TECHNOPRENEURSHIP
Essential skills technopreneurs and engineering leaders need by Andy Wee, General Manager, IES Incubator & Accelerator (IES-INCA) They are ingredients for success.
Whilst journeying with our incubatees who are companies driving breakthroughs in technology commercialisation, we recognise that there are skills that they require, such as ‘communicating technology and business value, selling and closing business deals’. These are critical to their success. While engineers are often very skilled in technical solutions development and implementation, what is also important is the ability to communicate the value and benefits of their solutions to customers, in a clear and tangible manner. In doing so, engineers can better value sell and justify the appropriate pricing for their work, resulting in better margins and avoiding price wars. In addition, the ability to effectively close the signing of projects successfully with healthy margins is key to business growth and the long-term sustainability of a technology business.
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IES-INCA incubatees attending fundraising training with IES-INCA partner, FundedHere, on 10 March 2022.
planning and structuring as well as fundraising efforts. Two technopreneurs, who have joined the programme, provide more information on their work.
Joining the IES-INCA Incubation/ Acceleration Program Engineering and technology companies, which are in the scale-up stage of their technology venture journey, can receive support from the IES-INCA Incubation/Acceleration Program, where the founders can tap the knowledge and experience of our mentors and be guided by them, to reduce the learning curve for acquiring knowledge in business as well as technology and market development.
Dr Michael L Abundo is an electrical and electronics engineer, by training. He is looking Dr Michael L Abundo into ways to apply his engineering skills into the sustainability space, in particular, the marine renewable energy sector and the wider blue economy.
In addition, IES-INCA supports founders of enterprises in business
Question: How did you come to found Ocean Pixel?
THE SINGAPORE ENGINEER April 2022
Answer: Ocean Pixel, as a company, was spun off from the Energy Research Institute at NTU, due to a combination of factors, one of which was my PhD technical dissertation which focused a lot on suitability analytics for the marine renewable energy industry, using digital tools. The tools serviced project developers for pre-development work which required them to match good sites with good devices, by making sense of the project feasibility, not just from technical and economic perspectives, but by also considering other important criteria. Q: What are the key products and services of your company? A: One of the key products we have is our ‘data and report products’, primarily for the Southeast Asian region, to assess good sites and good devices for technology and project developers. We also have our consulting services where our sustainability and energy engineering specialists provide valuable
