In the recent Parliamentary Budget debate, one of the “radical” ideas mooted by a Member of Parliament (MP) was to place an expiry date on degrees conferred by Singapore’s institutes of higher learning.

Like road tax renewal, the suggestion was for graduates to attend courses for upgrading every five years to renew the validity of their degrees. Short of which, their credentials would lapse, along with the entitlements and benefits of being a degree holder.

In response, I wrote a LinkedIn post sharing how I struggled to understand how piling on more formal education and credential stacking solves the skills gap.

I was genuinely surprised by the overwhelming reaction, with more than a thousand reacting and sharing their own stories in less than 24 hours.

I believe this reveals a fundamental mismatch, and badge collection has been mistaken for education.

The badge collecting phenomenon

Badge collecting culture is prevalent everywhere, and it starts from our education days.

When I was in secondary school, I peek at the rows of badges my uniformed group friends wore on their lapels. As they rose the ranks, the badges started to accumulate, reflecting accomplishment and achievement.

Later on, I realised the accumulation and display of badges was prevalent even outside of school. Whether it is a Birkin bag, a Ferrari, or, more recently, a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT, badges reflect our status to society through association.

Instead of saying aloud, “I am wealthy”, which can come across as obnoxious and arrogant, a badge could be a representation of wealth or social standing. It is visible yet does not require the holder to self-proclaim.

It is, however, unfortunate when this seeps over to the education sector. Our skills, capabilities and potential are multi-dimensional, and the process of acquiring them is complex.

Yet badges over-simplify and distract us from what is important: learning and applying it in real-life situations to create value.

Also Read: How this B-school aims to reinvent its learning experience in a year of disruption

More and more badges

I believe the suggestion from the MP to extend the validity of degrees by taking more courses stems from good intentions. That is, to narrow the gap between the demands of the employers and the skill sets of the workforce.

Yet, pursuing more formal programs reflects the desire to collect more badges vis-a-vis the pursuit of knowledge and skills.

The underlying premise is there is always one more badge to gain, whether it’s a master’s degree after your bachelor’s, a doctorate after your master’s, or a continuing education course. And once this badge is attained, one might not just be more “ready” for the workforce, but the badge is also supposed to act as insurance against future setbacks.

To be clear, I am not against badges. As a holder of a degree, I am very cognizant of how opportunities have coalesced as a result.

I am concerned about the false premise that collecting more badges, even those from esteemed institutions makes one more ready for the demands of the marketplace and the false sense of security from quantity.

When representation is not reality

Badges are designed to be representations. Holding a degree represents completing a minimum number of hours of education, but it is by no means an indicator of competence.

It is canon to hear employers across diverse industries talk about how some non-degree holders have outperformed degree holders. That degree holders need to stack more badges to stay relevant is confusing at best. We cannot solve the problem by doing more of what led to it.

The dopamine hit from collecting more badges makes it even more challenging. The sense of achievement and accomplishment of completing a formal course, program or degree is undeniable and even addictive.

Photos are shared widely on social media, congratulations pour in from family and friends, LinkedIn profiles are updated, and commencement speeches are pep talks on how one is ready to “conquer the world”.

Yet, it is too easy to forget that, until it is actualised in our work, badges remain as representations of what we can offer, not reality.

Radical ideas to mitigate badge-collection addiction

What then can we do to avoid badge collecting culture?

Also Read: ‘Education is not a content business but a human one’: Nas Academy’s Nuseir Yassin

There are definite advantages of holding a badge, especially those just starting their careers. It opens doors and encourages others to take a chance on you, whether an employer is offering a job opportunity or an investor writing the first cheque into a company.

However, we need to dissociate badge collection from education. While both may occur simultaneously, it is entirely plausible for one to collect the badge without meaningful retention or application of what was learnt.

We should advocate for genuine learning and the acquisition of knowledge, not the collection of badges.

Secondly, we need to encourage and celebrate applying knowledge and skills to create impact more than the collection of badges.

As a former government scholarship recipient, my peers and I were celebrated upon being awarded the “scholar” badge. We had ministerial tea ceremonies, media features and invitations to share our “success stories” with juniors, all before we created any value to the public.

I recognise this privilege but wonder if we can create more opportunities to acknowledge and showcase real impact.

What if we introduce career artifacts like case studies on how a social worker went above and beyond or video testimonials by students on their teacher’s impact and consider these credentials with more weight?

Furthermore, all public service scholarship aspirants can participate in a paid internship for a year or two as part of the application process instead of post facto. On-the-job experience is a much better indicator of potential than academic grades and hour-long interviews.

This also sets everyone up for success when 18-year-olds know what they are committing four to six years of their lives to.

Also Read: How to value yourself at the workplace like NFTs

Contrary to some who might consider the gap year a “waste” or “delay”, I argue that this is a valuable experience for both parties to test if there is a fit and a fair ask when the scholarship quantum is typically in the mid-six-figures.

Third, we can take a hard look at how we select, reward and retain talent. Is it based on badges or the impact created?

I am of the opinion that most managerial and executive positions, except for professions like law and medicine, should allow alternative substitutes for a degree.

A proven track record of value creation, whether in employment, projects or starting a company, should be given more consideration. There should not be cause to place individuals with different classes of badges (degree honours) on different pay scales. We should put all at the same starting point and evaluate based on merit.

Fourth, our government can continue pushing the boundaries and finding innovative ways to keep our higher education institutions relevant. One potential avenue to explore would be Income Share Agreements (ISAs) as an alternative to discounted school fees.

While novel, this setup could better align incentives between the institution and student. In exchange for paying less fees, a student can opt to give X per cent of salary to the university for the first five years of employment, for example.

With the outsized influence of economic incentives, I will not be surprised to see our institutions becoming a lot more adaptable and responsive to prepare students for the demands of the workforce.

Badges will continue to play an important role in the fabric of our society. For many, it offers recognition, which serves as a launchpad for opportunities.

Yet, let us not forget that badges remain representations, and we should celebrate the realisation of impact instead.

Both the public and private sectors have instrumental roles in shaping the narrative of how we view this, and we should instead shift the conversation to “radical” moves to change workplace expectations and attitudes.

This article was first published in The Business Times.

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We are taught from an early age to specialise. Our parents frequently remind us of the importance of picking a lucrative profession.

Universities are designed to force a choice of specialisation as soon as you graduate high school. But, most importantly, the labour market rewards specialists a fair bit more than generalists.

Think of the average job description. Most JDs are written to attract people with experience in a niche field.

Job interviews are the same. The employer asks questions to understand the depth of your specialisation rather than your ability to adapt and leverage different fields. As a result, we all experience pressure to figure out what we want to do at every major step of our lives.

Specialisations like being a doctor or a lawyer are glorified because of their critical role in society. But there is little regard to how we feel about taking on such roles.

Most people grow up feeling insecure and confused under all that pressure. I cannot blame them; it’s not easy to find out what you want to do so early. Such a decision will have a long-term impact on your ability to earn and support your loved ones.

Specialising early is what people call “conventional wisdom” or “timeless advice”. That stems from the Lindy effect, which proposes that the longevity of activity is proportionate to its life expectancy. The longer something survives, the more confident we are that it will continue to exist.

Historically, specialising has been necessary. Our survival depended on specialising in agriculture, healthcare, governance, art, education, etc. But as the world is getting more complex, I am not sure if that’s still the case.

Adhering to practises that have worked in the past is like outsourcing significant decisions in your life. Decisions will impact your career trajectory, income, and potentially your happiness. This begs the question, do you want yesterday’s wisdom to guide your entire life?

Before I move forward, let me offer a disclaimer. I am not entirely against timeless advice. There are many examples of timeless advice that most likely is still true today.

Starting a war is wrong. Drinking excessively causes health issues. Gambling brings the risk of ruin. History has shown us the consequences of such decisions.

There is no need to go against all conventional wisdom and question it. Having said that, it is vital to be selective when making life-changing decisions.

From specialist to generalist

When I look at my own life, I made the mistake of trying to be a specialist way too early. I graduated primary school with the highest possible GPA in Bulgaria.

As a result, I could enrol in any high school in Sofia. While my parents did give me the freedom to make my own choice, they advised me to pick a profiled high school.

Profiled high schools were a relic from the soviet union. Institutions are designed to teach you what regular schools cover, plus the basics of a specific profession like chef or mechanic.

My family did not have a lot of money, so picking a school that could get me a part-time job while studying was a no-brainer choice. So I found myself selecting a hospitality profiled school.

Also Read: Why it is never too late for mid-career professionals to be an entrepreneur

A few years into my studies, that bet paid back. I was working part-time at all major five-star resorts in the capital. My evenings and weekends were consumed by events where I worked as a waiter. The payment was decent, and I quickly outpaced my parents’ earnings.

At the age of 17, I received my first leadership role while earning more than anyone in my entire family. The more I specialised, the more valuable I became. At that time, I could get a job at any restaurant or resort in Bulgaria. The compounding benefits of specialisation started bearing fruits.

When I turned 18, I moved to Denmark to continue my studies, taking on another degree in Hospitality Management. That led to management training in a branch of Novotel located in Taiwan, and turned into a full-time leadership position.

So naturally, I started asking myself, is a career in hospitality what I want to do? It turned out, I was not sure, which led me to return to Denmark to continue my studies.

Once back in North Denmark, I attended a startup weekend event. That event opened my eyes to an entirely new world. I tasted the tech sector, entrepreneurship, and a few different industries throughout the weekend.

My curiosity was satisfied like never before. The whole experience felt just right. Something inside me clicked.

Suddenly, I realised how little thought I put into selecting my specialisation years back. As an outcome, I got good in a field that did not satisfy my curiosity. A profession that did not bring the growth and self-actualisation I was subconsciously seeking.

On the other hand, the world of startups exposed me to many different roles like marketing, sales, fundraising, finance, legal, product, human resources, and everything in between. The more I dived into entrepreneurship, the more I learned about each field.

While I was not becoming an expert in any of them, I learned just enough to be dangerous over time. That experience taught me how you do not need to be a world-leading expert in any field to succeed. You need a strong bias for action and basic knowledge to make quick decisions.

Generalists are underrated

My generalist’s journey has been nothing short of rewarding. It helped me explore various fields, industries, and even a few cultures. The broader my experience got, the more valuable I became. The pivot to startups and tech started paying back.

Whereas specialists outperformed me in their field, I could see the big picture. The interconnectivity of how different teams operate became crystal clear in my eyes. It felt like a puzzle was being completed in front of my eyes. The broader context offered a perspective only a founder can have.

I have written in the past about the founder mentality and its importance. Thinking like a founder is an invaluable and highly rewarded skill. Yet, in my experience, it’s difficult to adopt such a mindset if you do not have a decent understanding of how unrelated teams work.

You need to expose yourself to various problems and tasks to gain that understanding. The more you execute, the better you understand your strengths and how unrelated fields connect.

Also Read: Why working at a startup is a better way to launch your career

Some degrees attempt to give you a holistic overview of how a business works, but even then, it only scratches the surface. Nothing beats the experience of jumping on a new, utterly foreign problem, and doing your best to learn, experiment, and eventually solve it.

Here you go, my thoughts on why embracing a generalist mindset is a better bet for an asymmetric upside:

• Generalists love analogies. Analogical thinking helps you to take what’s new and make it familiar, or take the familiar and put it in a new light.

• Specialists rely on overlearned behaviour. If the world was static, repeating similar best practices would always work. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Technology is changing the world so fast that, more often than not, existing tools/strategies/practises may not be applicable any longer. We are often fooled by expertise. On the other hand, generalists are not afraid to test new novel approaches or borrow from different industries.

• It’s the combination of specialists and generalists that creates outsized returns. When IBM Super Computer beat Gary Kasparov in 1997, many people first thought that humans seemed to have lost to the machines. But in AI, there is something called Moravec’s paradox “machines, and humans frequently have opposite strengths and weaknesses”. So Kasparov wondered what would happen if a computer played alongside a human. A machine that can assess two hundred million possible moves a second alongside a human who could demonstrate big-picture strategic thinking. The outcome was that supercomputers and grandmasters lost to amateurs paired with computers.

• People who have diverse experiences are more likely to succeed. For example, MIT and the US Census Bureau found that the fastest-growing startups are run by founders who are forty-five at launch. A potential correlation here could be the exposure to different fields in one’s life.

• Specialisation makes a difference in some fields, for example, poker players and surgeons. But in most fields, the game rules are often unclear or incomplete. The solution is not always apparent in such circumstances, and a generalist approach might be better.
• Having a generalist mindset comes with humility. Knowing that you are not an expert in any field helps you stay firm on the ground.

The intersection of generalists and specialists

There’s a framework designed by Brian Balfour called T-shaped background, which demonstrates how you can make the best of both worlds.

Also Read: From sommelier to AVP of Customer Success at a tech unicorn: Lessons from my career journey

T-shaped people are both generalists (highly skilled at a broad set of valuable things, the top of the T) and experts (among the best in their field within a narrow discipline, the vertical leg of the T).

To illustrate the T model in motion, Balfour takes the example of a marketing generalist.

The top of the T is divided into three layers: Base (knowledge layer), Marketing (foundational), and Channel (expertise). Meaning on the very top, you have broad, somehow unrelated knowledge. But as you dive deeper, that breaks down into specialisations and tactical implementation.

Shaping yourself like a “T” would guarantee you a great culture fit in most fast-growing companies. Presenting yourself as a generalist decreases the probability of securing a role in a fast-growing business. But having deeper expertise in one or two areas will give you the leverage to take on any problem.

In my case, the vertical leg of the T is being shaped around content marketing hence why I write so much.

I want to polish that skill, and only repetition, discipline, and feedback can help me improve. The combination of concise writing and knowing a bit about any area of running a business has proven to be invaluable over the years.

Climbing the wrong hill

An important distinction between specialist and generalist career paths is how different the road ahead looks.

As a specialist, it is pretty clear what you have to do to thrive in your field. Mastering your niche will inevitably lead to success.

On the other hand, that’s not the case as a generalist. Generalists often need to zig or zag or even walk backwards before going forward. As a generalist, the path is not clear, which naturally scares many people.

Sometime back, Chris Dixon wrote an essay titled climbing the wrong hill where he describes a classic problem in computer science called hill climbing.

The hill-climbing exercise makes you imagine that you are dropped at a random spot on hilly terrain. Because it’s unfamiliar terrain, you can only see a few feet in each direction, but your objective is the get to the highest hill.

At first glance, people tend to take a step in the direction that takes them higher. But what if you happen to start at the lower hill thus end up climbing the wrong mountain?

Perhaps a better approach is to add some randomness into your trek. What if you start with a lot of randomnesses and then reduce it over time? That would give you a better chance of ending up near the bigger hill before starting your focused, non-random trek.

The more you explore, the higher the probability of discovering the highest hill.

Going back to the specialist vs generalist dilemma. The specialist has not explored the terrain very well. So he may believe how he is climbing the highest hill, but is that true? Perhaps, he will see the higher hill from where he stands.

Also Read: 5 career avenues for data scientists

“But the lure of the current hill is strong. There is a natural human tendency to make the next step an upward one. He falls for a common trap highlighted by behavioural economists: people systematically overvalue near-term and long-term rewards. This effect seems to be even stronger in more ambitious people. Their ambition makes it hard for them to forgo the nearby upward step.” – Chris Dixon, Partner at a16z.

My advice is to avoid climbing the wrong hill. Instead, add some randomness to your walk. Over time you will start uncovering different things about your personality. Especially what you are good at.

At that point, begin decreasing the randomness. Once you find the highest hill, go for it. Do not waste time on the current one, no matter how much better the next step might be.

The long-term rewards of having a generalist journey (perspective, speed of decision making, growth, and learning) outweigh the shorter hill offers (pay, title, and acceptance by society). So keep on climbing but add randomness to your walk.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic.

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The United Arab Emirates has always fascinated me for its good governance, inclusivity, hospitality, and its vigorous pursuit to become number one in every field — be it technology, transportation, or sustainable development. Its ability to foresee the future, design its cities accordingly, and attract investments has been commendable.

Also Read: Malaysian tech companies take on the global stage at Expo 2020 Dubai

“UAE’s policy has always been to spend now and reap in the future”, said my friend Sadaqath Oruvil, who lived most of his life in the Middle Eastern country, as he drove me to the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park on the outskirts of Dubai.

The solar park, spread over 77 square kilometres in Saih Al-Dahal, about 50 kilometres south of Dubai, is one of the pet projects of Al Maktoum, Prime Minister of the UAE and the Ruler of Dubai. It is one of the world’s largest renewable projects based on an independent power producer model. With investments totalling AED 50 (US$13.6) billion, the project has a planned production capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030 from photovoltaic and concentrated solar power technologies.

The Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 aims to generate 75 per cent of its total power output from clean energy by 2050. It will save over 6.5 million tons of carbon emissions annually when completed.

As a tech journalist covering sustainability and climate tech for long years, this came as an opportunity for me to explore and write a feature about one of the world’s largest solar energy projects.

I have compiled a few pics to create a photo feature of the solar park and the innovation centre.

Al Maktoum announced the launch of the solar park in January 2012. The 13MW first phase became operational on 22 October 2013.

The first phase is built up of about 153,000 photovoltaic cells, connected to 13 transformers in inverter buildings. The output is transformed to 33 kilovolts (kV) and generates 28 million kWh of electricity annually.

The first phase contributes to an annual reduction of about 15,000 tons of carbon emissions. The surface area of the project covers 280,000 square metres. On 20 March 2017, Al Maktoum inaugurated the 200MW second phase of the solar park. The project provides clean energy to 50,000 residences in the Emirate, reducing 214,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year. This phase installed 2.3 million photovoltaic solar panels over an area of 4.5 square kilometres.

In June 2016, Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) announced that the consortium led by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) and EDF Group, through its subsidiary, EDF Énergies Nouvelles, was selected to build the 800MW photovoltaic third phase. DEWA recorded a world record of US$2.99 cents per kW/h for the IPP bid. The 200MW first stage of the third phase became operational on 1 May 2018. The second and third stages became operational in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

The fourth phase combines CSP and photovoltaic technology. The phase will use three technologies to produce 950 megawatts (MW) of clean energy at an investment of AED 15.78 billion. It will have a total capacity of 950MW, with 700MW from Concentrated Solar Power: 600MW from a parabolic basin complex and 100MW from a solar tower and 250MW from photovoltaic solar panels.

DEWA is implementing the 900MW 5th phase of the solar park using photovoltaic solar panels.  This phase will become operational in stages starting Q2 of 2021.

Situated in the park a cleantech innovation hub to promote a sustainable energy future in Dubai and beyond. A marvellous structure, it is the only government building to score more than 100 points in the new construction category for its water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, energy efficiency, innovation and exquisite design.

The innovation hub promotes the latest innovation in clean and renewable energy and highlights the green initiatives of Dubai and DEWA

This facility aims to develop skills and build the next generation of innovators in clean technology by focusing on growing and promoting local talent. It will also act as an education centre by hosting events, conferences, seminars and workshops.

It also aims to build a strong collaboration with local and international schools, universities, startups and companies on research, knowledge exchange and exhibitions.

(The writer is currently on a visit to the UAE)

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Image Credits: Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park

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After the COVID-19 outbreak, thousands of companies switched to full remote or hybrid work.

For most, the shift was beneficial: 83% of employers surveyed by PwC are happy with the productivity of their teams.

At the same time, unique challenges appeared with the progressive adoption of telecommuting: in a Buffer survey, 22% of employees struggled with unplugging after a workday, 19% grappled with loneliness, and 17% experienced communication challenges.

On the whole, the adoption of remote work helped teams be more productive, increased their average profit, and cut operating costs. However, executives are facing new challenges in team management, workplace engagement, onboarding, and training.

Virtual offices offer the benefits of a fully remote workplace and the advantages of office-based infrastructure

87% of teams recognise the benefits of an office as a hub for collaboration and building connections but few employees are ready to deal with housing and commute constraints associated with coming to a workplace.

As teams look for ways to build human interactions and facilitate collaboration without giving up the comfort and operational benefits of remote workplaces, virtual offices have gained popularity.

These platforms enable seamless and casual interactions among employees, drive spontaneous discussion, and promote a healthy corporate culture.

By designing virtual spaces for their teams, managers can create an environment that incorporates all the benefits of a physical office but doesn’t burden the company with extra cost and puts no commute stress on employees.

oVice: a multi-functional and secure virtual office platform

oVice, a Japan-based virtual office platform, is among the frontrunners of the virtual office product landscape. The idea of building a virtual office started taking shape when Sae Hyung Jung, the company’s CEO, got separated from his team at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Unable to leave the country he was visiting at the time, Sae Hyung Jung used online collaboration tools (Slack, Zoom, and others) to stay in touch with the rest of the team — but quickly realised their limitations.

Teammates were no longer able to casually ask him questions and kept concerns to themselves. As such, projects took longer to complete and there was no room for onboarding and employee education.

Also read: Game on with MongoDB: Challenges and insights on the future of gaming

To mitigate the issue, Sae Hyung Jung created a prototype of oVice for internal use.

The platform quickly brought forth positive change: getting status updates became easier, teammates had a space to get to know each other, and the atmosphere of the office was restored.

Realising how helpful a virtual office tool can be to teams who suddenly had to adjust to the new normal, Sae Hyung Jung released oVice in August 2020. The reception was overwhelmingly positive: 100 companies of different scales signed up to use oVice in the week following its release.

At the moment, the platform is used by over 2,000 enterprise companies across Japan, Korea, and other countries: Toyota, Yamaha, Asahi Kasei Pharma, RICOH, and many more.

Moving the laws of a physical space to digital

Creating a real-life office online was an unprecedented challenge, leaving the team with a lot of questions and answers to find. “There was no document to explain how to incorporate physical laws so we had to solve a lot of things ourselves,” Sae Hyung Jung told JAFCO in an interview.

Among the features oVice engineers implemented to imitate a real-life space is spatial audio: a way of audio perception that simulates sound propagation in the physical world.

It allows teammates to hear the voices of people who are in the same range without needing to join calls or video conferences. The feature sets oVice apart from standard conferencing tools.

Also read: Seeding ideas, nurturing explorations with Leave a Nest Grant

Introducing the convenience of remote work to the office

Recognising the benefits of working remotely, oVice engineers made sure to express them in their product. For example, moving between office floors and areas takes a single click — it is considerably faster than walking between desks in a physical office.

For remote teams, oVice is a powerful alternative to standard video conferencing tools as it supports multi-participant meetings, screen sharing, text chat, and other collaboration features. Recently, the platform unveiled a partnership with Zoom, making it easier for remote teams to move their workflows to oVice.

Adding unique features

Other than making the most out of office infrastructure and remote workplaces, oVice introduces extra features to further improve collaboration efficiency.

All office layouts are customisable. Teams can change the way their space looks and explore different creative ideas: from making a full digital twin of their offices to setting up a workplace in space, on an island, or a fiction-inspired place.

oVice makes video conferences more efficient as well, through convenient tweaks like simultaneous screen sharing. The platform allows two or more meeting participants to present their screens to the rest of the audience at the same time.

Through the use of iFrames (HTML documents embedded inside a web page), teammates can share announcements, instructions, and other content.

Also read: Japan is looking for deep tech startups to collaborate with

These and other features make oVice a powerful integration into a remote team’s internal operations. On top of that, salespeople, marketing teams, or talent managers use the platform externally to host client presentations, partner meetings, or job interviews.

Start using a virtual office for free

oVice offers teams a 14-day free trial. During this time, teams get to explore all features of a virtual office.

To help leaders make the most out of their trials, the oVice team offers step-by-step onboarding and assistance support. To have a closer look at oVice, visit the platform’s tour space where you can ask the product team more questions about the tool, its use cases, and benefits.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by oVice

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Nalagenetics, the startup that provides genetic testing solutions in Southeast Asia, today announced the closing of a US$12.6 million Series A funding round.

The funding round was co-led by Intudo Ventures and Vulcan Capital, with participation from strategic investors that include Singapore-based Diagnostics Development Hub (DxD Hub) through the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*STAR) A*ccelerate Technologies Pte Ltd, and Indonesia-based Dexa International, Diagnos Laboratories, among others.

It followed a US$1 million seed funding round that the company announced in November 2018.

“We are excited to continue advocating the development of cost-effective genetic screening for personalisation of prescription and screening, especially for cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and cancers as the biggest killers in Southeast Asia. As the momentum for genetic testing and adoption of value-based care is increasing, we see a lot of interest from hospitals and providers that did not exist before,” said Levana Sani, co-founder and CEO of Nalagenetics in a press statement.

The startup plans to use the funding to focus on product development of its proprietary end-to-end software solution Clinical Decision Support (CDS), with the goal to enable whole-genome analysis and integration with more providers and hospitals. It also intends to acquire talents in the field of bioinformatics, software engineering, and genetics.

Also Read: 27 Singapore tech startups that have made us proud this year

Nalagenetics was founded in April 2016 out of A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore’s (GIS) Innovation Fellow programme. Developing end-to-end genetic testing solutions to enable disease prevention, the startup aims to empower healthcare professionals to implement predictive and pre-symptomatic testing for the prevention of commonly detected chronic illnesses in Southeast Asia such as cancers.

With its initial capabilities based on creating affordable genotyping kits and bioinformatics solutions for genetic data interpretation, Nalagenetics now offers end-to-end solutions that include building, implementing, and integrating genetic information in healthcare systems.

Its CDS platform offers multiple modules for healthcare professionals, including a Pre-Test Module to understand which patients need genetic testing; Analysis Modules to process raw data from machines into readable files (CSV format); Reporting Modules to create reports with guideline-compliant recommendations; a Dashboard Module to summarize genetic testing results and inform providers and researchers; and a Post-Test Module to integrate genetic information into healthcare systems.

Nalagenetics’ end-to-end services also include wet-lab protocols, bioinformatics algorithms, clinical recommendations, and API connections, to empower hospitals and labs to run effective genetic testing services

The startup is currently active in Indonesia and Singapore, with plans to expand into Malaysia and other countries this year. It has signed service agreements with over 40+ hospital and clinic partners and is launching its services with its new lab location in Singapore.

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