Risk-taking was in his blood, says the 56-year-old self-professed serial entrepreneur, who heads Soane Labs, an incubator research group in the US.

The chemical engineer has set up eight companies, filed more than 100 patents and had hundreds of articles published in scientific journals.

'I think of problems we face in daily life, even in the bath, and ask myself how we can make life easier. Then I convene with my team at Soane Labs and we design a series of experiments,' said Dr Soane.

On Wednesday, over 300 people listened rapt during his keynote address at the Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Alliance international conference here, in the hope that some of his entrepreneurial magic would rub off.

The secret of his success, he revealed, has been plunging headlong into investing in what is known as the 'valley of death' - the phase where most nascent start-ups fail because funding is so scarce - and transforming them into viable commercial entities. Creativity is essential, he added.

'Truly innovative ideas are actually very simple. Solutions found in one industry can be easily transferred to solve problems in another industry with modifications in chemistry, but the approach can be adapted.

'Sometimes, fresh ideas are simply the synthesis of many ideas,' he said.

Several of his own ideas delve into nanotechnology - the science of building materials from atoms and molecules, which combines engineering and the sciences.

A hit which made it to the Times list of best inventions in 2002 was 'Nano-tex' materials which cover fabrics with millions of nano-size fibres invisible to the naked eye. These tiny whiskers repel liquids that fall on the cloth.

Working across many industries was like 'being on a little hill and looking down on different fertile lands, transplanting different plants from one to another and looking smart in the process', said Dr Soane.

That fertile land is made up of top scientists who are no more than a few years out of university - his top choice for employees.

'They are still very close to the breeding ground of great ideas in university and they are not yet jaded. When given a problem, they don't think it cannot be done.'

On top of all that, an exceptional management team with scientific expertise and business skills is another important ingredient, he said.

He also talked about his own success, venturing forth in 1994 as a tenured academic from the University of California at Berkeley into business.

'It was trial by fire, but it gives me a real charge to do market-driven research where the hope is that mum-and-

pops and taxi drivers - anyone - can use your products some day,' he said.

skesava@sph.com.sg