WHAT'S NEW
STORY OF THE MONTH
Joint Development of COVID-19 Rapid Test Kits by Biogenes Technologies S.B.
April 2020
One of our technology incubatees, Biogenes Technologies S.B. has entered into a joint collaboration with San Francisco-based start-up Pinpoint Science Ltd. to design and develop a DNA-based aptamer against the novel coronavirus that will be used for rapid mass screening kits for coronavirus infection.
The rapid test kit in the form of a portable device and sensor strips is expected to be able to detect the presence of coronavirus in throat and nasal swab samples within 1 minute. The result will also be digitised, hence allowing the data to be uploaded in real-time to a centralised cloud server for rapid alert and response by the authorities. This rapid test kit is intended to replace thermal scans in public areas such airports and buildings to screen out people for possible coronavirus infection.
Read more at
https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/malaysian-companies-develop-covid19-rapid-test-kits
Launching of MREPC Automation & Green Technology Fund
August 2019
The Malaysian Rubber Export Promotional Council or MREPC recently launched its inaugural funding program to promote the adoption of automation and green technology in Malaysia’s rubber manufacturing sector. This are among the progressive steps taking by the Malaysian government to ensure the economic and environmental sustainability of our billion ringgit rubber industry.
The funding will address three key areas in rubber manufacturing sector; adoption of solar and biomass as sources of renewable energy, water conservation and recycling ; as well as deploying of automation technologies in production lines.
This funding initiative is also expected to generate economic multiplier effects, ranging from promoting new technologies and innovations in the domestic sectors of renewable energy, water conservation and automation; as well as to creating a vibrant industrial eco-system in sustainability and circular economy.
Circular Economy Conference & Mission
June 2019
*Sourced from https://eeas.europa.eu
A two-day EU-ASEAN regional workshop on circular economy took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 11-12 June 2019. The workshop, conducted back-to-back with the European Commission DG Environment Circular Economy Mission to Malaysia, emphasized the importance of collaboration between the EU and ASEAN towards a circular economy, and contributed to the EU-ASEAN High-Level Dialogue on Environment and Climate Change.
Plastic and its wastes has been identified as a key priority in the European Commission Action Plan on Circular Economy. If this industry is sufficiently facilitated and driven by enabling policy frameworks, it has the potential to solve its waste problem while bringing new opportunities for innovation, boost countries’ competitiveness, and create new jobs.
In the context of Malaysia, the concept of Circular Economy is gradually making its mark at the national level, in line with new policies and initiatives from the Malaysian government such as our "Roadmap Towards Zero-Single-Use-Plastics 2018-2030".
Read up more about the event here
Sources:
https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/association-southeast-asian-nations-asean/
Circular Economy
November 2018
Circular economy is a relatively new concept on how new and innovative business models can be implemented to decouple economic growth from the constraints of Earth’s limited resources and the negative environmental impacts from its exploitation; ranging from pollution of land, sea and air, climate change, loss of biodiversity and the over-use of natural resources.
Since the early days of human civilization where our forefathers mined the Earth for coal, oil and minerals for resources to generate energy, fertilize crops and build dwellings; our global economy has been running on the ‘linear economy’ mode where resources are mined, processed, used and finally discarded back to the environment as wastes.
With the rapid increase in human population and rapid rise in global consumerism, our Mother Earth is feeling the strain of over-exploitation of our limited resources as well as the social, economical and environmental impacts of resource inefficiencies and all the wastes generated at the tail-end of the linear economy. Some of these impacts include scarcity of natural resources leading to price increases, geopolitical conflicts for access to these resources, pollution and climate change.
Circular economy can be defined as the integration of sustainability agenda with new business models that drive innovations across many aspects of our economy; ranging from product design, product-to-service transformation, recycling and recovery of materials from products. The diagram below provides an overview of the possibilities of the circular economy.
Source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Towards the Circular
Economy: Accelerating the scale-up across global supply chains
For our world’s current linear economy to shift to circular economy will be a challenging endeavor. It will require radical shift in our mindset and thinking of our political, social and business leaders. The value propositions of all our products and services will need to be revisited and redefined so that we can think outside the ‘linear economy’ box to innovate new ways to deliver values to our customers and stakeholders. At the same time, we will also need to consider and evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts of our new circular economy models to ensure that it brings more benefits to humankind than what we will leave behind as we ‘retire’ the existing linear economy.
World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF)
*Reporting from Japan
November 2018
The 2nd WCEF was held in Yokohama, Japan from 22-23 Oct 2018. Organised by Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra (www.sitra.fi), it was a follow-up from last year’s 1st WCEF that was held in Helsinki. The forum provides the platform for subject matter experts, thinkers, policy makers and business leaders to share and explore many ideas and thoughts on circular economy.
Themes that were highlighted and discussed in the forum include potential economic benefits, social equity and rural development in the circular economy, sustainable lifestyles, food supply systems in cities, energy and climate impacts, global value chains and trade, education as well as revolution in mobilities in cities and circular solutions for reducing plastic waste as marine pollution.
Towards the end of the forum, speakers and participants also discussed about the opportunties for international collaboration and cooperation in turning circular economy from a vision into a reality in the global supply chain.
For more information and videos of the forum presentations, please refer to
https://www.sitra.fi/en/events/world-circular-economy-forum-2018-programme/
APEC Circular Economy Platform
Accelerate The Transition To A Circular Economy
*Reporting from Taiwan
November 2018
Under the progressive initiative by APEC, another event to promote circular economy in the Asia-Pacific region was organised from 22-23 Oct 2018 in Taiwan. The event was hosted by Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), an R&D governmental agency that undertake projects to promote technological innovation and advancement of Taiwan’s hi-tech industries.
The event was organised into three major themes; (1) Chemicals-Products-Waste Interface, (2) Circular Fashion – A New Textile Economy, and (3) Preventing Marine Plastic Waste with Circular Solutions.
The first theme discussed about the potential, opportunities and challenges of converting wastes such as agriculture biomass into feedstocks for the production of bio-based polymers and biodegradable plastics.
A major highlight was the presentation by Far Eastern New Century Corporation of Taiwan, a major conglomerate player in the global recycled and bioplastics sector. One of the more notable achievements of the corporation is to collaborate with Coca-Cola for their PlantBottle®project. The project tackles the problem of plastic bottle wastes by developing fully recyclable PET plastic beverage bottle made partially from plant-based resources. The material looks and functions just like traditional PET plastic, but has a lighter environmental footprint on the planet.
Under the circular fashion theme, the discussion focuses on what large and small corporation are doing to reduce the impact of textile and fashion industry to the environment, as well as initiatives to recycle the unused or used fabrics to add more value to the industry.
The event ended with a final wrap-up on the follow-up measures and actions that can be planned and implemented at the APEC level to promote education, collaboration and cooperation as well as governmental policies to create market drivers for the circular economy at national and regional platforms.
Sustaining Sustainability
July 2018
We have been involved in the business of sustainability for more than ten years. What started off as a participation in a four-year EU-funded project on biomass utilisation in Malaysia snowballed into undertaking GHG emissions assessment projects for oil palm plantation companies, public-listed corporations as well as joint projects with universities and like-minded small and medium enterprises.
Malaysia is now more committed than ever to fulfill its responsibility as a global citizen in tackling climate change and environmental degradation. In 2009, ‘green technology’ is recognised by the Malaysian government as a potential contributor to wealth creation sustainably; being parked as one of the key functions under the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water. Now in 2018, our commitment is further strengthen by realigning the ministry into the Ministry of Energy, Technology, Science, Climate Change and Environment.
With this deeper commitment, it is hoped that large Malaysian corporations are able to take up the challenge to invest in sustainability whether in the form of green business practices, low-carbon technologies, new green ventures and branding. Currently in the corporate scene; with the exception of a few exemplary ones, majority of large corporations are still implementing sustainable measures on an piecemeal basis for the purpose of compliance. These include funding of unsustainable CSR projects and merely undertaking annual carbon reporting.
We believe that Malaysian corporations and businesses can do more; sustainability should no longer been seen as costs but rather as a long-term investment that leads to lower costs, higher revenue, and increased brand value. The technologies, know-how and expertise are already in place. To bring us to the next level, we need corporations to work together with their customers, vendors and even their own competitors.
Sustainability has to go beyond mere words in our speeches and in the pages of corporate reports. Sustainability has to be acted upon; indoctrinated as business processes and a way of life. Sustainability needs to be sustainable.
WHAT'S NEW IN RAPID GENESIS
MESTECC R&D Grant
April 2020
Rapid Genesis is happy to announce several successes in assisting innovative Malaysian SMEs in securing R&D Fund grant scheme offered by MOSTI (formerly MESTECC) for their product development projects. This include its own incubatee company, Biogenes Technologies as well as two other companies in their respective business of animal feed production and natural-based pesticides and growth enhancers in organic farming. The applied grant amounts for these projects ranges from RM500,000 to RM2,000,000.
The aim of the R&D Fund is to encourage Malaysian companies to work with local researchers to undertake science and technology-based experimental development towards commercialisation and business sales. This scheme focuses on priority areas such as sustainable production of water, food and energy, as well as green growth for sustainable development, medical and healthcare.
More information at
https://edana.mestecc.gov.my/edana/frontend/web/guidelines/mesteccv2.pdf
Graphene Technology For Rubber and Polymer Products Industry
April 2020
UPM technology startup, GO Advanced Solutions S.B. recently appointed Rapid Genesis to provide techno-commercial advisory and consultancy services for the commercialisation of the former’s graphene-based formulations and expertise to the rubber and polymer manufacturing industry. The industry sub-segments of interest include rubber and nitrile gloves, lubricants, biodegradable plastics, tires and other polymer-based products.
The addition of graphene compounds into rubber and polymer products has the advantages of improving the strength and other physical of the products, allowing for higher performance products to be created as well as economizing on the use of input materials.
In Malaysia alone, the rubber glove industry generates nearly RM20 bil. in revenue while contributing up to 63% of global demand. Our nation’s success in the rubber industry clearly demonstrates the importance for continuous technology development in maintaining our competitiveness from our days of rubber plantations to today’s production of high value rubber products.
GoApe goes live on ATA PLUS equity crowd funding platform!
April 2020
After 6 months of hard work, our team at Rapid Genesis finally has succeeded in bringing new delivery startup, GoApe live onto ATA PLUS equity crowd funding platform.
GoApe is an app-driven new farm-to-table delivery platform that provides sustainable solutions to the F&B eco-system, using zero-emissions electric bikes to provide delivery services for F&B outlets. The app runs on an AI-driven platform that will be a game changer to the on-demand delivery industry by eliminating the middlemen from the F&B supply chain process.
Electric bikes are the natural choice for GoApe as they are low-cost, low-maintenance and hassle-free solutions to get around in cities. With this business operational model, GoApe also hopes to send the message that it is possible to make a difference in creating economic value via low carbon green strategy.
More information at
Launching of Technology Incubation Centre
April 2019
Rapid Genesis launched its new Technology Incubation Centre on 26-April 2019. Located within the campus of Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur (IUKL) along the Kajang-Putrajaya highway, this 3,000 sq.ft center is equipped with co-working space, biosensor development lab, workshop as well as training facilities. With the new center in operation, we hope to attract more students and technology entrepreneurs to come to explore and develop their ideas into technological innovations in the months and years to come.
We also took the opportunity during the launch to witness the signing of Technology Licensing Agreement between our incubatee biotech startup, Biogenes Technologies with IUKL to commercialise the outputs of our joint R&D collaboration. Biogenes develops molecular-based technologies and cutting-edge solutions, products and services to serve customers from various sectors ranging from healthcare, animal breeding to aquaculture, agriculture and environmental monitoring.
Participation at PERINTIS 2018 R&D exhibition
November 2018
RAPID GENESIS recently participated in an R&D exhibition for private universities in Malaysia where our company showcased our ‘Genesis Incubation Centre’ program. We believed in the potential of R&D expertise and technologies to become another revenue generator to private universities.
During the exhibition, we highlighted our technology projects and a few start-ups that are the outcomes of the successful projects. These include our water monitoring and control system, genetics breeding of ornamtental Arowana fish as well as our bio-computational work on molecular design of synthetic antibiotics. More information about our technologies can be accessed at www.rapidgenesis.com/technology-platforms
MOU between Rapid Genesis – ITTN China
July 2018
Rapid Genesis is happy to announce the official signing of MoU between our organisation with China-based International Technology Transfer Network (ITTN). ITTN is a service organisation that is tasked to promote technology transfer and innovation cooperation between China and other countries all over the world.
Under the MoU, Rapid Genesis and ITTN will explore potential cross-border projects under the thematic area of sustainability via the deployment of technologies and innovations. The ultimate aim of this collaboration is to further incubate these projects into sustainable commercial ventures.
As part of this initiative, Rapid Genesis was invited to the city of Suzhou, China from 12-15 June 2018 to present on potential projects for collaboration during “2018 China (Suzhou) Cross-Border Technology Transfer Convention”. The event was attended by 200+ delegates from neighbouring Asia-Pacific region to as far as Russia and United States of America.
Rapid Genesis hopes that this MoU will be the start of closer collaboration between Malaysia and China; as well as other countries in this region in projects concerning the sustainablity of water, food, energy and material use.
