GOOD ideas inspire me. Over the past year, I've particularly enjoyed interviews and meetings with entrepreneurs and innovators.
These self-starters inevitably have an infectious enthusiasm and stubborn optimism, borne probably from the knowledge that they’ve a great solution that no one else has.
In fact, innovators seem to have a solution for everything.
As I write this, researchers in Singapore are finding ways to make buildings more eco-friendly, to recycle all sorts of waste, and to come up with new foods and flavours with better nutrition.
For their part, the authorities are pouring more resources to make these innovations available to the public. This process, in geek speech, is known as tech transfer.
All five Singapore polytechnics have, in one way or another, established their own tech transfer offices, and last year, even formed a network to centralise resources.
The hope, says Mr Walter Lee, head of the Technology Transfer Network (TTN) secretariat, is that Singapore can become a regional tech transfer hub, much like American cities San Diego and Boston.
But the road ahead is long, admits Mr Lee, who reckons it may take Singapore up to 15 years to reach this goal.
What's sorely lacking is funding from venture capitalists and business angels to commercialise these innovations.
It is Mr Lee's hope that the Exploit Technologies Innovation and Enterprise Week this week will draw keen investors game enough to take risks on local innovations.
"Singapore is quite financially endowed, but a lot of money is in real estate, food and beverage and hotels," he says.
"The goal is to get a culture of investing in innovations started, and slowly by word of mouth, more and more people will join in."
A number of networks such as the Angel Investment Initiative, and the Business Angel Network (South East Asia) have come up to help this culture along.
But the reason for the slow uptake, it seems, boils down to the risk of utter and complete loss should the product fail, much like an investment in a start-up.
The one question that is crying out to be asked as Singapore pushes hard towards a knowledge-based economy is this: Are Singaporean ideas risky investments?
What do you think?
My answer to that is, if it inspires you, it’s probably worth a shot. After all, you’ll never know until you try, right?
E-mail you answer to Cassandra Chew or leave a comment below. Read more about this idea in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.