Kaijie Ng is the Director of the Open Innovation Platform and PIXEL Innovation Hub, a Singapore government outfit. The team supports corporate innovation with consultancy, matchmaking, and crowdsourcing services; and startups with incubation programs and access to lead demand.

He spent ten years across the education, rail regulation, and manpower sectors and was seconded to Carousell as its first Corporate Strategy Director. There, he drove Carousell's US$1.1B funding round and its recommerce strategy.

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👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

We're a B2B matchmaker for innovation.

For corporates, we diagnose their innovation needs and match them with innovation consultants or solution providers, including startups.

For startups, we help them scale through our incubation programmes and most importantly, access to lead demand.

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🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

That the government is so involved! We've helped over 300 corporate challenges and grown our community to more than 12k global solution providers. Our mission is to support corporate innovation and bring up the overall innovation level in the ecosystem across businesses and startups.

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🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Winning the top 10 Launchpads in Southeast Asia for scaling corporate innovation and startups! We're the only government agency to win, and the recognition by investors, industry, and media outlets greatly validated our work.

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🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, Sustainability, and AI.

AR/VR is not new but is rapidly gaining corporate interest because Covid has made everyone more accepting of virtual collaborative work. Add to that the macro tailwinds of 5G providing richer detail, lower latency, and democratization of device prices.

Sustainability will go beyond lip service as economic realities begin to bite. Prices of more polluting processes are already starting to shift, and increasingly, you have to do good to do well.

Generative AI has enabled the mass market to experience transformational possibilities in a relatable, personal way. Expect more personal employee inertia to fall away, making it more possible for corporates to embark on digitalization.

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💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Don't build Teslas if all your consumers want are Toyota Prius. Start small, don't over-engineer, fail forward, and build from there.

Eat execution for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Strategy slides and concepts can only take you so far. Work on the people, obsess over the business workings and customers.

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🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

Building multi-sided marketplaces, breaking down go-to-market, and poring over spreadsheets, whether it be financials, digital marketing, or AB tests.

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🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

Boston Legal — Sharp writing ahead of its time.

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Peppermint with old-school multi-coloured bread, any day.