Together with its partner, SOSA – an innovation company based in Israel, Hatch will connect global start-ups with Home Team Departments to co-develop homeland security innovations
SINGAPORE, 30 May 2023 – Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law, Mr K Shanmugam, will officially launch Hatch, the HTX (Home Team Science and Technology Agency) innovation centre, today. Hatch will attract and nurture promising global start-ups through its accelerator programme and scout innovative technologies for potential applications in public safety and security.
HTX has partnered SOSA, an innovation company based in Israel, to develop its programmes and will leverage SOSA’s networks and experience in accelerating innovations from technology start-ups for Israeli security agencies.
Open Innovation Challenge
Hatch’s key programme – the biannual Open Innovation Challenge – is an accelerator programme to crowdsource and validate innovative technologies from global start-ups for public safety and security challenges.
A unique feature of the Open Innovation Challenge is that the start-ups will be given the opportunity to co-develop their solutions directly with HTX’s scientists and engineers and end-users from the Home Team Departments to trial and prove their concepts in real-world scenarios.
The inaugural Open Innovation Challenge launched in March 2023 focused on challenge statements from the Home Team in the following areas:
- Frontline emergency and rescue
- Human performance
- Environmental monitoring and sensemaking
- Robotics and drones
- Crime scene forensics
This Challenge attracted applications from 60 start-ups across the globe, and eventually, five were selected for the programme. Two of them will be showcasing their technologies at the Hatch opening ceremony. They are:
- Vayyar, a start-up that uses radar-based scanning technology to see through and into materials; and
- Wonder Robotics, a start-up specialising in autonomous drone vertical take-off and landing.
Technology Scouting Programme
Another programme under Hatch is the Technology Scouting Programme, which will actively scout and curate emerging technologies across industry sectors. The objective is to identify technologies that can be morphed into solutions to address operational challenges and needs of the Home Team. This will enable HTX to harness emerging technologies and enable the Home Team to be agile in innovations to stay ahead of future threats.
Dual-use applications
“There are many good and novel ideas from start-ups in non-security sectors, such as biotech and logistics, that have dual-use potential – i.e. their technologies can be applied in the public safety and security space, even if this was not the original intent. Hatch wants to be the portal for start-ups globally from across all sectors to connect and work with the Home Team to create new solutions to enhance public safety and security,” said Mr Chan Tsan, Chief Executive of HTX, concurrently Deputy Secretary (Development), Ministry of Home Affairs.
Hatch is located within the start-up ecosystem in Singapore at LaunchPad @ one-north, just five minutes from HTX HQ. It will have open spaces for co-working, collaboration and ideation.
For more information, visit www.thehatchx.com.