Sustainability Hub

Health and Well-Being

Sustainability is becoming an essential part of both everyday life and the healthcare sector, influencing how we live, care for ourselves, and manage resources to create a healthier and more resilient future. Singapore is embracing green healthcare innovations, where technology and sustainable living solutions converge to promote healthier lifestyles, preventive care, and the development of a robust, eco-conscious healthcare system. 

This curated selection of sustainable living and healthcare innovations addresses modern challenges and enhances quality of life. From digital health, including AI in healthcare, to personal care, wellness, to efficient resource management and green materials, these innovations open new opportunities for enterprises to develop products and services tailored for families, the silver generation, and eco-conscious individuals, promoting well-being and sustainable growth. 

The integration of digital health innovation and AI in healthcare is transforming how we approach both personal and preventive care. These technologies enable more efficient healthcare delivery, while aligning with sustainable living solutions, reducing resource consumption and promoting long-term wellness. By integrating technology into healthcare, Singapore is paving the way for a more sustainable, resilient, and health-conscious future.

Cognitive Stimulation Solution to Assist Dementia Patients or Elderly
With the global population rapidly aging, the prevalence of dementia is becoming an increasing concern. As more elderly individuals suffer from cognitive decline, including memory loss and impaired daily functioning, the need for effective interventions is urgent. Dementia, a condition affecting many worldwide, not only diminishes the quality of life for patients but also places a heavy burden on caregivers and healthcare systems.  In response to these challenges, this solution offers a novel method to help dementia patients maintain cognitive function through engaging therapeutic activities. The solution is a cognitive stimulation system that leverages motion tracking and multi-sensory feedback to help users recall familiar actions from their daily lives. By recreating activities such as ironing or spreading jam, the device taps into procedural memory, allowing users to re-enact tasks they once performed regularly. This process stimulates recollection, helping to evoke personal memories and improve cognitive agility. The technology owner is interested to work with:  (1) companies to co-develop/ out-license the technology to help serve more patients and elderly; (2) healthcare facilities such as hospitals or nursing homes for validations and trials. 
Therapy for Diabetic Foot Ulcers with Foot Cover and Disinfection System
Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are a serious and common complication of diabetes, often leading to infections, amputations, and prolonged hospitalizations. Even with current standard of care, treatment of DFUs is still challenging, and may not always prevent severe outcomes. This therapy system integrates advanced wound management techniques, focusing on enhancing wound healing, off-loading pressure from vulnerable areas, and improving infection control. Traditional treatments lack comprehensive solutions for wound healing enhancement, pressure off-loading, and effective infection control. This therapy system combines these features into a single solution, offering accelerated healing while its integrated disinfection mechanism helps manage infections with ease. The therapy system is efficient and user-friendly, suitable for deployment in various healthcare settings. Ideal collaboration partners include medical device manufacturers, wound care specialists, and healthcare institutions focused on innovative treatment solutions.
Precision Contactless Heart Rate and Respiratory Rate Monitoring System
Radar sensor technology, particularly at the millimeter-wave (mmWave) range, offers innovative ways to monitor human health by leveraging electromagnetic waves to gather vital signs non-invasively. This non-contact approach is highly effective for measuring heart rate and respiratory rate, enhancing comfort for users by eliminating the need for physical sensors. This mmWave radar detects small body movements, such as chest expansion and contractions due to breathing, as well as micro-movements from heartbeats. One of the key advantages of this technology is its ability to penetrate clothing and bedding, making it ideal for continuous monitoring in sleep studies, elderly care, and other medical applications. It also functions reliably regardless of lighting conditions or ambient noise, unlike optical or acoustic sensors. This radar technology allows for immediate data collection, enabling quick responses in emergencies and optimizing overall performance.
Smart Sleep Monitoring: Contactless Vital Signs Sensor Based AIoT Solution
As a breakthrough in health technology, sleep health monitoring gained significant attention due to increasing awareness of sleep’s critical impact on physical and mental well-being. Demand for innovative solutions to address sleep disorders, particularly among aging populations and individuals with chronic illnesses, is rising. However, to fully unlock its potential, there are challenges to overcome, such as achieving clinical-grade accuracy, safeguarding data privacy, and ensuring seamless integration with existing healthcare systems. To address these challenges, the technology owner has developed a non-intrusive, highly convenient solution leveraging on advanced contactless vital signs sensor and an AIoT platform. This system tracks sleep patterns, detect breathing disorders and improve overall well-being by capturing heart rates, breathing patterns, and subtle body movements using high-precision fiber optic sensors. Through sophisticated signal processing, it collects and analyses multidimensional vital sign date such as ballistocardiogram (BCG), electrocardiogram (ECG) and photoplethysmography (PPG), using big data. AI algorithms further enhance the solution by providing comprehensive sleep quality assessments and personalized sleep recommendations. This contactless monitoring solution offered real-time, high-precision monitoring of vital signs without direct contact with the human body, ensuring medical-grade accuracy across a wide range of body weights. By eliminating the need for wearables or sensors, it enhances user comfort while providing critical insights into sleep quality - a key factor in mental, physical, and emotional health. The technology owner is seeking collaboration with industrial partners in healthcare facilities, eldercare centers, hospitals, sleep clinics, daycare centers, and smart homes to explore various application opportunities.
Stress Relief Sleep Patch for Insomnia with Natural Components
Insomnia, particularly when caused by stress or anxiety, poses a significant challenge for many individuals. Traditional treatments, including sleeping pills, can be effective but often come with potential side effects and long-term dependency concerns. Addressing this issue, an innovative sleep patch has been developed to offer a non-invasive, drug-free solution for improving sleep hygiene. This sleep patch is designed to tackle common sleep problems such as insomnia and irregular sleep patterns, particularly those triggered by stress and anxiety. Unlike conventional medications, the patch leverages natural products to promote relaxation and support continuous sleep without the adverse effects associated with long-term drug use. Clinical research, including stress experiments and polysomnography studies, has demonstrated the patch’s ability to induce sleep for over 12 hours by alleviating stress. This makes it an ideal choice for individuals seeking a safe, effective alternative to conventional sleep aids. The technology owner is looking for collaboration with local research institutions and universities to validate the effectiveness and safety of the product through comprehensive research and clinical trials.
Automated Pain Detection using AI
In healthcare, accurately assessing pain is critical, yet it remains a significant challenge, particularly for patients unable to effectively communicate their discomfort. This includes individuals with cognitive impairments, critical care patients, and pre-verbal children. Traditional pain assessment methods rely heavily on verbal communication or subjective observer-based pain assessment, which can lead to missed or poorly managed pain, resulting in either under-treatment or over-analgesia treatment. To address this issue, this advanced AI-based solution automates the process of estimating pain intensity by analyzing facial expressions captured in video data. The technology is a deep learning system consisting of facial landmarks (specific points on a person's face, such as the corners of the eyes, nose, mouth, and other prominent facial features) extraction, 3D normalization and Spatial-Temporal Attention Long Short-Term Memory (STA-LSTM) model. These facial landmarks provide critical information about facial expressions, allowing the system to accurately assess pain levels. By integrating this technology into clinical settings, healthcare providers can significantly enhance patient care, reduce the burden on staff, and improve overall pain management practices. This solution not only ensures timely and appropriate intervention but also protects patient privacy by using non-identifiable facial landmarks, making it a powerful tool for modern healthcare environments.
AI-Powered Digital Pathology Solution for Thyroid Cancer Diagnosis
Cancer is one of the most deadly diseases worldwide, requiring pathological testing to confirm the diagnosis. With recent advancements in digital pathology, there is a growing demand for AI-based digital pathology diagnostic products to manage and shorten diagnosis time for accurate and targeted treatments. Thyroid cancer is a relatively common type of cancer. The malignancy of thyroid nodules is determined through the pathological examination of cells obtained via Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) or Core Needle Biopsy (CNB). However, due to the complexities of thyroid nodule pathology, over 30% of patients' biopsy samples are classified as indeterminate, meaning they cannot be definitively diagnosed as benign or malignant. Additional testing, such as Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) molecular tests are required to provide further clarification. However, the high cost of testing limits patient accessibility. This technology is an AI-powered solution that analyze pathology images obtained through Core Needle Biopsy (CNB), providing diagnostic results for benign or malignant nodules. It offers interpretation and visualization of AI analysis results. This allows for accurate diagnosis of not only the benign(C2) and malignant(C6) cases traditionally identified by pathologists but also indeterminate(C3,C4,C5) cases that were previously challenging to diagnose. This approach ultimately reduces unnecessary surgeries, thereby improving the quality of life for patients. It offers a cost-effective alternative to expensive and less accessible NGS testing, delivering similar diagnostic accuracy without the need for additional tests. The technology owner is seeking partnerships with medical institutions specializing in oncology, including major hospitals and clinical laboratories, pharmceutical and biotechnology companies. 
Air Purification Technologies for Ensuring Pristine Air Quality on Ships
Maintaining clean air on ships is crucial for the health and well-being of passengers and crew, as well as for the proper functioning of sensitive equipment. Due to the structural specificity of ships and higher reliance on mechanical air conditioning than natural ventilation, addressing indoor air quality issues is particularly important. Advanced air purification solutions would be able to effectively address a range of airborne contaminants, including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and biological pollutants, ensuring a safer and more pleasant environment on board. A Korean startup has developed an air sterilisation and purification system tailored specifically to the challenges of maritime environments that excels in delivering clean, safe, and compliant air quality solutions. They enhance health and safety, optimise operational efficiency, and contribute to a better overall experience for passengers and crew, while also meeting regulatory requirements and supporting environmental sustainability. The company is seeking collaborators from the maritime and built environment sectors, as well as HVAC and IoT companies, to expand their applications and explore integration of their technologies into existing HVAC systems.
Needle-Free Laser Injector as a Direct Drug Delivery System
The field of medical aesthetics has witnessed remarkable growth, driven by the increasing demand for non-surgical cosmetic treatments. Patients are increasingly seeking minimally invasive procedures that provide effective results with minimal discomfort, reduced downtime, and fewer side effects. This has spurred the development of advanced technologies such as dermal fillers, injections, and various energy-based devices to address common concerns like wrinkles, skin laxity, and volume loss. Despite these advancements, traditional needle-based injection methods still present challenges. They can cause discomfort, bruising, and anxiety, which often deter patients from seeking treatment or lead to suboptimal results due to patient hesitation. Additionally, needle-based procedures carry inherent risks, such as infection, uneven distribution of the injected substance, and potential damage to surrounding tissues. To overcome these issues, a laser-guided, needleless drug injection device has been developed. This technology utilizes a 2940nm Er:YAG laser that interacts with water to create internal explosions, generating strong pressure. This pressure converts the drug, sprayed from a nozzle, into a jet form, allowing it to be delivered precisely and evenly into the desired skin layer. The technology enables the rapid injection of large quantities of medication, offering a pain-free, controlled, and efficient alternative to traditional needle-based injections. The technology owner is seeking collaboration with partners in the aesthetics, pharmaceutical, medical laser device manufacturers, and professional medical institutions. The goal is to expand the application of this technology beyond aesthetics, into areas such as drug delivery for vaccines and other therapeutic uses.