EmTech Asia breaks new barriers with potential applications of space exploration with NASA and MIT

EmTech Asia breaks new barriers with
potential applications of
space exploration with NASA and MIT

Space 4.0: A New Era for
Space Exploration panel (L-R): Daniel Hastings, CEO and
Director, Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) &
Former Chief Scientist, US Air Force; Dava Newman, Apollo Program Professor Chair, MIT;
David Oh, Project Systems Engineer and Former Lead Flight Director, Curiosity
Mars Rover, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab; Matthew Bold, Principle Researcher,
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company Advanced Technology Center; Kay Soon
Low, Professor/Director of Satellite Technology And Research (STAR)
Centre, National University of Singapore and Rohit Jha, Engineer and
CEO, Transcelestial

20 February 2017 –
SINGAPORE –
The fourth edition of EmTech Asia, co-organised by MIT Technology Review and
Koelnmesse Pte Ltd, concluded on a high note after two days of stimulating and
insightful discussions on the latest breakthroughs in science and technology.
Held from 14 to 15 February at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre,
EmTech Asia was attended by over 600 like-minded individuals from 22 countries.
This year’s line-up of speakers included some of the brightest minds in the
areas of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, smart cities, space
exploration, augmented and virtual reality, computing and materials science.
 

“EmTech Asia is always a great event. We meet
amazing men and women from around the world and we talk about technology that
is going to change the future. There is work in bio-medical areas, in
artificial intelligence, computer vision, virtual reality. It also gives many
people a chance to get together and talk about new things they might be able to
collaborate on, might be able to discover and, most importantly, how they can
contribute to positive things for all of humanity. And we mean that sincerely,
that’s why EmTech Asia is so important and that’s why Singapore is proud to
host it.” said Steve Leonard (pictured above), Founding CEO of SGInnovate and
Disruptive Innovation Partner of EmTech Asia.

One of the key themes
was space exploration, featuring speakers from NASA and MIT such as Dava
Newman, Apollo Program Professor Chair, MIT and Former Deputy Director of NASA;
and David Oh, Project Systems Engineer and Former Lead Flight Director,
Curiosity Mars Rover, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. Both speakers were also engaged
in a conversational panel hosted by the ArtScience Museum (ASM) in
collaboration with EmTech Asia. The panel was held in conjunction with the NASA
exhibition at the ASM, and was attended by over 130 students, teachers and
media representatives.

The MIT Hacking Medicine
Robotics Singapore 2017, was held the weekend leading up to EmTech Asia 2017
where the winners took to the stage to discuss their hackathon experiences and
the potential for robotics to provide long-term solutions in elderly care and
the overarching healthcare industry in Singapore. Held from 10 to 12 February
at SGInnovate, the hackathon aimed to address unmet needs in elderly care and
medicine and how robotics can play a role in aiding an ageing society. The
winning team, Botler, created a patient-friendly autonomous transport for
social robotics in eldercare.

This year’s conference featured a session on
materials science with Jackie Ying, Executive Director, Institute of
Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, A*STAR. Her presentation, Nanostructured
Materials for Energy and Biomedical Applications, described the synthesis
of metallic, metal oxide, semiconducting and organic nanoparticles and
nanocomposites of controlled size, morphology and architecture while discussing
their unique properties. The cybersecurity session was led by Walter O’Brien,
CEO, Scorpion Computer Services and Executive Producer of hit TV series Scorpion,
who spoke about how countries can better protect themselves against cyber
security threats.

According to Ron Cellini, Analog Garage/Emerging
Business Group at Analog Devices and Cybersecurity Partner of the event, “The
main take away from EmTech Asia is not just the ideas presented but the
enthusiasm behind them. It is great to see the speakers go up the stage and
feel the passion for what they are doing. What’s different at EmTech Asia
compared to other conferences is the quality. The quality of the presentations,
the quality of the folks you meet. You are not going to come here just to hear
presentations that you’ve heard before. You’re going to hear things that are
new and that challenge you. The pace, the interactivity with some of the talks,
the ability of questioning that continually. This conference really encourages
you to participate. I definitely met the right people here. I’ve got a whole
stack of things I need to do when I leave this conference and for me that’s the
best metric for when I go to conferences.”

EmTech Asia 2017 also featured a session on a Brave
New (Bio-Engineered) World, which featured Le Cong, Postdoctoral Fellow,
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, who introduced advances on genome editing
tools using CRISPR system, and highlighted how genomics analysis could be
integrated to transform our ability to understand and treat complex diseases
such as cancer. Other sessions include The Story and The Prototype,
by Mike North, Host of Prototype This!, on the  Discovery Channel. Mike
shared his rapid prototyping philosophy of designing story and prototype,
testing them as fast as possible, seeing where they work and fail, and then
iterating to deliver well-branded relevant products. A light-hearted demo was
presented by Adrian David Cheok, Director, Imagineering Institute & Chair
Professor of Pervasive Computing, City University of London during his Everysense
Everywhere Human Communication presentation, where he demonstrated the
Kissenger, Thermal and Electric taste applications with the help of conference
delegates.

10 innovators under the
age of 35 took to the stage to present their elevator pitch at the conference,
highlighting their work and research. EmTech Asia celebrated these 10 young
innovators under the age of 35, recognised on the 2017 regional ‘Innovators
under 35’ list by MIT Technology Review. Their inventions and research were
found to be most ground breaking and exciting from more than 100 nominations
from Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand. 

MIT Technology Review’s Regional Innovators under 35
(L-R): John Ho, Gang Wang; Dhesi Raja,
Angela Wu, Dawn Tan, Simon Gross, Prateek Saxena; Sumeet Walia and Zhi Wei Seh
with Antoinette
Matthews and Steve Leonard.

For one of the Innovators Under 35, Dhesi Raja,
Chief Scientist and Cofounder of Artificial Intelligence in Medical
Epidemiology (AIME), the event turned into an opportunity to raise capital,
“Emtech Asia (and Singapore) is definitely the next hub after Silicon Valley
that you want to be part of, where great minds meet. Besides the mind blowing
convergence of technology, engineering, medicine & entrepreneurship, a vast
network of investors has also enabled us to verbally secure a deal worth S$
200,000, just after a 3 minute pitch. Yes! This is the next valley! Singapore
valley!”

Key sponsors and
partners of EmTech Asia this year included Host Partner, Infocomm Media
Development Authority of Singapore (IMDA); Diamond Sponsor, Accenture;
Disruptive Innovation Partner, SGInnovate; Innovation Partner, Singapore-MIT
Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART); Cybersecurity Partner, Analog
Devices (ADI); Silver Sponsors L’Oréal Research & Innovation and SAP
Innovation Center. Partners, MIT Professional Education, MIT Hacking Medicine,
Solve and Workforce Singapore. Media Partners included Asia-Pacific Biotech News,
Asian Scientist, Biotechin.Asia, Geeks in Cambodia, Research SEA, Startup
Bangkok, The Tech Portal India and TechStorm TV.

EmTech Asia will return
in January 2018. Visit www.emtechasia.com to learn more.