In less than a year, through my pregnancy and maternity, I have built an accelerator and an ecosystem for Industry 4.0. I mapped the unmet needs of industries, and onboarded startups and innovations from tech transfer offices to address the needs. 

Through the journey, I realized the ultra-lean representation of women and other representative minorities in the industry4.0 space. None of the startup founders I had worked with were women or from other minority communities. Moreover, I very rarely saw women in leadership positions inside MNCs that promote Industry 4.0, except for HR and Finances. 

As a pregnant woman walking the factory floors, mapping the unmet needs, I was so out of place and that shouldn’t be the case. After delivering my baby, I didn’t find a lactation room to be able to pump milk for my baby, while the rest of Singapore is empowered with lactation rooms (from malls to research institutes). 

I also realised the lack of empathy for humans and the environment as we focused on digitalising and automating the world. Women and minorities cannot be eliminated from designing, developing, innovating and commercialising industry 5.0 ventures, as every perspective matters. 

Moving forward, I decided to address the gap myself and that’s why – River Venture Studio.