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Media Release

SINGAPORE HONOURS INNOVATION AND DIGITAL READINESS

TRAIL BLAZERS

Singapore Digital (SG:D) Techblazer Awards 2019 recognises nation’s best in tech

innovation - 10 organisations clinched top honours in the Most Promising, Best

Adoption and the new Student categories

Inaugural Digital Participation Pledge (DPP) Awards honours organisations from

people, private and public sectors for their digital readiness initiatives

SINGAPORE – 5 November, 2019: 16 organisations were honoured for their efforts to

transform the economy and strengthen Singapore’s digital readiness, in support of the digital

economy.

10 organisations were recognised as Singapore’s most innovative at the 2019 Singapore

Digital (SG:D) Techblazer Awards. The companies received their awards from the Minister for

Communications and Information, Mr S Iswaran at the Tech Industry Night Gala dinner, jointly

organised by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (“IMDA”) and SGTech.

Now in its second year, the SG:D Techblazer Awards is the nation’s highest accolade for tech

innovation. In addition to corporate participants, three student teams received awards in the

new Student Techblazer category, which seeks to recognise and encourage the next

generation of tech innovators.

While businesses continue to innovate in technology, it is important to ensure that the

community is also equipped with digital skills so as to be able to enjoy the benefits in the digital

economy. As part of the Gala Night, organisations that pledged to help businesses,

employees, customers and the community acquire skills and adopt technology were honoured

in the inaugural Digital Participation Pledge (“DPP”) Awards. The DPP Awards is the nation’s

highest recognition for organisations that made a positive impact on Singapore’s digital

readiness.

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Recognising Nation’s Most Innovative at the SG:D TechBlazer Awards

This year’s Awards saw close to 300 applicants. Seven companies and three student

organisations emerged as winners in three categories – Most Promising Innovation, Best

Adoption and Student Techblazer.

Deep learning and AI were a common theme with applications ranging from medtech to

fintech. BioMind clinched the Gold award in the Most Promising Innovation category, for its

deep learning diagnostic support system that helps doctors review MRI and CT images. In the

same category, CashShield’s fraud-detection product and Tookitaki Holdings’ anti-money

laundering solution both won the Silver award1. Students from Singapore University of

Technology and Design won the Gold award in the Student Techblazer category for their

simulated data platform, Bifrost.

The public sector also demonstrated the impact of digitalisation, as the National Parks Board

won Best Adoption (Public) category for its new digital tree management system that helps

effectively manage its database of all the trees in Singapore. For more information on the

winners and their winning solutions, please see Annex A.

"We are in an era of unprecedented disruptions and changes, both in technology and by

technology. Through their innovative solutions, the winners have demonstrated how to lead

the way to address today's challenges by exploiting technology. With the Student Techblazer

category, it is our wish that participating in the Awards would spur our students to leverage

their learning and experience from the competition, and inspire them in using tech disruptions

to better lives," said Wong Wai Meng, Chairman of SGTech.

"There was a general improvement in the quality of submissions this year. What stood out was

a handful of Singaporean entrepreneurs who demonstrated courage and foresight. They grew

their start-ups in an unconventional direction - starting overseas to leverage favourable

conditions such as easy access to large data sets, before bringing their solutions home. I look

forward to seeing more deep-tech solutions competing in the field next year." said Mr

Raymond Choong, Partner at FocusTech Ventures and an SGTech judge.

1CashShield and Tookitaki are accredited companies under IMDA’s Accreditation@SG programme, which aims to accelerate the growth of Singapore-based innovative technology product companies through winning contracts with government agencies and large enterprises, as well as facilitating new growth capital into the companies.

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Organisations’ digital readiness efforts recognised through the Digital Participation

Pledge

Since the launch of DPP in March, administered by Ministry of Communications and

Information (“MCI”) and IMDA, close to 900 organisations from the private, people and public

sectors have taken the pledge to help equip everyone with digital skills and adopt technology.

The DPP Awards was introduced to recognise Singapore-based organisations that have

exemplified the spirit of digital readiness and made a significant impact in equipping

Singaporeans with digital skills, to enable them to tap on the opportunities offered by

technology to improve their quality of life.

The awards saw about 70 nominations entered for two award categories. Six organisations

received the nation’s highest accolade today for their outstanding digital readiness efforts.

“I would like to offer my heartiest congratulations to all our award recipients. The SG:Digital

Techblazer Awards and the Digital Participation Pledge Awards are our nation’s highest

honours in their respective spheres. Through these awards, we celebrate the indomitable spirit

of tech innovation as well as the heart shown by our industry to help the community better use

technology. It is my hope that these awards will serve as a beacon to all as the industry

continues to blaze the trail in Singapore’s journey towards a digital economy and a smart

nation.” said Tan Kiat How, Chief Executive Officer, IMDA.

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Related Resources

Annex A: Write-ups of SG:D Techblazer Award Winners

Annex B: Quotes from winners

Annex C: SG:D Techblazer Awards overview and categories

Annex D: Digital Participation Pledge Award Recipients & Companies’ Quotes

Annex E: Digital Participation Pledge Awards Categories

Annex F: Factsheet on Digital Participation Pledge

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ISSUED BY THE INFOCOMM MEDIA DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

About Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA)

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) leads Singapore’s digital transformation

with infocomm media. To do this, IMDA will develop a dynamic digital economy and a cohesive

digital society, driven by an exceptional infocomm media (ICM) ecosystem – by developing

talent, strengthening business capabilities, and enhancing Singapore's ICM infrastructure.

IMDA also regulates the telecommunications and media sectors to safeguard consumer

interests while fostering a pro-business environment, and enhances Singapore’s data

protection regime through the Personal Data Protection Commission.

For more news and information, visit www.imda.gov.sg or follow IMDA on Facebook IMDAsg

and Twitter @IMDAsg.

About SGTech

SGTech is a premier trade association for the tech industry in Singapore that strives to create

an ecosystem which anticipates trends and develops sustainable initiatives to strengthen and

help the industry. SGTech’s close to 1000 members range from start-ups, SMEs, to MNCs

that leverage technology as a core driver for business. The two fundamental value

propositions of SGTech are:

Advocate for Industry -

A voice that actively and responsibly advocates for change that benefits members and the

industry

Supports Singapore’s Agenda for Technology -

Contributes to the industry’s growth and transformation by supporting programmes and

initiatives that enhance the Singaporean economy.

For more information, visit www.sgtech.org.sg or follow SGTech on Linkedin SGTech ;

Facebook SGTechSocial ; Twitter @SGTechSocial

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For media clarifications, please contact:

Patrick LIM (Mr)

Assistant Manager, Communications & Marketing, IMDA

DID: (65) 8163 2689

Email: Patrick_John_LIM@imda.gov.sg

Jasmine XU (Ms)

Assistant Manager, Communications & Marketing, IMDA

DID: (65) 8201 5741

Email: Jasmine_XU@imda.gov.sg

TAN Lay Ping (Ms)

Assistant Director, Communications & Marketing, IMDA

DID: (65) 8870 2688

Email: TAN_Lay_Ping@imda.gov.sg

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ANNEX A

SG:D Techblazer Award Winners

Company Product/ Solution

Most Promising Innovation (Gold)

BioMind

Hanalytics Pte Ltd (BioMind®) is an

artificial intelligence company specialising

in healthcare. The company builds

advanced AI technology and creates

predictive applications to assist doctors in

decision making for diagnosis, treatment

and reporting. The company has a strong

team of over 60 in-house deep learning

scientists, medical experts, and research

advisors from prestigious hospitals and

universities.

BioMind ®

BioMind® is a diagnostic support system that uses

deep learning technology to analyse MRI and CT

images. It automatically recommends a diagnosis and

a report for doctors to review – all within seconds. This

is faster than the average 1 hour or more doctors take

for analysis and reporting.

Its signature feature is the analysing of neurological

disorders such as brain tumours, vascular diseases

and stroke-related medical conditions, which take up

the majority of the conditions determined through

medical imaging.

With the application of AI technology, not only can

BioMind® analyse a large spectrum of neurological

conditions, its technology can also be upgraded to

analyse medical conditions of other body systems.

Most Promising Innovation (Silver)

CashShield

CashShield is a global enterprise risk

management company that leverages

over a decade of domain intelligence

and AI to help companies block fraud in

CashShield

An end-to-end fraud management solution that is fully

machine automated with no human intervention. It

provides a comprehensive protection that covers all

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real-time. Founded in 2008, CashShield

was the first to introduce a 100%

automated fraud solution. We profile

more than 5 billion devices per year and

over 500 million user accounts.

CashShield secures businesses across

the globe, covering industries such as e-

wallet, super apps, e-commerce, travel,

and digital goods etc. Trusted by

leading players and governments

worldwide, we partner with and secure

billions in GMV for enterprises such as

OVO, Alibaba, Razer, Scalefast and

Grab, empowering them to compete

and scale without risk. For more

information, visit www.cashshield.com.

vulnerable entries to fraud attacks across multiple

channels and devices, at every stage of the process.

With a combination of domain intelligence, AI, and

machine learning, CashShield is able to monitor and

deal with fraud in real-time, protecting enterprises

from all sorts of fraud attacks, such as account

takeovers, promo abuse, loan fraud or money

laundering.

Most Promising Innovation (Silver)

Tookitaki Holdings

Tookitaki is providing enterprise

software solutions that create

sustainable compliance programs for

the financial services industry. The

company is innovating the regulatory

compliance space by moving beyond

rules-based applications and

introducing software solutions to

maximize efficiency and reduce risks in

the compliance processes. Its mission is

to provide machine learning-powered

regulatory compliance solutions that are

auditable, scalable and actionable.

Anti-Money Laundering Suite (AMLS)

AMLS is a proven, end-to-end machine learning-

powered transaction monitoring & name screening

solution, which improves operational efficiency,

mitigates the risk of money laundering and reduces

the cost of compliance.

AMLS comprises of two modules: AMLS-TM for

transaction monitoring and AMLS-NS for names and

sanctions screening.

The solution offers many benefits such as:

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Incorporated in November 2014 in

Singapore, the company is currently led

by a core team with cumulative 150-

years’ experience in finance, AI, Big

Data Analytics and financial crime.

Tookitaki is backed by institutional

investors Jungle Ventures, Enterprise

Singapore (Singapore Government)

and Illuminate Financial and have a

presence in the US, Singapore and

India.

Improves risk coverage by identifying new

suspicious transaction reports/suspicious

activity reports (STRs/SARs).

Reduces false positives and improves

efficiency in the alerts disposition process.

Provides detailed explanations for every alert

to ensure better regulatory compliance.

Provides actionable analytics for an integrated

AML view across key components of

transaction monitoring and name screening.

Complements and integrates seamlessly with

existing AML systems.

Most Promising Innovation (Bronze)

Spark Systems

Founded in 2016, Spark Systems is a

Singapore-based FinTech company

that provides all-around high-tech

solutions for forex (FX) trading. The

platform connects buyers and sellers

directly, and aims to resolve existing

issues in FX trading

SparkFX Platform

SparkFX is a trading platform, with a unique solution

such as:

Innovative & Efficient FX Aggregation

Ultra-Low Latency Execution

Extremely Low Rejections

Enhanced and Optimised User Experience

Whitelabelling/ Sell Side / Pricing Engine

Commercialization potential of the solutions are as

below:

Aggregator –easy to use modern graphical

interface

Algorithm –designed for optimal execution

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Company Product/ Solution

Best Adoption (Public Sector)

National Parks Board

The National Parks Board (NParks) of

Singapore is the lead agency for

greenery, biodiversity conservation,

wildlife and animal management. With

the aim of maintaining Singapore’s

extensive urban greenery, NParks

continuously innovates to enhance

operational effectiveness and meet

challenges such as climate change.

Today, NParks manages four nature

reserves, more than 350 parks as well

as an estimated 2 million urban trees.

Digitalisation of Tree Management

The Digitalisation of Tree Management plays a key

role to meet the challenges of managing Singapore’s

greenery.

It supports NParks transformation from providers of:

Basic tree care services (e.g. tree planting and

tree pruning) to managers of tree risks (e.g.

tree health and safety assessment, and

species selection).

Collection of Information for Tree Health

Assessment –through sensors, mobile field

equipment and integrated systems; and

Building Analytics and Modelling to

understand Tree characteristics

Best Adoption (Enterprise)

Parkway Hospitals Singapore

Parkway Pantai is one of Asia’s largest

integrated private healthcare providers

operating in Malaysia, Singapore, India,

China, Brunei and United Arab Emirates.

For over 40 years, its Mount Elizabeth,

Gleneagles, Pantai, Parkway and Fortis

brands have established themselves as

the region’s best known brands in private

AI-Powered Pre-Admission Cost of

Hospitalization Estimation (APACHE)

APACHE is a scalable plug-and-play system that

provides high availability, fault-tolerance, and real-

time processing of high-volume estimate requests.

APACHE provides highly accurate cost estimates,

dynamically generated based on relevant parameters

such as the patient’s age, gender, length of stay in

hospital (i.e normal room or Intensive Care / High

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healthcare, synonymous with best-in-

class patient experience and outcomes.

Leveraging its global track record for

medical excellence and managing world-

class hospitals, Parkway Pantai is

committed to making a difference in

people’s lives through excellent patient

care, steadily expanding its reach in

markets where demand for quality care is

strong and growing.

Parkway Pantai is a leading healthcare

player in its home markets of Malaysia,

Singapore and India and key growth

markets of China and Hong Kong.

It is part of IHH Healthcare, one of the

world’s largest healthcare groups by

market capitalisation. IHH operates more

than 15,000 licensed beds across 80

hospitals in 10 countries worldwide,

offering the full spectrum of integrated

healthcare services from clinics to

hospitals to quaternary care and a wide

range of ancillary services including

medical education.

Dependency Unit), admitting diagnosis and/or

surgical procedures etc.

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Best Adoption (SME)

York Launch Service and Maritime

Technologies (R&D)

Started in 1993 with a fleet of 6 old

wooden launches, York Launch Service

provides launch services to the different

anchorages around Singapore and has

since grown to be the leading provider

for launch services boasting the largest

fleet in Singapore.

Book-a-Launch (B-a-L)

A launch service ferries passengers or small cargoes

to/from the hundreds of ships that arrive and anchor

in Singapore’s port daily. These ships call at

Singapore for various operations and bring in

substantial income and value for Singapore due to our

competitiveness and ability to keep their turn-around

fast.

The maritime sector contributes 7% of Singapore’s

GDP. As such, the launch service is critical because

any delays or disruptions will incur costs to these

ships and Singapore very dearly.

“Book-a-Launch” is an operation system that

incorporates agile and flexible ERP, CRM that are

tailored for the launch industry specifically. It also

connects them digitally with their customers.

Company Product/ Solution

Student Techblazer (Gold)

Singapore University of Technology

and Design

Bifrost allows companies to build AI in a

week instead of a year. Autonomous

vehicles, robots and drones need

hundreds of thousands of images and

video to learn about the world around

Bifrost- Accelerated AI through Synthetic Data

Bifrost is a synthetic data platform that will give AI

engineers the ability to create and access quality

artificial datasets using synthetic data generation

technology.

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them. Collecting these images is the most

time-consuming and expensive step

when building AI. Instead of capturing

data from the real world, Bifrost generates

custom virtual worlds. These worlds let

our clients capture rich data at a fraction

of the time and cost.

With this platform, engineers will have access to

affordable, fast and high quality labelled data,

unlocking the enormous potential of AI development

at scale.

Student Techblazer (Silver)

School of Science And Technology,

Singapore

The School of Science and Technology,

Singapore (SST) is a Specialised

Independent School that offers a

distinctive 4-year GCE O-Level

programme with an integrated approach

to applied learning. Learning in SST is

multi-faceted as students gain a strong

foundation of key academic concepts in

core subjects like Mathematics and

Science. Receiving institutions of

graduated students have reported that

the SST students demonstrate a distinct

difference in the way they approach their

CodeCollab

CodeCollab is a real-time code editor and compiler

aimed at aiding both students and teachers learn

together in a collaborative classroom environment.

CodeCollab currently supports 16 programming

languages, and is used in 2 Secondary Schools in

Singapore.

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learning, indicating that the school is well

on its way to becoming a global leader in

transforming learning and nurturing

passionate innovators through real-world

applications of science and technology.

For more information, visit

www.sst.edu.sg

Student Techblazer (Bronze)

Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)

Founded in 1886, Anglo-Chinese School

(Independent) is a school under the

Singapore Ministry of Education and an

International Baccalaureate (IB) World

School. ACS (Independent) is distinctive

for its quest for excellence and focus on

all-round, values-centric development,

anchored in a school environment of

family and community. For more

information, please visit

https://www.acsindep.moe.edu.sg/

MedACS – Medicine Automated Control System

An integrated medication scheduling, provision and

reminder system. With a smartphone app, MedACS

supersedes existing systems by offering a system

which remotely and automatically tabulates and

schedules pill dispensal.

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Annex B

Selected quotes from winners:

BioMind® is an artificial intelligence (AI) application that assists radiologists in decision

making for medical image diagnosis and reporting. It has obtained both the Singapore HSA

certification and European CE mark as a diagnostic support solution in the complex field

of neurological diseases. Since its inception, BioMind® has helped hospitals improve their

productivity, workflow efficiency and reduce misdiagnoses.

The Techblazer Award is a prestigious award and the assessment process is a self-

discovery journey during which more than 30 judges provide valuable insights to generate

sustainable results and global impact. Winning it cements the company's position as the AI

leader in the medical field and boosts confidence to our stakeholders in the ecosystem.

- Raymond Moh, CEO, Biomind; Winner of Most Promising Innovation (Gold)

“We at Tookitaki have always been keen to participate in competitions recognising

innovations. The Techblazer Awards was especially compelling with its unique approach to

assessing modern technologies and their use cases. The entire process was well

coordinated; the judging panel was very relevant and experienced to handle complex

innovation themes, and the Techblazer team was very helpful with timely feedback and fine-

tuning of pitches.

We thank the organisers for giving startups like ours this opportunity to present our

innovations to the world and for giving us a great platform to build our brands.”

- Abhishek Chatterjee, co-founder and CEO, Tookitaki Holdings, Winner of Most

Promising Innovation (Silver)

“The digitalisation of tree management advances the National Parks Board’s management of

Singapore’s greenery. For example, 3D models and analytics are used to model our trees to

allow for remote sensing of tree growth and health. This, coupled with sensors, mobile field

equipment and integrated systems, enhances our tree health assessment capabilities,

thereby strengthening our tree management regime.

This award is made possible due to the collaborative efforts of our research partners in

academia and industry, and encourages us to continue to advance the science behind tree

management.”

- Mr Tan Chong Lee, Chief Technology Officer and Assistant CEO, NParks, Winner of

Best Adoption (Public)

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Selected quotes from winners (Continued):

“We believe our synthetic data platform has the potential to fundamentally change the way

AI teams develop image recognition technology. We're excited to be pushing AI technology

forward! It's an honour to be recognised at the Techblazer Awards, and we're grateful to

IMDA for giving us the platform to show our technology to the world!”

- Charles Wong, CEO, Bifrost, Winner of Student Techblazer (Gold)

"MedACS helps patients and caregivers by automating medicine dosing and allowing remote

care. The Techblazer Awards has been a great platform for us to learn from industry leaders

and apply our engineering and scientific knowledge to create practical solutions. The Award

is a strong affirmation of our product’s potential to improve the safety of patients and reduce

the burden on caregivers."

- Dylan Tay, student, ACS (I), Winner of Student Techblazer (Bronze)

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ANNEX C

Overview of SG:D Techblazer Awards

1. SG:D Techblazer Awards is the nation’s highest accolade for tech innovation and aims to

provide recognition and endorsement to Singaproe-based organisations and companies

that exemplify the spirit of innovation in the development of their tech products and

services.

2. The Awards is a merger of the bi-annual National Infocomm Awards (NIA) by then-

Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and the annual SiTF Awards by

then-Singapore Infocomm Technology Federation (SiTF), with the goal of strengthening

and accelerating digital transformation efforts.

3. SG:D Techblazer Awards 2019 is the second run of the Techblazer Awards with the first

run in 2018.

Techblazer Award Categories:

A. Most Promising Innovation

Recognises the innovation behind products or solutions developed by Singapore-registered

Infocomm Technology (ICT) companies. The product or solution must create outstanding

impact on the way businesses operate or greatly enhance the quality of lives for end users.

The companies should have fulfilled a marketplace need by developing a commercially viable

business model around this innovative product or solution, which has the potential to be

sustainable in the long run. They should also have carved out new markets, with high growth

potential, for themselves through this innovative product or solution.

B. Best Adoption

Recognises Singapore-registered companies and public sector organisations that have

adopted products or solutions leveraging emerging technologies. Solutions could have been

co-developed jointly with technology companies to digitally transform their businesses,

resulting in greater competitive advantage, operational efficiency, enhanced productivity and

improved citizens or customer experiences.

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C. Student TechBlazer

Recognises innovative ideas with commercialisation potential developed by students and

student teams from Singapore public educational institutions. Solutions must leverage

emerging technologies to fulfill a marketplace need or has potential to carve out new markets.

The submission should demonstrate the spirit of entrepreneurship through technology

innovation, and include potential business plan. This award category aims to discover and

encourage the next generation of innovators.

Judging Criteria

The nominations are judged by industry veterans, business leaders, investors, and public

sector representatives. There were 2 rounds of judging - Preliminary & Finals. Participants

presented to a panel of judges for each category.

Nominations were judged based on:

(i) Product innovation and competitive advantage;

(ii) Types of customers/market served;

(iii) User experience and ease of implementation; and

(iv) Value and business impact among others.