What started as a pet project for Life Sciences alumnus (2020) Mr ONG Shujian – creating animal-free meat alternatives to alleviate animal suffering – has since led him to set up Ants Innovate, which focuses on developing cell-cultured whole meat cuts. The startup uses proprietary biotechnologies and tissue engineering expertise to grow animal cells on scaffolds that recreate the natural processes of muscle growth and mimic the texture of meat cuts.

Ants Innovate launched its plant-based bak kwa, dumplings and spring rolls in 2022. Mr Ong’s team is now seeking regulatory approval of their seasoning ingredient – a cell essence that smells and tastes like animal fat – to be incorporated in their plant-based products to boost their flavour. 

Life Sciences alumna (2013) Dr Rishita CHANGEDE founded TeOra to address food loss from diseases. Her startup uses bioinformatics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to precisely formulate natural compounds for biologics, such as peptides, that are tailored to diseases in agriculture and aquaculture.

Its disease management solution for the lethal white spot syndrome virus significantly reduces disease-related mortality from this pathogen. These solutions, which she plans to extend to plants and animals, are easily transported and incorporated in daily farming practices. TeOra is the recipient of several international awards, and recently beat over 600 entries across 82 countries to receive $1 million in grant funding under The Liveability Challenge (2023).

Painful injections and bitter pills – which could be distressing and unpleasant for patients – could soon become a thing of the past, replaced by thin medicated films that patients can tuck discreetly into their cheeks.

Pharmacy alumna (2009, 2023) Dr TAN Poh Leng and her team developed easy-to-use adhesive films for placement on the inner cheek to release medicine into the bloodstream directly. The team set up PharLyfe+ to commercialise their first product, a buccal film with a drug for epilectic and end-of-life patients. They have filed a provisional patent in November 2022 and are now evaluating film products for different medications to prepare for regulatory filing in Singapore and the United States.

The challenges facing technology recruitment are now even more pressing amidst economic uncertainty and job losses in the sector. NodeFlair, a career advancement platform for technology talents co-founded by Physics alumnus (2018) Mr Ethan ANG, aims to address this issue.

Mr Ang, who “loves to build”, applied his passion to create a platform which brings together information such as payslip-verified salary data, job listings, career information and company reviews for technology roles across all seniority levels. This connects employers with technology talent and helps jobseekers to make informed career decisions. Nodeflair recently received US$2 million in Series A funding, enabling it to expand its reach in the region and introduce new user-friendly features.

Statistics alumnus (2017) Mr WANG Weimin is keenly aware of the risks of misusing AI technology, specifically in the creation and dissemination of deepfakes. He therefore decided to apply his deep learning expertise in the fight against misinformation. An AI model he designed proved to be over 98% accurate in distinguishing genuine clips from digitally manipulated ones, beating the solutions of over 460 teams from around the world to secure him the championship at the Trusted Media Challenge organised by AI Singapore.

Mr Wang, a Lead Research Engineer at ByteDance, which owns TikTok, has successfully incorporated his AI model into his company’s platform to offer deepfake detection services for clients.

An interdisciplinary team led by Year 2 student Chayapol CHAOVEERAPRASIT represented Singapore to emerge as the champion in the Cloud Track of the Huawei ICT Competition Global Finals (2022 to 2023) held in Shenzhen, China.

Chayapol, who takes Double Majors in Mathematics and Computer Science and a Minor in Chinese Language Studies, worked with his team to build a cloud service solution for a data storage application by designing the storage architecture and database management system on Huawei’s cloud platform.

Creating a discharge tracker for a vaccination centre fired A Guhanavel S/O ASHOK KUMAR’s interest in entrepreneurship even before university.

The Year 2 Data Science and Analytics student has since rolled out more innovations. His team emerged as one of the champions in the MaritimeONE Digital Challenge in November 2022 for their solution – a one-stop booking application that enables maritime companies to identify shipment routes, via an algorithm that optimises cost and carbon dioxide emissions. He is currently developing an Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot in educational technology to help learners develop conversational fluency in Korean.

Team MUSHI, comprising students from Food Science and Technology, Life Sciences, and Data Science and Economics, emerged as the local track winner in the NUS FoodTech Challenge (2023) for emphasising the importance of adaptogens, active ingredients in certain plants that help the body respond to physical and mental stress.

Their adaptogenic mushroom coffee is designed to promote the wellbeing of Southeast Asian Gen Z consumers who have fast-paced lifestyles. The team also focused on sustainable practices such as food waste valorisation, the use of wholesome ingredients and a digital platform that offers recommendations based on users’ lifestyles and purchase history.  

In August 2022, we led an expedition to Timor-Leste in collaboration with Conservation International and the government of Timor-Leste. The Museum’s herpetologist, Dr CHAN Kin Onn, discovered a new species of bent-toed gecko which was named Cyrtodactylus santana, in reference to the Nino Konis Santana National Park, in which the gecko was discovered.