Turning Research Into Billion-Dollar Startups

Prof. Benjamin Tee, Vice President at NUSX

Key points:

• Entrepreneurship teaches lessons that academia can't - insights that only come from trying to turn ideas into companies
• Deciding whether breakthrough research should stay in the lab or become a real company is a skill in itself, and one that can be learned
• The journey from lab to market for first-time founders can be structured and supported
• The biggest opportunities in physical AI sit at the intersection of AI, robotics and the physical world over the next few years
• Working at the frontier of research on technologies like electronic skin reveals just how long DeepTech really takes to reach the market
• University spin-outs rarely fail because of weak science - scaling globally requires doing things differently, from ecosystem support to commercial ambition