EU-Singapore Matchmaking Event Summary
The European Commission (EC) and Enterprise Singapore (ESG) jointly organised the EU – Singapore Matchmaking Event which took place virtually on 11th and 12th November 2021. The event was implemented in the context of the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology (SWITCH).
The EC and ESG were supported by the EU Delegation to Singapore and the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI). The event was facilitated by the European Cluster Collaboration Platform (ECCP) and the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) including its local node “EEN Singapore”.
With over 150 participating clusters, associations and companies, dominantly SMEs, from Europe and Singapore, the event provided an excellent platform to promote networking opportunities for organisations from Europe and Singapore. In particular, the event was aimed at facilitating the participants to:
- Explore trade, investment and partnering opportunities; and
- Initiate discussions that will ultimately result in Letters of Interest, Memorandum of Understanding, and other types of partnership agreements.
Agenda
The first day of the event featured an opening by Lim Hong Huai, Singapore Ambassador to the EU and Iwona Piorko, EU Ambassador to Singapore. This was followed by a welcome to participants by Tan Soon Kim, Assistant CEO Enterprise Singapore and Maive Rute, Deputy Director-General of DG GROW. Following them, Ulla Engelmann, Acting Director of DG GROW, presented Insights from the ECCP, EEN and the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Global programme.
During the opening session, the participants also had a chance to experience successful collaborations first-hand between EU and SG clusters from Jon Mitxelena, Technological Project Manager at the Association of Applied Knowledge and Technology Industries in the Basque Country (GAIA) and Tjin Swee Chuan, Chairman of LUX Photonics Consortium.
After the opening session, the clusters from the EU and their SG counterparts participated in five sectorial roundtables:
- Emerging Technology and Advanced Manufacturing
- Mobility and Transport Engineering
- ICT, Fintech, Blockchain, Smart Cities
- Sustainability, Energy and Supply Chain
- Food and Agri-technology
The remainder of the first day was dedicated to one-to-one matchmaking sessions between clusters, associations and companies. These were pre-booked by the participants and provided the opportunity for private discussions.
Following a short opening session, the second day was fully devoted to more one-to-one matchmaking sessions between the European and Singaporean participants – often being used to further the interactions identified and started on the previous day.
Find the link to the full press release here.
