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Join the High-Performance Computing Innovation Challenge for the Environment

High-performance computing (HPC) gives us the power to understand vast amounts of data quickly, creating powerful solutions to important problems. These solutions include weather modelling, predicting the courses of hurricanes, and mapping the human brain.

HPC was once exclusively the domain of select institutions or organisations solving big problems. NSCC now aims to enable local organisations and students to innovate using HPC.

Challenge Statements

The High-Performance Computing Innovation Challenge for the Environment by NSCC provides innovators an opportunity to access their resources and build transformational solutions, to address one or more of the following statements for our environment:

Explore Challenge Statements & Case Studies

Revisit Our Briefing Session

Introduction to NSCC & HPC Innovation Challenge for the Environment
Supercomputing Digital Sandbox
Challenge Statements 

Shortlisted Teams

Open Category

Aleph Technologies

The startup seeks to utilize the High-Performance Computing to empower the AI-engine capability and speed in suggesting the optimal operating parameter of their current platform, so that their solution can help factories further reduce energy consumption and CO2 generation. 

DBF Minds

DBF, an AI-Architecture startup is collaborating with Karamba3D to explore ways of generating synthetic data-sets to reduce the carbon impact of new and existing building designs.

EV Robot Chargers

The team from Newcastle Research & Innovation Institute seeks to use High-Performance Computing to simulate a mobile charging system that will support EV adoption without the massive deployment of new infrastructure.

GeoPulse

The engineering company seeks to utilize the High-Performance Computing to carry out automated subsurface utility mapping by compiling and analysing large volumes of GPR, drawing and digital twin data.  

The Evergreens

The team from Newcastle University in Singapore proposed a solution that can optimise material’s microstructure of various triboelectric layers using molecular dynamics simulations on High-Performance Computing, in order to support the development of sustainable energy generation and storage solutions. 

Students Category

Medispeech@NTU

The team seeks to improve its Automatic Speech Recognition system using big data and High-Performance Computing so that it can tailor to diverse accents and noise conditions.

Viridis

The team aims to develop a numerical assessment tool that automatically assigns walkability, bike-ability and drivability scores to evaluate transport flow.
FRG Team

The team proposed to use High-Performance Computing to efficiently design new fluorophores by conducting virtual screening and systematic data analysis. The new method will reduce chemical waste by eliminating the need to carry out trial-and-error methods.
FarmBois

The team aims to develop automated farming solutions that allow the user to program a controlled environment to grow their plants.
Bellman Ford

The team aims to develop an analytics platform which will aid the decision-making process of urban planners in determining which walking paths to improve on and the best way to do so.

Who Should Join

Open Category

We welcome teams representing:

  • Government agencies
  • Local enterprises
  • Startups

We also welcome teams that are formed independently.

Student Category

We welcome student teams located in Singapore

  • Universities
  • Polytechnics
  • ITEs
Explore Team Requirements

Team Requirements

  1. As part of your application, you will be required to register a team with a minimum of 2 members and maximum of 5 members.
    1. These will be the key members liaising with the organisers in case your proposal is selected to proceed to the solution development phase.
    2. Only registered members will be eligible to receive trial accounts to access HPC resources, and to attend the mentor consultation and training sessions.
  2. Your team may consist of members from the same entity, or across different entities.
  3. Your team must include at least one Singaporean, Singapore Permanent Resident, Singapore issued Work Pass, or Student Pass holder.
  4. The majority of your team must be able to be physically present in Singapore to participate in the Solution Development Phase activities, Demo Day and post-challenge activities (July - September 2022).
  5. Your team will be required to appoint a team leader with the following roles and responsibilities:
    1. Act as the main liaison with the organisers, coordinate team matters and disseminate information to the rest of the team;
    2. Update the organisers if there are any changes to the team members;
    3. Act as the team representative to receive the cash prize and other prizes. The organisers will not be liable for any disputes after disbursing the prizes to the appointed representative.

Participating as Overseas Organisations

Organisations based outside of Singapore may participate in the Challenge by:

  1. Partnering with a Singapore-based organisation of their choosing; or
  2. Indicating their interest to set up a presence in Singapore in the next six months, and following through with it.

Timeline

Note that these dates are subject to change.

  • 12 April

    Applications Open

  • 29 April

    Briefing Session

  • 30 June

    Application Deadline

  • 19 July

    Shortlisting
    Announcement

  • 25 July - 9 September

    Solution Development
    Phase

  • 16 September

    Demo Day

Prizes & Opportunities

Up to 10 teams

will be shortlisted to proceed to the solution development phase. Shortlisted teams will receive:

Access to the one of the most powerful supercomputer in Southeast Asia, ASPIRE 2A.

Access to the Supercomputing Digital Sandbox environment that simplifies the development of HPC solutions.

Mentorship and training by subject matter experts.

Winning Teams

Cash Prizes

Open Category

1st

SGD 5,000

2nd

SGD 2,500

3rd

SGD 1,500

Student Category

1st

SGD 5,000

2nd

SGD 2,500

3rd

SGD 1,500

Other Opportunities

A chance to showcase your solution on an international stage.

A chance to be featured in Supercomputing Asia magazine.

A commercialisation and market access opportunity for your solution.*

An internship opportunity at NSCC. (Student category only)

Making Your Application

Ready with an idea that can tackle one or more of our challenge statements? Submit your application and tell us about it!

Download the proposal template to get started.

Proposal Template

Evaluation Criteria

Technical feasibility 
of solution

Open Category

30%

Student Category

40%

Guiding Questions
  • Is this solution technically feasible and scalable?
  • Does the project team have the required technical background (besides HPC expertise) to conduct the project?

Business feasibility 
of solution

Open Category

30%

Student Category

15%

Guiding Questions
  • Is the target customer / market for the proposed solution clear and reasonably identified?
  • In terms of time, effort, and cost, how likely will the target user/customer/market adopt and implement this solution?
  • Is the solution profitable and scalable beyond the development phase?

Novelty 
of proposal

Open Category

20%

Student Category

25%

Guiding Questions
  • Is the solution different, bold and unique considering the current industry landscape?
  • Does the proposed solution have a strong advantage over existing methods / competitors?

Clarity and comprehensiveness of proposal

Open Category

20%

Student Category

20%

Guiding Questions
  • Does the proposal address the challenge statement(s) and present clear outcomes?
  • Is the information provided in the proposal complete and sufficient to help evaluators understand the solution and the key activities to be done during the development phase?

Got a Question?

Check out our FAQs or send us an email at info@padang.co.

FAQs

The High-Performance Computing Innovation Challenge for the Environment is an innovation challenge organised by NSCC in collaboration with Padang & Co. The challenge seeks powerful solutions that apply high-performance computing to tackle the challenge statements that we have identified.

The challenge is open to government agencies, local enterprises, startups and students at Singapore’s Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs).
Please note that each team must include at least one Singaporean, Permanent Resident, Work Pass, or Student Pass holder.
The majority of your team must be able to be physically present in Singapore to participate in the Solution Development Phase activities, Demo Day and post-challenge activities (July - September 2022).

Organisations abroad may participate by partnering with a Singapore-based organisation of their choosing. They may also participate by indicating their interest to set up a presence in Singapore in the next six months, and following through with it.

As this challenge deals with high-performance computing, a basic knowledge or background of coding and programming would be advantageous.

As long as your team contains at least one working professional, your team would only be eligible to enter the Open Category.

If you are ready with a team and an idea that addresses one or more of the challenge statements, you may participate by completing our application form. You may refer to our proposal template to make sure that you provided all the necessary information for evaluation.

Proposal Template

A complete application consists of the duly filled application form and a complete proposal deck. The proposal deck will consist of details about your team, your solution, and its underlying technology among other information. Please refer to the proposal template for more details. You may also include supporting documents in PDF format, if necessary.

Your team is welcome to submit more than one application. However, we strongly recommend that your team concentrate its efforts on delivering an excellent application based on your strongest idea. If your idea addresses more than one of our challenge statements, you are welcome to highlight that in your application.

You may build your proposal(s) based on Open Source/ publicly available data, or even your own data sets gathered via surveys. Here are some sites that you can explore:

Smartnation Singapore Open Date Resources

Data gov.sg