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NEC has unveiled plans to foster closer regional partnerships across the private and public sectors through the opening of its open innovation centre in Singapore; the first such facility outside of Japan.
The new facility is supported by Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB) and is part of its $100 million planned investment over the five years from 2017 across the Asia Pacific region in research and innovation.
"We are delighted that NEC has chosen Singapore to establish its first open innovation centre outside of Japan,” said Lily Phua, director of new businesses at EDB.
“Singapore's strong base of enterprises, partners and digital talent offer NEC an ideal location to forge collaborations and translate its strong biometric identification technology into new applications for public safety and commercial domains for Singapore and beyond."
The centre will be operated by the vendor’s global safety division bringing together its own technology with that of its partner ecosystem exploring use cases around artificial intelligence (AI) and biometric solutions as it relates to public safety, transportation and aviation.
Furthermore, the centre will house various thematic zones which allow an immersive experience in AI and biometric solutions within the context of daily life.
Specifically, there will be demonstrations on, for instance, the use of someone's face as a trusted key to securely access government and commercial services with the vendor’s trusted digital identity solution.
"The vision of the open innovation centre is to orchestrate a smart and safer city in collaboration with governments and businesses,” said Tan Boon Chin, managing director, global safety division at NEC.
"With a digitally disruptive team at the heart of OIC's operations, new ideas of approaching public safety can be prototyped and launched within the centre and further deployed in global markets. This is only possible with strong support from our industry partners who are already on board the OIC ecosystem.
"We believe that a trusted digital identity based on biometrics such as facial recognition technology can transform businesses so as to provide secure and frictionless experience across home, city and aviation."
