. Tan Geok Leng, Executive Director of A*STAR s Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC), said, At A*STAR, we strive to deliver high quality research in key disciplines that will address industry needs. In a short span of less than two years, I 2 R has opened 13 joint laboratories with local and global organisations bringing in tremendous investments into Singapore. This enables collaboration partners to optimise their productivity and boost innovation for their respective sectors. I congratulate I 2 R on this joyous occasion. 6. Dr. Lee Shiang Long, Executive Director of I 2 R said, Today s official opening of our 13 joint laboratories marks a new milestone for I 2 R. The opening of REACH@I 2 R demonstrates I 2 R s efforts to meet our vision of powering a vibrant and strong infocomm ecosystem for Singapore. This innovation hub is an excellent showcase of innovations within REACH, where Research Reaches Industry and Industry Reaches Research - a place to develop innovations to meet our partners needs and where the industry can tap on I 2 R s exciting technologies to strengthen their competitiveness in the global market. Our partners will be able to better understand and meet the needs of their customers with the innovations developed from the joint laboratories. Page 2 of 7
7. The World Economic Forum places Singapore as second in the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) 1, which ranks economies that are best placed to benefit from new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The ranking shows that Singapore is utilising science and technology to boost higher productivity, economic growth and quality jobs in the current economic environment. The establishment of REACH@I 2 R, the largest cluster of co-located joint laboratories in Singapore, supports this by addressing the ICT needs for Singaporelishment of REACH@Ineeds of their customers with the innoership that goes beyond ad hoc collaborations, and equipping industry partners with a competitive edge in the global market. Enclosed: ANNEX A List of Joint Labs at REACH@I 2 R -End- 1 Ranking compiled by the World Economic Forum for its Global Information Technology Report 2013: http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-information-technology Page 3 of 7
ANNEX A LIST OF JOINT LABS AT REACH@I 2 R: 1) AVATA (Advanced Vision And Technology Alliance) Innovation Lab with NHG Eye Institute @ Tan Tock Seng Hospital Develop impactful capabilities and technologies focused on eye and vision-related treatment, care and health Develop a suite of state-of-the-art clinical assistance technologies that will aid clinicians in their clinical tasks to improve procedures, outcomes and effectiveness in patient treatment and care To serve as an incubation ground for I 2 R to test and refined newly developed technologies in a controlled clinical environment 2) Baidu-I 2 R Research Centre (BIRC) To conduct research on Southeast Asian language processing To utilise I 2 R s technologies for the semantic search engine feature called box computing In November 2012, BIRC announced the first speaker verification technology would be integrated into the Lenovo A586 smartphone with built-in voiceprint feature. The smartphone is the first in the industry that incorporates this Speaker Verification technology into its operating system. With this distinctive feature, an authorized user can unlock the smartphone simply by speaking a passphrase, without the need to use PINs, passwords or finger swipe patterns 3) I 2 R BYD Joint Lab To support I 2 R s AV capabilities building in the area of providing their vehicle platform, and assisting to build our I 2 R AV platform for sensors, integration and data collection through the BYD e-taxi fleet on the road To support I 2 R-BYD s EV/AV R&D and Test-bedding Roadmap in Singapore and to provide a framework for initiating, execution; and governance of all joint-collaboration between the Parties in Singapore Leveraging BYD as the first partner (vehicle manufacturer) in our AV programme to garner other partners like Continental, STK, to help support the Eco-System Platform I 2 R is building 4) DBS I 2 R Joint Lab Leveraging analytics and insights to create new ways of engaging customers and building relationships through the new of new technology Developing commercial and executable solutions and products in mobile technology, social platforms and other leading-edge technologies, driven around a customer experience centred design Page 4 of 7
5) I 2 R McLaren Applied Technologies Joint Lab Predictive Analytics, Modelling and Simulation for the Transportation, Energy, Healthcare and Wellness industries 6) I 2 R NCS Joint Lab Building up NCS Business Intelligence capabilities to help our customers analyse and visualise the enterprise data to provide actionable, timely and predictive recommendations. Harnessing insights and creating value by taming the big data through Predictive Analytics and transformational technologies. Paving the way to develop potential and new areas in communications and sensors technologies. 7) I 2 R NEC APAC Joint Lab Social Analytics in the areas of Urban Surveillance, Infrastructure Maintenance and Management, Smart Energy and others. 8) I 2 R Land Transport Authority Joint Lab Leveraging Data Analytics to facilitate deeper understanding of road transport system for better decision making Intelligent Transport System technologies To act as a framework and window for collaborations between LTA & A*STAR 9) I 2 R Ping An Insurance Group Advanced predictive analytics for customer profiling, sales analytics as risk profiling for Insurance and Banking Goal is to improve its sales closure rate and cross selling across Life, Motor insurance, Property and Banking segments 10) I 2 R Singapore Power Joint Lab Singapore Power Group (SP) is a leading energy utility group in the Asia Pacific. It owns and operates electricity and gas transmission and distribution businesses in Singapore and Australia. Over a million industrial, commercial and residential customers in Singapore benefit from Singapore Power's world-class transmission, distribution and market support services With increasingly sophisticated energy demands, Singapore Power has been actively participating in research and development on Smart Grid technologies. The I 2 R- Singapore Power Joint Lab initiative is an expansion of Singapore Power s efforts in this direction The team is leveraging research and development to devise game-changing solutions for Singapore's grid network and develop sustainable solutions to our customers. One key development is TV White Space Mesh Networking solution to support diverse applications such as pervasive online condition monitoring. The team is also harnessing the latest advancements in data communications and pushing the limits of information and communications technology. The aim is to develop solutions for greater grid reliability and efficiency, and to deliver smarter operations Page 5 of 7
11) I 2 R SingTel Joint Lab Develop advanced DA for personalized, relevant information/services to mobile users, and glean deeper customer insights through existing data assets 12) I 2 R ST Electronics (Info-Comm Systems) Joint Lab To support ST Electronics (Info-Comm Systems) roadmap in Software Defined Communications Systems To jointly execute all I 2 R - ST Electronics (Info-Comm Systems) on-going and new related projects To develop manpower and capabilities in communications and network waveform technology 13) I 2 R - Topcon Innovation Lab Development of image analysis technique based on Swept-source OCT Development of technologies for new imaging modality with Portable SLO system Development of software solutions for Topcon web viewer system for Medical Application Store For media enquiries, please contact: Ms Doris Yang Senior Officer, Corporate Communications for Institute for Infocomm Research DID: (65) 6419 6525 Email: yangscd@scei.a-star.edu.sg About Institute for Infocomm Research (I 2 R) Singapore s largest ICT research institute, I 2 R (pronounced as i-squared-r) is a member of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) family. Established in 2002, our vision is to power a vibrant and strong infocomm ecosystem in Singapore. I 2 R focuses on conducting mission oriented research to address key challenges faced locally. At I 2 R, intelligence, communications and media (ICM) form our 3 strategic thrusts. Our research capabilities are in information technology, wireless and optical communication networks, interactive and digital media, sensors, signal processing and computing. We perform R&D in ICM technologies to develop holistic solutions across the ICM value chain and we believe that the greatest impact is created when research outcomes are translated into technologies our partners can readily Page 6 of 7
deploy at a competitive advantage. For more information about I 2 R, please visit www.i2r.astar.edu.sg. About the Agency for Science, Technology and Research The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is Singapore's lead public sector agency that fosters world-class scientific research and talent to drive economic growth and transform Singapore into a vibrant knowledge-based and innovation driven economy. In line with its mission-oriented mandate, A*STAR spearheads research and development in fields that are essential to growing Singapore s manufacturing sector and catalysing new growth industries. A*STAR supports these economic clusters by providing intellectual, human and industrial capital to its partners in industry. A*STAR oversees 18 biomedical sciences and physical sciences and engineering research entities, located in Biopolis and Fusionopolis, as well as their vicinity. These two R&D hubs house a bustling and diverse community of local and international research scientists and engineers from A*STAR s research entities as well as a growing number of corporate laboratories. For more information about A*STAR, please visit www.a-star.edu.sg Page 7 of 7