While prostate cancer has been the most common cancer in American and European men for the last 5 years, its incidence in Asia has been rising. Known to be an aging problem, there are standard means of diagnosis for the disease, but a prostate biopsy remains the only means of histological confirmation – using a needle to take a small tissue sample for verification. This is currently obtained via a puncture either through the rectum or through the area forward of the rectum, which carries the potential risk of injuries and shortcomings.

The Hard Disk Drive (HDD) industry requires low contamination level in its mechanical components to avoid formation of microscopic particles, which can damage (e.g. scratch) disk surface when trapped, leading to head crash and media corruption. Furthermore, the distance from disk to read-and-write head (fly height) is required to be small, but is limited by the possible presence of microscopic particles that take up space.

Circulating tumour cells (CTCs) are important in cancer detection and treatment. However, they are extremely rare (1 in 1 billion cells), and are very difficult and costly to retrieve. Current methods require biomarkers and complicated processing which change the CTCs. An even bigger challenge lies in retrieving the cells in its whole, intact, native state.

Verification of wood origin is important since United States introduced new legislation to address the problem of illegal-logging in 2008. Now, US importers of wood products must declare the country of harvest of the wood as well as the species. Existing document audit processes used by the timber industry are vulnerable to fraud and therefore unreliable as evidence of wood origin.

Micro Suspension Technology uses renewable and abundant sources to produce highly bioavailable fertilizers containing minerals such as phosphate, calcium and silica. The technology enhances FUE (Fertilizer Use Efficiency) of plants thus maximizing benefits such as increased yield and quality and increased starch and sugar content on crops such as potato, sweet potato, rice, corn and citrus. Micro Suspension fertilizers also offer an environmentally friendly advantage in reducing or replacing conventional chemical fertilizers.

The technology has yielded promising results and has also been approved for sale in selected markets.

Antnano aims to develop a system that will extend the life of disposable and highly-sensitive air sensors for the near-real-time detection of biological analytes, therefore allowing the system to warn of toxic by-products or harmful biological agents in biochemical manufacturing plants and other environments.

Autium aims to prototype and supply watchmakers with precision watch movement parts crafted from fusion metals – created with proprietary Vacuum Diffusion Bonding technology - which will lead to such improvements as lighter gear systems, cost and energy efficiency gains, and improved aesthetics, among others.

Sales of precision watch parts to high-end Swiss watch manufacturers have been initiated. Separately, the company has also successfully launched a revolutionary collection of fusion jewellery.

Niometrics seeks to develop a network traffic management system that enables organizations to proactively secure their networks against internal and external threats, prevent data leaks and enforce corporate network use policies.

The company has conducted trials on several networks with more than 60,000 users in total.

Pipeline Micro aims to develop the world’s first micropump system for semiconductor cooling expected to solve heating problems associated with semiconductor systems such as photovoltaics, LED and computers.

The company has started to commercialise the system and possibly expand to other applications in clean energy and medical diagnostics.

Teliwave is developing Hoiio Mobility – a solution that extends an enterprise’s existing IP-PBX system to mobile phones. With this product, companies will be able to reduce communication costs by as much as 90%, increase mobile staff efficiency and gain extra administrative control. Hoii Mobility works by converting outgoing mobile calls into incoming calls through a call-back service.

A full feature product version is already released, and site licenses have been secured with major reference customers for Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.