In a commentary, SMU Vice President (Partnerships and Engagement) and Lee Kong Chian Professor of Communication & Technology Lim Sun Sun highlighted how evaluating startups at scale has become increasingly complex and susceptible to bias. This challenge was brought into sharp focus when SMU hosted the 12th Lee Kuan Yew Global Business Plan Competition. Prof Lim noted that SMU’s collaboration with Valuer.AI demonstrated the value of human–AI complementarity, giving rise to the DueAI Challenge, where 14 startups developed AI agents to support international judges in evaluating and assessing startups. While artificial intelligence (AI) was not yet able to select winners independently, it proved effective in surfacing promising startups that human judges might have overlooked, thereby reducing bias and strengthening decision-making. Prof Lim concluded that responsible human-AI collaboration – grounded in transparency, ethics, and education – can enhance fairness and trust in innovation ecosystems and public-sector applications.
