Keynote Speaker
Professor Nadia Magnenat Thalmann Director, Institute for Media Innovation (IMI), NTU, Singapore Director MIRALab, University of Geneva, Switzerland http://imi.ntu.edu.sg/Pages/Home.aspx http://www.miralab.ch/ |
Professor Thalmann joined NTU in August 2009 as the Director of the interdisciplinary Institute for Media Innovation. She has authored dozens of books, published more than 600 papers on virtual humans/virtual worlds and social robots (jointly with her PhD students), organised major conferences as CGI, CASA, and delivered more than 300 keynote addresses, some of them at global events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos.
During her illustrious career, she also established MIRALab at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, a ground-breaking interdisciplinary multimedia research institute. She participated in more than 50 European research projects, helping MIRALab to develop revolutionising interdisciplinary research in computer graphics, computer animation, and virtual worlds and producing impactful work that synergises art, fashion, computer graphics. Her work is regularly displayed at museums, galleries and fashion shows. Her most recent work includes the 3D virtual patient, including a case study on visualizing the articulations of ballerinas while dancing or soccer players.
In NTU, Singapore, recently, she revolutionized social robotics by unveiling the first social robot Nadine that can have mood and emotions and remember people and actions. (See wikipedia: social Nadine robot).
Besides having bachelor's and master's degrees in disciplines such as psychology, biology, chemistry and computer science, Professor Thalmann completed her PhD in quantum physics at the University of Geneva. She has received honorary doctorates from Leibniz University of Hannover and the University of Ottawa in Canada and several prestigious other awards as the Humboldt Research Award in Germany.
She is Editor-in-Chief of The Visual Computer, co-Editor-in-Chief of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, and editor of many other scientific journals. She is a life member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences.
During her illustrious career, she also established MIRALab at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, a ground-breaking interdisciplinary multimedia research institute. She participated in more than 50 European research projects, helping MIRALab to develop revolutionising interdisciplinary research in computer graphics, computer animation, and virtual worlds and producing impactful work that synergises art, fashion, computer graphics. Her work is regularly displayed at museums, galleries and fashion shows. Her most recent work includes the 3D virtual patient, including a case study on visualizing the articulations of ballerinas while dancing or soccer players.
In NTU, Singapore, recently, she revolutionized social robotics by unveiling the first social robot Nadine that can have mood and emotions and remember people and actions. (See wikipedia: social Nadine robot).
Besides having bachelor's and master's degrees in disciplines such as psychology, biology, chemistry and computer science, Professor Thalmann completed her PhD in quantum physics at the University of Geneva. She has received honorary doctorates from Leibniz University of Hannover and the University of Ottawa in Canada and several prestigious other awards as the Humboldt Research Award in Germany.
She is Editor-in-Chief of The Visual Computer, co-Editor-in-Chief of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, and editor of many other scientific journals. She is a life member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences.
Session Speaker (Life Sciences)
Dr. Wan Yue
Yue Wan received her B.Sc in Cell Biology and Biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego. She obtained her Ph.D in Cancer Biology from Stanford University, California, USA, under the mentorship of Howard Y. Chang. During her PhD, she developed the first high-throughput method for probing RNA structures genome-wide. Yue is a recipient of the NSS-PhD scholarship from Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore. She is a Society in Science- Branco Weiss Fellow, and an A*STAR Investigator. Yue received the L’Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science National Fellowship, EmTech MIT TR35 Asia young innovators award, and the Young Scientist Award from the Singapore National Academy of Science. She is currently a Senior Research Scientist in the Genome Institute of Singapore, and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry in the National University of Singapore. She is interested in studying functional RNA structures and understanding their roles in regulating cellular biology. |
Session Speaker (Engineering)
Mr. Fan Mingwei
Mingwei is a serial entrepreneur with 16 years of entrepreneurship including 7 years in bio-entrepreneurship. He was honoured as one of the fifty SG50 Entrepreneurs in 2015. He currently sits on the advisory board of College of Science, NTU. He is a member of the Biomedical Standards Committee (BMSC), SPRING Singapore, member of Bioengineering Technical Committee of The Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES), as well as member of American Society for Testing and Materials (ATSM) International. Mingwei is also active in the US and is an advisor to Silicon Valley technology start-ups. |
Panel Discussion (Academia)
Dr. Desmond Loke
Desmond Loke is an assistant professor at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He leads the Bio-Nanoelectronics Group. His research involves the nanoscale and biological design of novel computing models, materials, and devices. Loke received his BS from the National University of Singapore in 2008, and pursued his PhD at the NUS and University of Cambridge between 2008 and 2012. In 2013, he was awarded a research fellowship from the SUTD and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to set up his own laboratory. Desmond attended the Harvard University as a researcher in 2014. He has won many prestigious awards, including the Singapore TKK Young Inventors’ Award, Asia MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Award, World MIT TR Innovators Under 35 award, etc. His research has been highlighted in global news outlets such as Science Daily, Yahoo News, and the International Business Times. He has been first author on papers published in Advanced Materials, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Science, and other journals. |
Panel Discussion (Industry)
Dr. Tan Mei Hui
Mei Hui is a senior consultant with the Risk Consulting Services practice of Deloitte. She performed security review for banking clients. She is familiar with IT security governance, banking compliance and regulations. She is also involved in host review and source code review for government agencies. Mei Hui has lead in the implementation and deployment of endpoint solutions. She also does consulting work for security operations centre (SOC) where she helps clients to manage and operate their SOC. Mei Hui was a former Women Techmakers Scholar (previously known as the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholar). She is active in promoting technology and coding to girls, having been invited to conferences such as Google I/O (San Francisco, California, USA, June 2014), Grace Hopper Celebration (Phoenix, Arizona, USA, October 2014), Women Techmakers (Singapore, March 2015). She was an instructor for HTML/CSS courses with local technology groups, and had taught programming to children to promote coding for kids. During her time in NGS, Mei Hui did research in medical image processing and visualization, where she studied methods for analysis of retinal images. She collaborated with NUS Department of Biomedical Engineering, Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) and Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) to develop frameworks for computer-aided diagnosis of glaucoma. She was awarded Best Oral Presentation at the 4th International Conference on Computing and Computer Vision (ICCCV 2015) for her work. |
Panel discussion (Medical Writter)
Dr. Johnathan Lee Houjin
Jonathan was a graduate student in NGS from 2010 to 2015. His work focused on the development of novel carbohydrate-based molecules for cartilage regeneration. A long-time fan of TED talks; he was part of the student team that pushed for the redesign of the NGS student symposiums to enhance interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration. After graduating in 2015, Jonathan spent a year as a stay-home dad (which makes a PhD look easy in comparison) in Sydney, Australia, before returning to Singapore in 2016 to begin working as a medical writer with MediTech Media, a part of the Nucleus Global group of medical communications agencies. Helping people to improve/enhance their scientific/medical communication skills continues to be one of his main passions. |
Panel Discussion (Venture Capitalist)
Dr. Ng Chun Chi Carolyn
Carolyn Ng is the Investment Director of Vertex Healthcare Ventures, the VC arm of Temasek Holdings specializing in early stage life sciences investments. She is based in the Singapore office, where she evaluates venture investment opportunities across biotechnology and medical devices sectors globally. Prior to joining Vertex, Carolyn was a Consultant at Deallus Consulting, a specialized life sciences strategy consulting firm. While at Deallus, she led multiple consulting projects for large pharmaceutical companies supporting due diligence of in-/out-licensing opportunities, analyzing competitive landscapes of emerging classes of therapeutics, and formulating go-to-market strategies for Asian markets. Carolyn was also a molecular oncology research scientist in YLL School of Medicine, the National University of Singapore. She was a recipient of the NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering PhD scholarship, and holds the patent of a novel small molecule nuclear receptor activator indicated for the treatment of neuroblastoma. Carolyn holds a PhD in Cancer Molecular Biology from the NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Technology, and also holds a BS (Pharmacy) (First Class Honours) degree from the National University of Singapore |
Panel Discussion (Start-ups)
Dr. Wang Yue
My name is Walter Wang Yue, an Entrepreneur/Marathon runner/Ukulele player/Airbnb host. I am a Singapore PR from China. After graduating from NGS in 2012, I worked as a data scientist in Singtel. This company Igloohome was incubated during an internal startup competition in Singtel in 2014. We won the first place in that competition leading to Singtel investing in our idea. We spend three months in Philadelphia to accelerate our idea to a market ready product, which quickly evolved into a rising startup. Our product is directed at a smart access solution for securing of homes and offices, in which we offer smart lock and smart keybox for economical sharing to solve key duplication and handover problems. |