Reaping benefits from tech projects

SOME day, people may be able to operate their computers by gesturing with both hands before their computer screens, as Tom Cruise's character does in the science fiction movie Minority Report.

Working with a mouse, the cause of repetitive stress injuries for some people, could be history.

Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) lecturer Jason Chan, 32, already has a prototype for this alternative to the mouse, and is looking to try it out with patients in hospitals and physiotherapy centres.

Nanyang and other polytechnics are coming up with more such technology projects. Some products, such as Singapore Polytechnic's purple gold used in Lee Hwa jewellery, and its Pokka drinks, Lemonsi Delight and Elderflower Tea, are commercial successes.

Singapore's five polytechnics, set up to train students in mid-level professional and technical skills, typically put their students through internships with companies, but lately, they have also produced marketable products and services.

Support for this push has come from a year-old Ministry of Education fund called the Innovation Fund, which can disburse up to $10 million each year.

It has bankrolled 16 projects, among which are two by Republic Polytechnic - one to design an ergonomic backpack, and the other, a system to milk energy from food and fuel-oil wastes.

Schools like Republic Polytechnic and NYP have even set up 'technology-transfer' offices to oversee their tie-ups with industry.

NYP's Centre for Technology Innovation and Commercialisation was set up last August, when innovations by its various schools started earning patents.

Commercialising a product can earn a school royalties. For instance, the royalties Singapore Polytechnic now receives from its Elderflower Tea goes into a fund for needy students; Pokka is also funding a $2,000 scholarship each year for the next five years.

Financial gains aside, the polytechnics' close ties with industry and the market also benefit the students academically and otherwise.

Dr Valdew Singh, who heads NYP's Centre for Technology Innovation and Commercialisation, said: 'Since the projects we work on with companies are cutting-edge, the skills students develop are also cutting-edge.'

Industry-linked pro- jects also give students real world manufacturing and business experience. In coming up with a fat- and sugar-free dessert called Koolwerkz, Temasek Polytechnic students picked up the rudiments of running the factory that made it.

Ngee Ann Polytechnic biomedical science student Aishah Mohamed Rashid, 20, whose final-year project is being tested for commercial use, said the experience 'has surely added value to my CV'.

Early this year, she and her classmate Nurul Dinah Kadir found a way to speed up detection of the genes that make some urinary tract infections resistant to antibiotics.

Their screening method, which makes it possible for treatment of the infection to begin in three hours instead of three days, is being tested at Singapore General Hospital and Changi General Hospital.

Some polytechnics do not see the need to rush to file for patents on their innovations because it is an expensive and complicated process, said Mr Warren Wang, director of Republic Polytechnic's technology development office.

Patents do not, in any case, guarantee success in the market.

Mr Wang said that even if a project is not picked up by a company, the effort that went into it is not wasted.

'Even failure is something to learn from. At least the learning is done, so we don't see it as a waste.'