DPM Teo Chee Hean at Global Young Scientists Summit 2016 Opening Ceremony on 17 January 2016

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand 
Eminent Scientists
GYSS Participants
Distinguished Guests 
Ladies and Gentlemen

Good evening, and a warm welcome to the Global Young Scientists Summit 2016. 

This year, we are privileged to welcome 21 distinguished speakers – 13 Nobel Laureates, 4 Turing Awardees, 2 Fields Medallists and 2 Millennium Technology Prize Winners. Thank you very much for your strong support, and we hope that many more young researchers can continue to benefit from your presence at future runs of this Summit.

This year’s Summit is hosted by the Singapore University of Technology and Design, or SUTD for short. SUTD’s approach to education places emphasis on creative technical research and multi-disciplinary studies. This in turn encourages collaboration, invention and creativity. We hope that our speakers and participants will find your time at GYSS on the SUTD campus inspiring and enriching.

Enhancing Lives through Research, Innovation and Enterprise

In 1991, we launched our first National Technology Plan, with a budget of S$2 billion. Just a week ago, Singapore’s Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong announced that we would set aside S$19 billion, or about 1% of GDP, for the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2020 plan over the 5-year period from 2016 to 2020. This is an increase of 18% over the previous five-year plan. More importantly, it signals our continued commitment to R&D, even as research funding is being cut in other countries. 1% of GDP is what small, developed, research intensive countries invest in public sector funded R&D. 

In RIE2020, funding will be prioritised towards four domains: Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering, Health and Biomedical Sciences, Services and Digital Economy, and Urban Solutions and Sustainability. These are areas where Singapore has strong national needs and where we have already developed a cluster of researchers doing good science at the cutting-edge. To steer our research investments towards excellent science with significant impact, we will seek to fund the best teams and ideas. We will double the funding amount that is open to competition by all publicly-funded research performers, from around S$2 billion to around S$4 billion over the 5-year period. 

Investing in R&D is essentially an investment in Singapore’s future. R&D will enable Singapore to be a knowledge-based economy, which thrives on innovation and enterprise. It will help us build a knowledge base upon which we can build the future of Singapore. We see our R&D efforts bearing fruit through three ‘C’s – Creating Value, Changing Lives, and Collaborating across Borders.

Creating Value

First, creating value. Our R&D investments have helped to create economic value in Singapore, and good jobs for Singaporeans. 

For example, in the area of Interactive Digital Media, consumer internet platform Garena and high-performance gaming hardware and software company Razer received funding as young start-ups some three to eight years ago, and have since achieved valuations of more than S$1 billion. Today, Garena employs over 450 people in Singapore, and Razer employs another 300 people in Singapore. We will continue to invest in the Services and Digital Economy domain to support Singapore’s development as a Smart Nation. 

In the area of advanced manufacturing, A*STAR and NTU launched the Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Centre in partnership last year. This is the first centre in Asia to develop technologies for remanufacturing that can be readily adopted by industry. These technologies will enable companies to translate end-of-life products into “good as new” ones. Through this sustainable process, aerospace, oil and gas, energy and automotive companies can save on cost of materials, and reap potentially higher profit margins. 

Changing Lives

Second, changing lives. Science and technology has changed our lives for the better. Last November, our Land & Liveability National Innovation Challenge launched a call for proposals seeking technological solutions to reduce the ambient temperature of our residential estates by 4 degrees Celsius. This will improve our living environment, quality of life, resource demand, and carbon footprint. The solutions can also be exported to benefit people in other parts of the world. We look forward to the exciting research proposals, and will fund the best proposals later this year. 

Collaborating Across Borders 

Which brings me to the third C: Collaborating across borders. Our geographical position as well as our multi-cultural population and cosmopolitan outlook has drawn researchers from different parts of the world to do research in Singapore, in a wide range of areas including diseases, mobility solutions, earth sciences, and environment systems. 

Beyond the work done in Singapore, many of our researchers and institutions have deep collaborations with established institutions and laboratories in Asia and other parts of the world – in cyber-security, urban mobility and preventive healthcare. 

We also maintain our links with Singaporean researchers globally. Some are Visiting Professors at our local institutions, and collaborate with scientists based in Singapore. Several established Singaporean researchers have returned to take up leadership positions at local institutions. Their valuable overseas experience and networks also help Singapore to strengthen our international linkages. 

Whether it is creating value, changing lives or collaborating across borders, the ultimate aim of our investments in R&D is to build a better future through science and technology, and make a lasting impact through better economic and societal outcomes. 

Conclusion

Through the annual Global Young Scientists Summit, we bring together young promising scientists from around the world to learn from esteemed scientists and technologists, and from each other. We hope that your experiences at the GYSS will inspire you to bloom as scientists, and build new networks and partnerships with the friends that you make in Singapore. Together, you can help to create value, change lives, and strengthen international collaborations across borders and scientific disciplines.

Let me thank our speakers for coming to this year’s GYSS to ‘Excite’, ‘Engage’ and ‘Enable’ our next generation of scientists and innovators. Singaporeans can also hear from our speakers at several public lectures, including at the National Library, universities, A*STAR, SingHealth and the Science Centre Singapore. I hope that these public lectures will help to raise awareness about the impact of science and technology in our daily lives, and inspire many more Singaporeans to embark on a scientific career.

I would also like to thank the Singapore University of Technology and Design for hosting GYSS 2016, as well as our GYSS partners for your support and contributions.

I now declare the Global Young Scientists Summit @ one-north 2016 open. Thank you.