A team of five students from Temasek Applied Science School's Diploma in Chemical Engineering, walked away with the top Cash Award of S$5,000 in the Synergy 2006 Competition, beating other teams from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS), and the polytechnics. The competition was organised by NTU and co-organised by Intellectual Property Exchange Private Limited (IPEXL).
Synergy 2006 is a patent commercialisation competition which aims to
(i) create awareness of intellectual property and related commercialisation activities and
(ii) provide an innovative exchange platform for inventors, IP owners, venture capitalists, business developers and anyone generally interested in the commercialisation and exploitation of intellectual property.
For the competition, our students combined two patents for the development of a commercialisation plan:
- The first patent is a household water treatment device.
- The second patent is a method to coat nano-sized titanium dioxide photocatalyst onto supporting substrates.
The synergy in combining the household water filter with nanotechnology not only eliminated its limitations but also generated a new commercial product - a portable water treatment device.
Such devices can be used in niche markets like the SAF, crisis aids agencies and adventure seekers, thereby reducing business competitions and improving the survivability of the start-up company if the proposal is put into realization.
The annual competition is open to local polytechnic and university students and confers two awards – the Synergy 2006 Cash Awards and the Synergy 2006 Innovation Awards. The Cash Award is given to teams with business acumen, IP knowledge and technical expertise. Teams vying for the Innovation Awards are judged based on business/technology innovation, product feasibility/timing and investment value of the patents.
