The development of Singapores innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem

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Since its political independence in 1965, Singapore has achieved rapid economic growth and transformed itself into a major global financial, business, and transport/information technology (IT) hub, with GDP per capita ranking among the highest in the world since the beginning of this decade. While the first three decades of Singapore's rapid economic growth have been based largely on a strategy to attract and leverage global multinational corporations (MNCs) to create increasingly higher value-adding economic activities, the last 25 years witnessed an increasing shift towards promoting technological innovation and entrepreneurship, and the building of a vibrant innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem that supports several major clusters of innovation, including medtech, smart urban mobility/infrastructure, and internet/mobile ecommerce. More recently, the city-state is also seeking to accelerate the commercialization of a wider range of deep-technologies from universities and public research labs, including AI, advanced materials, and fintech. This chapter traces the dynamic evolution of Singapore's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem over time and the changing mix of public policies that have shaped that evolution. Building on my earlier research work on the earlier phases of development of Singapore's innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem (Wong 2001; Wong 2006; Wong and Singh 2008, Wong et. al. 2017 and Wong 2019), Using the lens of the COI framework to provide additional insights on these developments as well as to bring the analysis up to date by examining Singapore's ecosystem in the midst of the global covid-19 pandemic. In particular, the development of two major innovation clusters in Singapore that are most directly impacted by public policy are highlighted, healthcare and smart urban infrastructure. Singapore's experience using the COI Framework suggests that, while the framework is particularly useful in highlighting the role of public policy on the supply-side, attention needs to be paid to incorporate the important role that government can play on the demand-side as well.