Global Innovation Hotspots: Singapore’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem

Since its political independence in 1965, Singapore has achieved rapid economic growth and transformed itself into a major global financial, business and transport/information technology (IT) hub, with GDP per capita ranking among the highest in the world since the beginning of this decade. While the first three decades of Singapore’s rapid economic growth have been based largely on a strategy to attract and leverage global multinational corporations (MNCs) to create increasingly higher value-adding economic activities, the last 25 years have witnessed an increasing shift toward promoting technological innovation and entrepreneurship, and the building of a vibrant innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem that supports several major clusters of innovation, including medtech, smart urban mobility/infrastructure and internet/mobile e-commerce. More recently, the city-state has also been seeking to accelerate the commercialization of a wider range of deep technologies from universities and public research labs, including artificial intelligence (AI), advanced materials and fintech.