TECH EXPERTS

Dr Wong Choon Yue is a Senior Research Fellow in Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses mainly on interface design and human-robot interaction (HRI), which led to the development of the EDGAR series of humanoid robots that is best known for being the robotic co-host at the 2017 National Day Parade in Singapore. He is also the CEO and Founder of MAJU Robotics, a start-up spun off from NTU. Dr Wong continues to deploy humanoid robots, while at the same time also developing new robotics solutions such as disinfection robots for use in public spaces, as well as robotic grippers for applications such as in logistics. Prior to joining NTU, he was with TECH Semiconductor (now Micron Semiconductor Asia), managing the Dry Etch operations of semiconductor manufacturing. In addition to robot development, Dr Wong also speaks at public events to share his robot-building experience and to inspire budding young scientists.

Dr Sun Xiaolong is the Founder and Managing Director of Zerowaste Asia (ZA). He has more than 20 years of research and industrial experience in waste, wastewater, and materials science. He is proficient in waste and wastewater treatment, waste-to-resource management, environmental impact assessment, green construction materials, and materials science. Together with his team in ZA, he has completed numerous industrial, research and development, and consultancy projects in waste and wastewater treatment as well as waste-to-resource management. His team collaborated with NEA to conduct Singapore's first comprehensive study on incineration bottom ash (IBA) utilisation in 2012 and was contracted by NEA to treat IBA into NEWSand. Dr Sun has provided solutions to challenging waste and wastewater treatment for various industries with pollutants including heavy metals, organic pollutants, fluoride, cyanide, phenolic compounds, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids (TSS), colour, ammonia nitrogen, etc. Dr Sun obtained his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from NTU. He is the inventor of 14 patents and author of numerous research publications on environmental technologies. He is familiar with toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP), as well as environmental standards in Singapore, China and the European Union.

Dr Ng Kian Ann has 20 years of experience in integrated circuits (IC) design and applications. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore. He is also a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and an office-bearer in the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (Singapore Chapter). He also participates in the IEC TC 47 - Semiconductor Devices standards committee. Before joining DigiPen, he held senior technical positions with STMicroelectronics, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (now GlobalFoundries), and Oxford Semiconductor (now part of Broadcom) from 2000 to 2009. During this time, he designed many of the integrated circuits (IC) inside microchips we use every day, such as contactless smartcards, USB1.1 to USB 3.0, Firewire, CMOS image sensors, and ESD/IO circuits. He also briefly consulted for the IC design community from 2009 to 2010. After that, he held various research positions in National University of Singapore (NUS) from 2010 to 2020. During his time at NUS spent in Electronic and Biomedical research, he and his team developed wearable, IoT-based EEG/Neurological front-ends that are currently used by the National University Hospital and NUS' research laboratories. He holds 5 U.S. patents and has authored/co-authored more than 30 technical journals and conference proceedings.

Chan Joy Seng is the Director and Accredited Nutritionist of Alive Nutrition Consultancy. He holds a Masters of Medical Science in Human Nutrition from the University of Sheffield in UK and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Food Science and Technology from the National University of Singapore. He is an Accredited Nutritionist of Singapore with the Singapore Nutrition & Dietetics Association, as well as member of Singapore Institute of Food Science & Technology and Society of Behavioural Health Singapore. Joy Seng began his career in the food industry with various food companies including Malaysia Dairy Industries and Addiction Pet Foods. His job scope included product development and formulation of nutritional content of food products, allowing him understand the perspective of food manufacturers and what consumers are concerned about in their food products. As a nutritionist, Joy Seng has conducted many nutrition and health talks as well as other programmes for Health Promotion Board (HPB), companies, community groups and the public. He also provides corporate nutrition consultancy services, which covers regulatory affairs of the food industry and nutrient tabulation and development of healthier food items. Joy Seng is involved in the training of nutrition and health topics. He is now teaching a course on Healthy Eating for Children at Republic Polytechnic and another course on Nutrition for Older Adults at Nanyang Technological University.

Dr Olivier Lefebvre is Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at National University of Singapore (NUS). He specialises in electrochemical technologies, advanced oxidation processes, industrial wastewater treatment, water reuse and technology transfer. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Research Institute of Mines and Environment of the University of Quebec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) and a management committee member of the specialist group on water reuse, within the International Water Association. He has helped many companies in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industry deal with hard to treat industrial wastewaters. An agronomic engineer by formation, Olivier obtained his PhD from Supagro Montpellier in 2005, on a collaborative work between Narbonne Laboratory of the French National Research Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and Anna University in Chennai, India.

Felicia Chin Yoke Lin has 13 years of experience in the Electronics and Printed Circuit Board (PCB) design field. With IPC-CID and IPC-CIS-610 certifications, she has completed PCB design projects across various applications and industries. A Project Manager at Wizlogix Pte Ltd, Felicia oversees design assessments, consultancy, and project scheduling. Felicia's expertise in high-speed board design, high complexity boards and high layer-count boards using various CAD tools has enabled her to lead a team of 6 Design Engineers to complete numerous R&D projects. Her interest in PCB design spurred her to develop optimal design solutions to meet project specifications while achieving cost savings.

Prof Ng Wun Jern is currently a Professor at Nanyang Technology University (NTU) School of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Principal Lead for the Environmental Bio-innovations Group (EBiG). His research and professional interests are in the areas of water, wastewater and waste management, and soil remediation. He is familiar with research, translation and development, and project implementation issues. He has been deeply involved in collaborations with the industry, having channeled his research into some 250 case studies of which 130 led to the design and implementation of full-scale wastewater treatment facilities. In addition to technology licensing and having founded and exited two spin-off companies, he continues to provide technical advice to public listed companies, SMEs, start-ups, and government agencies in the chemicals, food and beverage, marine engineering, water, wastewater and waste domains. Prof Ng also provides support to private equity funds and accelerators to assess projects and start-up companies in terms of founding team capabilities, financial models, technologies, and markets. Prof Ng founded and led the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) for 10 years. Previously, he had also served as Dean, Faculty of Engineering, National University of Singapore and at the College of Engineering, Nanyang Technological University. His research output may be found in some 600 publications - including journal papers and patents.

Dr Koh Niak Wu is the Founder and CEO of Cosmiqo International Pte Ltd, a company that is focused on building intelligent systems that optimises resource allocation for 4-wall operations. He specialises in supply chain analytics, strategy execution and operations management innovation. He is an Intellectual Transcendences 2019 recipient recognised by the Asian Productivity Organisation and China Productivity Centre. Dr Koh was formerly part of the Global Supply Chain and Logistics team at Dell contributing to strategy analytics. He was also in the Planning and Operations Management Group at SIMTech, A*STAR where he gained valuable insights into the evolution of industries. Additionally, Dr Koh is an Adjunct Faculty at the Singapore Management University (SMU) and Singapore University of Social Sciences where he shares his views and cross-industry experiences on supply chains and operations management. He is also an Expert with the Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) and has been sharing his views on the future economy across Asia and the Pacific. Dr Koh codes, believes in the power of operational analytics and how it shapes business decisions. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Robotics from the National University of Singapore and a Bachelor of Engineering (Double 1st) from King's College London.

Dr Li Xiaodong has been a Research Scientist in Advanced Materials Technology Centre (AMTC), Singapore Polytechnic since 2011. He has more than 10 years of research experience in solar cells, PV module recycling and solid waste management. In AMTC, he leads a technical group that focuses on clean technology and materials recycling research projects. As a Principal Investigator, he supported local SMEs and MNCs in carrying out multiple R&D and industry projects, and actively involved in prototype development. Dr Li specialises in solid waste recycling (photovoltaic (PV) modules, Li-ion battery, e-waste and incineration bottom ash); building materials development from recycled materials (silica aerogel from incineration bottom ash as thermal and acoustic insulator, sand substitute from plastic waste); functional coatings development (thermal insulation, fireproofing and waterproofing paints); and pilot scale process development (PV module recycling plant, aerogel fabrication plant). Dr Li obtained his PhD in Materials Science and MSc in Materials Engineering from the East China Normal University in Shanghai, China.