[Music]
one of the earliest lesson I learn as an
inventor is that a great invention also
needs to have great timing you in front
of you a pair of aircraft parts that I
both designed and produced I was invited
to change this part in the a4 Skyhawk
fighter from aluminum into carbon
composite to save weights I
underestimated the difficulty involved
and I spent two years of my life
developing and producing these two
pieces in my own basement at home after
my four kids go to sleep in the wee
hours of the morning I will be working
away the good news was that two years
later I managed to produce two case one
of which was tested to failure and the
second set was tucked up on an actual
airplane and flew around Singapore for a
couple of weeks so what’s the bad news
well two weeks after I succeeded the Air
Force announced that they are going to
redraw all the Skyhawk like this to be
replaced by f-16s perfect timing I went
into medical device invention shortly
after the death of my older sister
Angela she died of lung cancer at that
time the tumor was growing right next to
an artery a major artery so the doctors
could not operate on it in my discussion
with the doctors I kept asking can’t you
do something to make a device that is
placed right next to the tumor and then
radiate continuously against a tumor to
kill it doctor say great idea but nobody
standard before I was then that I
realized that an engineer like myself
can contribute towards finding ideas to
cure sickness and disease this is one of
the earlier inventions that I made I
myself suffer from kidney stones from
birth I had a defect and throughout my
life I’ve been producing a lot of kidney
stones if they were diamonds I would be
a very rich man to Wed but I can tell
you that when a kidneys don’t travel
from the kidney down to the bladder it
has to go through the ureter it’s a long
tube and if it ever gets stuck in the
ureter and that happened to me quite a
few times
it is excruciating ly painful it is also
life-threatening you need to immediately
get treated for it one of the way to
avoid this is to put a stents into the
ureter and then when there is no more
stones to take out the stands after
discussing the urologist I thought it
would be a great idea that if you insert
the stent in and after has been used let
it dissolve by itself and then you don’t
have to have the second procedure or
pulling the host and out and trust me is
not a great experience so I worked with
the urologist very enthusiastic guy I
come to learn that doctors all have
wonderful things they want to do but
they couldn’t do it so in an engineer
helps them do to develop event and we
succeeded and we tested it we included
testing in animals was a great device
then we started looking for investors
and it was when I learned my first
lesson that’s a great invention also
requires a great market size market size
factors because it is not vegan now
nobody’s interested in investing in it
great solution great problem but no
investors sometimes inventions need to
move
in order to be successful you have the
first mover’s advantage but to do that
an inventor needs to be willing to share
his idea early on with people who can
help him to move fast and sometimes that
is a problem because inventors want to
keep everything to themselves this was a
device that I invented with my student
it all started in the morning when we
were chatting away over coffee and then
we pull out I remember the Soviet and I
started sketching some you know pictures
onto the Soviet it was a problem that
surgeons had you see when a surgeon or
prays he needs to keep the surgical
wound open in the operating theatre they
require two nurses that’s very expensive
one on the left one on the right pulling
the the wound opened with a retractor
manually we said what if we replace this
manual way of doing it with adhesive
that is attached onto the skin of years
in office no rocket science
but nobody has ever found a patent for
that you see so in the morning we
sketched it the next morning my student
actually bought half a pig of course
tape two to the lab and then we did some
tests and we discovered that actually it
worked really well I decided then that
we had to move fast so what I did was to
contact a company in Irvine California
and they had expertise to make good
prototypes follow IP for as fast as
possible and then start commercializing
it all in one month I could do that only
because I was willing to share these
ideas with them at the risk of them
further developing other things
themselves but it did give me a first
mover’s advantage I then went on to work
on something that has a bigger market
well if first it doesn’t succeed you try
again so the stent that I developed for
for the kidney stone didn’t have a big
enough market so I started talking to
cardiologists
and then I discovered that’s one of the
big problem is an unmet need that we
face is that when you do stenting it’s a
perfect idea to have a stand that will
completely dissolve but first let me
explain how a stent works when your
blood vessel is clogged up what the
cardiologists or radiologists do is to
insert a balloon into the place where
your blockage is expand the balloon so
that your blockage is opened and then
insert a scaffold cause stents to hold
up the opening now what people don’t
know is this the once the stent is in
after a few months the blood vessel a
very clever living thing actually
remembers the shape and after a few
months if you take the stent away it
will retain the new shape so the stent
then becomes a liability
for life why life because the matter
stands that you put in cannot be taken
out once it’s inside and for the rest of
your life you have to worry about the
possibility of blood clotting for
example so after talking to him I told
him that I had a brilliant idea
some time ago we could develop a stand
that actually can be inserted in and not
only that it can expand exactly ways
wanted once it’s located to the size
that is required so that it would not
move after that and then stay there for
a couple of months after that it was
stopped slowly but in a program way
dissolves itself and disappear actually
dissolves into a material that is like
milk and your body absorbs it very
nicely so that was a brilliant idea what
is interesting is this I actually took
the new idea from a different industry
you see in the micro electronics
industry they have been working on what
we call a multi-layer polymer structure
layer by layer and that gives you some
unique properties
I borrowed that idea and I planted into
the biomedical device and it worked
perfectly
so you have a stand that is really small
made of polymer insert into the blood
vessel located exactly where you want it
and because it’s multi-layer is able to
expand exactly at your body temperature
into the diameter that it should and it
stays there and wonderfully after a few
months it begins to crack up layer by
layer very safe so this was quite a long
process that was the easy part I
discovered that the puff part was
finding people to put money into this
project this was about 2003 2002 and in
those days Singapore VC companies were
not use to investing in biomedical
devices and so on so my colleague subbu
Venkatraman and myself both flew by
ourselves to California Silicon Valley
and for two whole days we walked through
El Camino mountain view Palo Alto
knocking at the doors of at least 10 VC
companies you know some of them we
didn’t even last five minutes
we were just introducing ourselves the
okay thank you we are interested
thankfully when we flew back we
discovered that one company this all you
need was interested well 14 years later
15 million US dollars at least
investment later
thus 10 is now in several hundred
patients around the world thankfully no
adverse events and thank you
and it all came because we talked to a
cardiologist it’s always good to ask
question to talk and then to find out
what other needs and then you get the
solution this last example I’m giving is
one that I have a great passion for I
get to learn things every day when I
talk to people and some years back when
I talked to her eye surgeon I discovered
a horror of a disease called glaucoma
glaucoma is a terrible disease because
there’s no cure what happens is that
it’s your eyeball gets high pressure and
it’s it damages your your nerves the eye
nurse so you start going blind
irreversible even if you reduce the
pressure the disease does not go away
there is an existing cure and that is to
put eyedrops 24 hours a day 7 days a
week 52 weeks a year nobody can do that
all the time can you hope you are
forgets and the terrible thing is that
if you forget if you don’t do it you get
more blind day by day week by week so we
thought of an idea to inject the truck
contain in very small particles it’s got
to be small because we put it in your
eye it is big enough you will see the
particles you wouldn’t see people so we
started with nano spheres so small you
can see inject it into the eye and as it
slowly releases the drug over a period
of 3 to 6 months the pressure of the
eyeball reduces itself it’s currently
now undergoing clinical trials but you
know a game is the same thing start us
talking and asking questions and you
discover that there’s many things on the
knee solution and when you have two
disciplines or three coming together you
get an answer for race so um one more
thing I learn you know discovering a new
drug is horrendously expensive is
billions of dollars for this project
what we did was to use an
off-patent drop we allowed to use it we
delivered an old drug in a new way and
we found out that is as good as a new
drug now this actually gives hope
because there are many are patent drugs
and some of you might give it a try
list out all your patent drugs and find
a new way to deliver an O drop so that
you can add new efficacies now let me
share with you some of the simple
lessons I learned in my life as I grow
as an inventor the first and most
obvious example is keep things simple if
it is too difficult to explain it’s too
difficult to use right any design the
more complicated it is the more likely
it is to fail if there are many paths
there will be many failures keep it
simple
the second lesson that I learned is the
innovation and invention is not having
an answer that is looking for a question
it’s tempting to do that here’s a clever
also where’s the problem
huh before you start talking start
listening what is the problem
once you know the problem getting the
answer will be fairly logical and that
will help you a long way to reduce the
amount of time you need to bring your
invention from beginning to a product
that is sellable and successful do what
you are good at isn’t that obvious yes
but sometimes you get misled by yourself
an inventor has a certain skill set a
certain can-do attitude and a certain
personality when he becomes at the same
time a CEO of a startup company he can
get a bit worried because the startup
company the CEO requires a different
kind of uses a different discipline
different personality it is the
exception to the rule
that inventor who a good inventor is
also a good CEO of a start-up company so
my advice to many inventors is hey do
what you’re good at
invent and continue inventing let others
do the running of the company is no fun
trust me
walk away from a good idea to a better
idea people talk about being passionate
with your ideas it can be costly if you
have one idea that is great after some
time it doesn’t extraction it becomes
only a good idea after some time it
becomes only an idea that nobody cares
be humble be realistic if one idea
doesn’t work after some time walk away
from that good idea there are better
ideas the whole world is filled with
great ideas you don’t have a monopoly of
it so not do not be afraid if you don’t
let go you cannot move on further and
the last advice I have is don’t invest
in yourself off I have invented a lot of
things I never put my money in my
invention I don’t trust myself because I
mean more emotionally involved I will
always think my ideas are the best and
that’s a bad idea when you do
investments when somebody else says that
your idea is good and they put money in
your idea your idea is really good
so in conclusion please don’t borrow
money from your mother-in-law thank you
very much
[Applause]
one of the earliest lesson I learn as an
inventor is that a great invention also
needs to have great timing you in front
of you a pair of aircraft parts that I
both designed and produced I was invited
to change this part in the a4 Skyhawk
fighter from aluminum into carbon
composite to save weights I
underestimated the difficulty involved
and I spent two years of my life
developing and producing these two
pieces in my own basement at home after
my four kids go to sleep in the wee
hours of the morning I will be working
away the good news was that two years
later I managed to produce two case one
of which was tested to failure and the
second set was tucked up on an actual
airplane and flew around Singapore for a
couple of weeks so what’s the bad news
well two weeks after I succeeded the Air
Force announced that they are going to
redraw all the Skyhawk like this to be
replaced by f-16s perfect timing I went
into medical device invention shortly
after the death of my older sister
Angela she died of lung cancer at that
time the tumor was growing right next to
an artery a major artery so the doctors
could not operate on it in my discussion
with the doctors I kept asking can’t you
do something to make a device that is
placed right next to the tumor and then
radiate continuously against a tumor to
kill it doctor say great idea but nobody
standard before I was then that I
realized that an engineer like myself
can contribute towards finding ideas to
cure sickness and disease this is one of
the earlier inventions that I made I
myself suffer from kidney stones from
birth I had a defect and throughout my
life I’ve been producing a lot of kidney
stones if they were diamonds I would be
a very rich man to Wed but I can tell
you that when a kidneys don’t travel
from the kidney down to the bladder it
has to go through the ureter it’s a long
tube and if it ever gets stuck in the
ureter and that happened to me quite a
few times
it is excruciating ly painful it is also
life-threatening you need to immediately
get treated for it one of the way to
avoid this is to put a stents into the
ureter and then when there is no more
stones to take out the stands after
discussing the urologist I thought it
would be a great idea that if you insert
the stent in and after has been used let
it dissolve by itself and then you don’t
have to have the second procedure or
pulling the host and out and trust me is
not a great experience so I worked with
the urologist very enthusiastic guy I
come to learn that doctors all have
wonderful things they want to do but
they couldn’t do it so in an engineer
helps them do to develop event and we
succeeded and we tested it we included
testing in animals was a great device
then we started looking for investors
and it was when I learned my first
lesson that’s a great invention also
requires a great market size market size
factors because it is not vegan now
nobody’s interested in investing in it
great solution great problem but no
investors sometimes inventions need to
move
in order to be successful you have the
first mover’s advantage but to do that
an inventor needs to be willing to share
his idea early on with people who can
help him to move fast and sometimes that
is a problem because inventors want to
keep everything to themselves this was a
device that I invented with my student
it all started in the morning when we
were chatting away over coffee and then
we pull out I remember the Soviet and I
started sketching some you know pictures
onto the Soviet it was a problem that
surgeons had you see when a surgeon or
prays he needs to keep the surgical
wound open in the operating theatre they
require two nurses that’s very expensive
one on the left one on the right pulling
the the wound opened with a retractor
manually we said what if we replace this
manual way of doing it with adhesive
that is attached onto the skin of years
in office no rocket science
but nobody has ever found a patent for
that you see so in the morning we
sketched it the next morning my student
actually bought half a pig of course
tape two to the lab and then we did some
tests and we discovered that actually it
worked really well I decided then that
we had to move fast so what I did was to
contact a company in Irvine California
and they had expertise to make good
prototypes follow IP for as fast as
possible and then start commercializing
it all in one month I could do that only
because I was willing to share these
ideas with them at the risk of them
further developing other things
themselves but it did give me a first
mover’s advantage I then went on to work
on something that has a bigger market
well if first it doesn’t succeed you try
again so the stent that I developed for
for the kidney stone didn’t have a big
enough market so I started talking to
cardiologists
and then I discovered that’s one of the
big problem is an unmet need that we
face is that when you do stenting it’s a
perfect idea to have a stand that will
completely dissolve but first let me
explain how a stent works when your
blood vessel is clogged up what the
cardiologists or radiologists do is to
insert a balloon into the place where
your blockage is expand the balloon so
that your blockage is opened and then
insert a scaffold cause stents to hold
up the opening now what people don’t
know is this the once the stent is in
after a few months the blood vessel a
very clever living thing actually
remembers the shape and after a few
months if you take the stent away it
will retain the new shape so the stent
then becomes a liability
for life why life because the matter
stands that you put in cannot be taken
out once it’s inside and for the rest of
your life you have to worry about the
possibility of blood clotting for
example so after talking to him I told
him that I had a brilliant idea
some time ago we could develop a stand
that actually can be inserted in and not
only that it can expand exactly ways
wanted once it’s located to the size
that is required so that it would not
move after that and then stay there for
a couple of months after that it was
stopped slowly but in a program way
dissolves itself and disappear actually
dissolves into a material that is like
milk and your body absorbs it very
nicely so that was a brilliant idea what
is interesting is this I actually took
the new idea from a different industry
you see in the micro electronics
industry they have been working on what
we call a multi-layer polymer structure
layer by layer and that gives you some
unique properties
I borrowed that idea and I planted into
the biomedical device and it worked
perfectly
so you have a stand that is really small
made of polymer insert into the blood
vessel located exactly where you want it
and because it’s multi-layer is able to
expand exactly at your body temperature
into the diameter that it should and it
stays there and wonderfully after a few
months it begins to crack up layer by
layer very safe so this was quite a long
process that was the easy part I
discovered that the puff part was
finding people to put money into this
project this was about 2003 2002 and in
those days Singapore VC companies were
not use to investing in biomedical
devices and so on so my colleague subbu
Venkatraman and myself both flew by
ourselves to California Silicon Valley
and for two whole days we walked through
El Camino mountain view Palo Alto
knocking at the doors of at least 10 VC
companies you know some of them we
didn’t even last five minutes
we were just introducing ourselves the
okay thank you we are interested
thankfully when we flew back we
discovered that one company this all you
need was interested well 14 years later
15 million US dollars at least
investment later
thus 10 is now in several hundred
patients around the world thankfully no
adverse events and thank you
and it all came because we talked to a
cardiologist it’s always good to ask
question to talk and then to find out
what other needs and then you get the
solution this last example I’m giving is
one that I have a great passion for I
get to learn things every day when I
talk to people and some years back when
I talked to her eye surgeon I discovered
a horror of a disease called glaucoma
glaucoma is a terrible disease because
there’s no cure what happens is that
it’s your eyeball gets high pressure and
it’s it damages your your nerves the eye
nurse so you start going blind
irreversible even if you reduce the
pressure the disease does not go away
there is an existing cure and that is to
put eyedrops 24 hours a day 7 days a
week 52 weeks a year nobody can do that
all the time can you hope you are
forgets and the terrible thing is that
if you forget if you don’t do it you get
more blind day by day week by week so we
thought of an idea to inject the truck
contain in very small particles it’s got
to be small because we put it in your
eye it is big enough you will see the
particles you wouldn’t see people so we
started with nano spheres so small you
can see inject it into the eye and as it
slowly releases the drug over a period
of 3 to 6 months the pressure of the
eyeball reduces itself it’s currently
now undergoing clinical trials but you
know a game is the same thing start us
talking and asking questions and you
discover that there’s many things on the
knee solution and when you have two
disciplines or three coming together you
get an answer for race so um one more
thing I learn you know discovering a new
drug is horrendously expensive is
billions of dollars for this project
what we did was to use an
off-patent drop we allowed to use it we
delivered an old drug in a new way and
we found out that is as good as a new
drug now this actually gives hope
because there are many are patent drugs
and some of you might give it a try
list out all your patent drugs and find
a new way to deliver an O drop so that
you can add new efficacies now let me
share with you some of the simple
lessons I learned in my life as I grow
as an inventor the first and most
obvious example is keep things simple if
it is too difficult to explain it’s too
difficult to use right any design the
more complicated it is the more likely
it is to fail if there are many paths
there will be many failures keep it
simple
the second lesson that I learned is the
innovation and invention is not having
an answer that is looking for a question
it’s tempting to do that here’s a clever
also where’s the problem
huh before you start talking start
listening what is the problem
once you know the problem getting the
answer will be fairly logical and that
will help you a long way to reduce the
amount of time you need to bring your
invention from beginning to a product
that is sellable and successful do what
you are good at isn’t that obvious yes
but sometimes you get misled by yourself
an inventor has a certain skill set a
certain can-do attitude and a certain
personality when he becomes at the same
time a CEO of a startup company he can
get a bit worried because the startup
company the CEO requires a different
kind of uses a different discipline
different personality it is the
exception to the rule
that inventor who a good inventor is
also a good CEO of a start-up company so
my advice to many inventors is hey do
what you’re good at
invent and continue inventing let others
do the running of the company is no fun
trust me
walk away from a good idea to a better
idea people talk about being passionate
with your ideas it can be costly if you
have one idea that is great after some
time it doesn’t extraction it becomes
only a good idea after some time it
becomes only an idea that nobody cares
be humble be realistic if one idea
doesn’t work after some time walk away
from that good idea there are better
ideas the whole world is filled with
great ideas you don’t have a monopoly of
it so not do not be afraid if you don’t
let go you cannot move on further and
the last advice I have is don’t invest
in yourself off I have invented a lot of
things I never put my money in my
invention I don’t trust myself because I
mean more emotionally involved I will
always think my ideas are the best and
that’s a bad idea when you do
investments when somebody else says that
your idea is good and they put money in
your idea your idea is really good
so in conclusion please don’t borrow
money from your mother-in-law thank you
very much
[Applause]
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