What the Singapore-France innovation partnership means

Photo credit: Pixabay and YesManPro

Mathias is a TIA Star Contributor and publishes high-value content that serves the Asian tech community. Read more from TIA Star Contributors here.

This year’s VivaTech convention in Paris played host to thousands of delegates from around the world—from startups to industry leaders—all there to celebrate the latest innovations and the power of technology to transform business and society.

Among the crowd was an unusually large delegation from Singapore led by S. Iswaran, Singapore’s minister for communications and information.

This was no surprise. January 2018 marked the start of the France-Singapore Year of Innovation, a partnership between the two countries aimed at fostering stronger relationships, developing expertise, and sharing knowledge.

Despite their distance, the two nations have a variety of reasons to collaborate.

Currently ranked the third-most innovative country in the world, Singapore’s Smart Nation agenda has garnered a lot of attention from foreign businesses. France is also a global leader in this sphere, with the sixth highest R&D expenditure after the US, China, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Both countries have also been incentivizing private R&D projects through generous tax credits and grants in order to drive their growth strategies.

Singapore as a ‘sandbox’ for experimentation

Singapore’s small population and adaptable regulation toward new technologies has allowed many companies to pilot initiatives that would not have been possible in their home countries.

The city-state has become one of the most accommodating places to experiment with new technologies. For example, companies have safely and successfully tested driverless cars on roads in Singapore.

The government’s policy-making process also allows for input from innovators. For example, a consortium of companies is currently in discussion over the rules around drones to enable the adoption of the technologies for deliveries. This is something that has been scuppered in Europe due to no-fly laws.

The independent nature of Singapore also means that it has a more flexible approach to data access, an important factor in the age of AI. In comparison, France is subject to heavy data privacy regulations, which sometimes stymies the speed of innovation.

French experience and expertise

On the other hand, France has size and history on its side: a large pool of qualified engineers in addition to well-established, high-performing, and large-scale industrial companies.

Innovators working in France can benefit from access to a larger national market with more expansive sector opportunities. There’s a broader scope for product development and innovation when targeting the automotive, energy, aerospace, and robotics markets. Innovators also have greater opportunities both within France and the wider EU when compared to the smaller market of Singapore.

The French also have an entrepreneurial mindset, a high number of tech role models, and a large list of successful exits to guide them. World-class public research institutions have fostered a strong infrastructure of innovation production, an ecosystem that is accustomed to conducting R&D collaborations between universities, research centers, and businesses.

Cross-country collaboration

Innovating toward a better future