Panelist 1
Mr. Virendra Shelar, Executive Officer OMRON Corporation, President OMRON Management Center of Asia Pacific, Inc.

Mr. Shelar joined OMRON in 2014, as General Manager – HR and has over 21 years of experience in leadership development, talent management, competency assessment and business performance management.

Passionate about identifying and developing the next generation of leaders, he has been working with leaders at different levels and from various functions including sales, marketing and manufacturing. This has also made him travel extensively across Asia, US & Europe developing leaders within the organization.

Panelist 2
Mr. Stanislav Borisov, Innovation Manager at EcoLabs, Centre of Innovation for Energy

Mr. Stanislav, is an international energy industry professional with over 10 years of experience.

At EcoLabs, Stanislav originates green tech projects and strategic partnerships with government agencies, corporate partners and investors, he also facilitates market entry programs for international SMEs and conducts regular start-up pitching sessions.

Prior to that he worked in Project Management roles in France, Moscow and Siberia, managing multi million energy projects and teams of up to 70 engineers.

Panelist 3
Dr. Dmitry Isakov, Founder and CEO Latheacond Technologies, Pte. Ltd.

Dr. Dmitry Isakov, Director of Latheacond Technologies Pte. Ltd., has a M.Sc in Physics from Moscow State University and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National University of Singapore. After spending the last decade as an award-winning Research Scientist at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) under A*STAR, Dr Isakov started his own technology startup in 2017. He holds more than 6 patents and more than 10 Know-how for technologies developed during his time in SIMTech and 4 pending patents under Latheacond Technologies portfolio.

Moderator
Dr. Kihoko Tokue, Co-Founder & Director Leave a Nest Malaysia, Managing Director Leave a Nest Singapore Pte. Ltd.

Dr. Kihoko Tokue, Co-founder/Director Leave a Nest Malaysia and Managing Director Leave a Nest Singapore has PhD. in Science from Rikkyo University (Japan). She was educated in the US, in Australia and in Japan for tertiary education and has lived in Southeast Asia for over 20 years. Through experience of setting up Leave a Nest subsidiary in Malaysia and continuing to expand business in Singapore she has been working with various partners to achieve “Advancing Science and Technology for Global Happiness” focusing on Singapore and surrounding countries.

Panelist 1
Mr. Travin Singh, CRUST Holdings Pte. Ltd.

CRUST’s founder is Travin Singh. A Republic of Singapore Navy Regular for six years, he left in 2017 and became a Financial Advisor, before starting CRUST in mid-2019. He is an avid homebrewer and wholeheartedly believes in the ideology of using our resources wisely, hence the birth of CRUST.

Panelist 2
Mr. En Yang, SLICE Pte. Ltd.

Yang En is the co-lead of SLICE and AUDACITY, a playground for innovators to reimagine and develop solutions for more sustainable and humanity-centric civilisations. He is also an ecosystem builder at JTC where he helps grow the deep-tech startup community at JID through collaborations with private and public ecosystem players. With a keen interest in food, he is determined to drive positive change towards a more resilient and sustainable food system to support future generations.

Panelist 3
Ms. Pat Subpa-asa, Senior Manager in Corporate Strategy, Thai Wah Public Company Limited

Pat is a Senior Manager in Corporate Strategy at Thai Wah PCL – one of the leading agri-food companies specialized in manufacturing tapioca starch, vermicelli and noodle products based in Bangkok, Thailand. She handles oversight and development of corporate strategies to support core business growth and create innovation from Farm to Shelf.
Before joining Thai Wah, Pat was an associate at McKinsey & Company focusing on strategy and transformation with top-tier companies across sectors in Southeast Asia. Prior to that she led start-up projects for Procter & Gamble Manufacturing and worked in financial services with Kasikornbank in their SME banking team.
Pat holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and an MBA from INSEAD in Singapore.

Moderator
Dr. Ravi

Ravi joined Leave a Nest Singapore in November 2019. He has a Ph.D in Life Sciences from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. During his Ph.D he studied intracellular signaling during host-pathogen interactions, using rice blast disease as a model. Prior to joining Leave a Nest, Ravi worked as Research Fellow at Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory , where he studied cell fate specification using C. elegans as a model. He is currently the Director of Glocalink Singapore, which is a Agri food-tech focussed investment company with a vision to solve the most pressing problems in food security & advance the future of food and agriculture.

Panelist 1
Professor Lawrence Ho, Professor of Medicine, National University of Singapore; Senior Consultant, National University Hospital; and Director, Centre for Innovation in Healthcare, National University Health System.

Besides being an accomplished endoscopist, he is an international key opinion leader, being conferred the honorary International Life Membership of the Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy of India, and made Fellow of Japan Gastroenterological Endoscopy Society, to recognize his significant contributions to the field of endoscopy.

A proven clinician innovator and experienced entrepreneur, he co-invented the Master and Slave Transluminal Endoscopic Robot (MASTER), which has since been spun-off into the start-up, Endomaster. He also founded two other start-up companies, Endofotonics, a molecular AI based real time diagnostic system, and Endopil, an ingestible weight loss balloon capsule. He received the Singapore President’s Technology Award in 2012.

Panelist 2
Mr. Sumit Khemani, CEO/Founder of Smartfuture

Sumit has been involved in tech, business, and entrepreneurial roles for over a decade. He has broad industry knowledge in the areas of healthcare, medical devices, insurance, and consumer electronics.

Sumit came to Singapore from India on a government scholarship in 2001 for his junior college and university studies. He completed Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in 2008. He worked for Strontium Technology for 7 years where, as VP of Retail, he was managing 85 million annual business.

He started Smartfuture in 2015 with a vision to make remote patient monitoring a part of everyday healthcare.

Panelist 3
Ms Audrey Lok, Director, Healthcare & Medical of Enterprise Singapore

Audrey Lok, is the director overseeing the Healthcare and Biomedical industry at Enterprise Singapore. her span of work includes supporting the growth of private healthcare services and products companies, as well as developing the biomedical eco-system.

Prior to her time in the healthcare and biomedical space, she spent approximately 10 years in various roles across public service focusing on enterprise and industry development. this included strategic planning under SPRING Singapore, as well as land and manpower resource planning under the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

Audrey holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Economics from the National University of Singapore.

Moderator
Mr. Shohei Michael Maekawa

Mr. Maekawa is the President of Leave a Nest UK. He was born in the USA and raised in Europe. He studied Zoology for his undergraduate degree and Evolutionary Anthropology for his postgraduate degree, both at University College London. With experience abroad and passion towards advancement of science and technology, he joined Leave a Nest in 2013. He became the Director of Leave a Nest Singapore Pte. Ltd. from May 1st 2019 with the vision to interconnect various industry partners for global development.

ABA Inc. is developing a device that can detect and record the defecation state of those who need care, with the aim of solving the mental and physical burdens of caregivers and those who need care through defecation sensing and pattern analysis.

Melody International Ltd. Using “Melody i“, a health management platform for pregnant women and their babies, they will realise remote medical care (online hospital visits) for obstetrics and gynaecology.

Ory Lab Inc. was established under the philosophy of “creating a future where people, even if they are bedridden, can meet the people they want to meet and participate in society.” The company is engaged in the research, development, and commercialisation of OriHime, an alter-ego robot that the founder has been developing for some time.

Masaki Takao, CEO and Founder, JEPLAN, INC.

Born in 1980 and graduated from Tokyo Institute of Technology School of Engineering in 2004. He then studied Technology Management for Innovation at the University of Tokyo and left school in order to establish JEPLAN in January 2007. He became a vice president and he’s been leading development of technology for the company’s fiber recycling business including the development of technology of cotton into bio-ethanol. As the company starts focus on the recycle of polyester, he became in charge of the development of polyester recycling technology and led a construction of our Kitakyushu Hibikinada Plant with our patented chemical recycling technology in 2015. He took over a role as CEO in March of 2016 and since then he has led an acquisition of Pet Refine Technology in 2018, as well as capital alliances with partners.

Professor Seeram Ramakrishna, FREng, Everest Chair, Circular Economy Taskforce of National University of Singapore (NUS)

He is recognized among the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds, and Top 1% Highly Cited Researchers. He co-authored books ‘The Changing Face of Innovation’ and ‘An Introduction to Circular Economy’. He is a member of EPR Advisory Committee of Singapore Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE); ESG committee of Singapore Institute of Directors; ISO/TC323 on Circular Economy; and UNESCO Expert Group on universities and 2030 agenda. He is the Chairman of Sustainable Manufacturing TC at IES, and Plastics Recycling Center of Excellence at PRAS. He is an eminent resource person for universities, companies, governments, individuals, and international organizations. European Commission Director-General for Environment, Excellency Daniel Calleja Crespo said “Professor Seeram Ramakrishna should be praised for his personal engagement leading the reflections on how to develop a more sustainable future for all”. He received PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK; and the GMP training from Harvard University, USA.

Mr John Cheng, Director/ Founder, Cheng Yew Heng Candy Factory/ Innovate 360

John Cheng is the 3rd generation family business owner of Cheng Yew Heng Candy Factory, a 74-year-old established sugar manufacturing company in Singapore. In 2008, he founded Innovate 360, a food innovation hub and Singapore’s first food incubator with facilities. Innovate 260 is recognized by APEC as a food technology partner in food security and by the Singapore Government. It is an Accredited Mentor Partner helping startups scale and go to market. John is also Chairperson of Feed 9 Billion, which co-launched the Good Food Startup Manual: Singapore Edition. He is entrepreneurship head of SMF’s Youth Committee, and EXCO of SCCI’s Youth Business Affairs Committee.

Moderator
Dr. Nie Yuntong, Manager, Mitsui Chemicals Singapore R&D Centre, Pte. Ltd.

Dr. Nie received her PhD in Chemistry at National University of Singapore. She has over 10 years work experience in the chemical industry and is currently Manager in the Research Division in Mitsui Chemicals Singapore R&D Centre (MS-R&D). Mitsui Chemicals Inc. is one of the diversified companies in Japan and providing a wide variety of chemicals and polymers globally. Mission of MS-R&D is to develop new business from Asia Pacific. We are looking for new business opportunities making best use of open innovation in connection with Mitsui Chemicals’ proprietary technologies.