Singapore Seeks a Breakthrough to Call Its Own

But in terms of actual innovation—output of ideas—the record is more mixed. While Singapore has become influential in some scientific fields and the number of patents has grown greatly, much of that activity is not driven by Singaporean companies. Foreign companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Micron Technology account for 15 of the top 20 patent winners in Singapore, and for over half of all intellectual-property claims, according to the National University of Singapore. That is much higher than the proportion seen in Japan, Korea, or Taiwan.

The presence of multinationals has also acted as a disincentive to would-be entrepreneurs, who may find it hard to turn down a high-status office job with an American-sized salary. Swee, the video editing entrepreneur, admits he's seen as a bit unusual for politely refusing the overtures of headhunters. "There are so many people who could have formed the next generation of tech innovators but decided to take on managerial jobs in regional sales offices of the multinational corporations," he says.

Singapore has lately been trying to give more encouragement to its nascent entrepreneurial class. As part of a plan to double the number of local companies with at least $80 million in revenue by 2020, aiming for a total of 1,000, it is offering a mix of direct financing, grants, and state-run venture capital. "Singapore is a small country," Teo Ser Luck, minister of state for trade and industry, said in a speech this August, delivered in a fashionable mix of Mandarin and English. He thinks smaller companies "must think global at an early stage if they want to grow." Similarly, the government's current priority for biomedical startups is to fund those that have "scalability for the global market," an agency website says.

Some say that in setting global goals Singapore is missing the chance to formulate its own distinctive type of innovation—one aimed more narrowly, perhaps within Asia. "The key to developing innovation is plugging into the ecosystem and networks around us, but we haven't fully exploited our natural connections to the regional backyard," says Wong Poh Kam, director of the National University of Singapore Entrepreneurship Center.

The government has typically placed bets with name-brand U.S. universities. For example, Singapore-Stanford Biodesign, a collaboration with Stanford University, trains innovators in medical technology. But Singapore hasn't formed such partnerships with Universitas Indonesia or the University of the Philippines. Those untapped, underdeveloped markets could be the real opportunity for disruptive technology, Wong thinks. He blames the oversight on the "cultural attitudes of strategic planners," which he says "are colored by where they have been schooled—namely, places such as Harvard and MIT."

For Singapore's technology entrepreneurs, at least, the lack of a blockbuster Singaporean invention or product isn't any reason not to keep thinking globally. Just the opposite, says Swee, whose company now has 60 employees. "If you cannot compete with the best in the world," he says, "you shouldn't exist."

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