The inaugural Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) and the Singapore Week of Innovation and TeCHnology (SWITCH) concluded on the 15th of November will return with its next instalment in 2020.
The event saw a record of 569 speakers, close to 1,000 exhibitors and 41 international pavilions and more than 60,000 participants from 140 countries.
In line with the theme of Sustainability and Climate Change, Minister Ong Ye Kung unveiled the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)’s green finance action plan to strengthen green financing capabilities in Singapore and announced the launch of a US$2 billion Green Investments Programme, among other initiatives under the action plan.
DPM Heng Swee Keat unveiled Singapore’s National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy in his keynote speech, and highlighted a new framework, Veritas, introduced by MAS to promote the responsible adoption of AI in the financial sector. He also announced the expansion of the Global Innovation Alliance (GIA) network to include London, and the launch of the Open Innovation Network (OIN)2 by Enterprise Singapore and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) to promote open innovation across sectors.
One highlight of SWITCH was the deep tech start-up competition, SLINGSHOT 2019, which saw more than 100 start-ups from around the world pitching their innovative technologies and business models. Eko.ai, a Singapore-based medtech start-up was awarded the Startup SG grand prize of S$250,000 Startup SG grant. The medtech start-up clinched the top spot for its machine learning based software for early detection and treatments of heart disease. Their solution will be able to transform and empower complex and costly clinical procedures into a single click within two minutes.
SFF x SWITCH concluded the week with the Innovation Lab Crawl and Industry Events (14-15 November), which saw over 20,000 visitors across over 50 innovation labs and more than 30 workshops and networking events held around Singapore. SFF x SWITCH will return next year from 9 to 13 November 2020. It will build on the energy, ideas and partnerships established this year, to further strengthen the ecosystem for FinTech and deep tech in Singapore and the region. [APBN]