Clearbridge Accelerator

Mr Johnson Chen

Managing Partner

Mr Chen is the Managing Partner for Clearbridge Partners, an Asian venture capital firm. Prior to founding Clearbridge, he worked at Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited, the incumbent and leading telecommunications company in Hong Kong. Apart from being a member of the pioneering team at PCCW, he was also the President of CyberWorks Ventures, the venture capital and direct investment arm of PCCW. Mr Chen was the youngest member of PCCW’s Mergers & Acquisitions executive committee but was responsible for much of PCCW’s strategic expansion and many of its successful acquisitions and investments.

Mr Chen has more than 12 years of entrepreneurship experience with start-ups, being the co-founder of 2 start-up companies which were successfully exited. He is an active angel investor and a member of the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (HKSTP) incubator selection panel. Mr Chen is an experienced speaker, having given several talks on entrepreneurship in Hong Kong and the United States, including the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

A recipient of the prestigious Sword of Honour, awarded by the President of Singapore for graduating top in his officer cadet course during national service with the Singapore Armed Forces, Mr Chen also holds a B.A., M.A. and M.Eng from the University of Cambridge, (U.K.).

Mr Chong Chee Wah

Partner

Mr Chong previously worked as a Communications Security Program Manager at the DSO National Laboratories. He won the prestigious KINETIC Award in DSO for his outstanding technical contributions to various initiatives in the defence sector. He oversaw various cryptographic and communication systems as well as direct research & development investments in excess of S$5 million annually. He was also the key technical decision maker on various national level projects.

Prior to working at DSO, Mr Chong was with the Directorate of Research & Development (under the Defence Science & Technology Agency) as a Country Manager, where he was responsible for the long term strategic R&D plans for the Ministry of Defence. Mr Chong was also the Assistant Director of Finance Policy at the Ministry of Health (MOH) where his responsibilities included policy matters on Singapore’s key medical financial schemes.

Mr Chong is the recipient of the Public Service Commission’s Local Merit Scholarship and has a B.Eng and M.Eng (Electrical Engineering) from the National University of Singapore.

Professor Lim Chwee Teck

Affiliated Partner

Professor Lim Chwee Teck currently holds joint appointments at both the Departments of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also a Principal Investigator at the Mechanobiology Institute as well as a Fellow of the Singapore-MIT Alliance.  Professor Lim heads the Nano Biomechanics Lab which conducts basic and applied research in cell and molecular biomechanics and mechanobiology of human diseases as well as development of mechanics based label-free micro/nano biomedical devices.

Prof Lim has authored more than 165 journal papers (including 24 invited/review articles and 8 ISI highly cited papers), 16 book chapters and delivered more than 140 plenary/keynote/invited talks. He is currently on the editorial boards of 8 international journals. Prof Lim has recently been elected as a Council Member of the World Council for Biomechanics. He has co-founded 3 start-up companies that exploit inventions that he has developed in his lab. 

Prof Lim has won several research awards and honors including the IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award, highly cited author award, Best Paper awards and Best Poster awards in international conferences. His research was cited by the MIT Technology Review magazine as one of the top ten emerging technologies of 2006 that will "have a significant impact on business, medicine or culture".

Professor Yang Chang Huei

Affiliated Partner

Professor Yang is a tenured Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He is the world’s leading authority on optofluidics and has recently been included in Discover’s “20 Best Brains under 40 in Science” (2008) list as one of the top young scientists in the world.

Professor Yang is also the recipient of the MIT Lester Wolfe Fellowship (1997-2001), the Institut National de la Sante et de Al Recherche Medicale Post-doctoral Fellowship (2002) and the Singapore Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Post-doctoral Fellowship (2002-2003). His awards include the NSF CAREER award (2006), the Coulter Foundation Early Career Translational Research Award Phase I (2006) and the Coulter Foundation Early Career Translational Research Award Phase II (2008). A/P Yang is also the associate director of the DARPA Center for Optofluidic Integration (2004-2008), and the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optic (CLEO) 2008 biomedical optics committee chair.

A prolific writer and inventor, Professor Yang holds more than 15 patents and inventions in his name, and has numerous research and book publications.

Professor Yang is one of the very few individuals to complete a triple degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) having read B.Sc Mathematics, B.Sc Physics and B.Sc EECS concurrently. He also holds an M.Eng in EECS and a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.

Mr Timothy Draper

Advisor

Timothy C. Draper is the Founder and a Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. He serves on the boards of DoAt, Glam, Meebo, Prosper, SocialText, and DFJ Plug 'N Play companies. DFJ's previous successes include: Skype (EBAY), Overture.com (YHOO), Baidu (BIDU), Parametric Technology (PMTC), Hotmail (MSFT), PLX Technologies (PLXT), Preview Travel (TVLY), Digidesign (AVID), and others.

Tim launched the DFJ Global Network, an international network of early-stage venture capital funds with offices in over 30 cities around the globe. As an advocate for entrepreneurs and free markets, Tim is regularly featured as a keynote speaker in entrepreneurial conferences throughout the world, has been recognized as a leader in his field through numerous awards and honors, and has frequent TV, radio, and headline appearances. He was #52 on the list of 100 most influential Harvard Alumni, #7 on the Forbes Midas List, and also named Always-On #1 top venture capital deal maker of 2008. Tim is the course creator and chairman of BizWorld, a 501c3 organization built around simulated teaching of entrepreneurship and business to children. He also serves on the Harvard Business School Board of Dean’s Advisors. Previously, Tim also served on the California State Board of Education, was a member of Singapore’s International Economic Council and Ukraine’s Orange Circle, and also served on the Board of U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Tim Draper has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard University.