PAIR Public Seminar Series

PAIR Public Seminar successfully held on 13 June 2023

Prof. CHAN Siew Hwa, President’s Chair in Energy and Professor in the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, Co-Director of Energy Research Institute at NTU, Senior Vice President, China-Singapore International Joint Research Institute, delivered the PAIR Public Seminar titled “Turquoise Hydrogen – A Possible Solution for Renewable Energy Scarce Countries in Energy Transition Times” in hybrid mode on 13 June 2023. The seminar attracted over 150 participants joining onsite and online from over 45countries and regions in Asia, Europe and North America. It was also broadcasted live on multiple social media platforms, including Bilibili and Weibo, and viewed by an online audience of over 12,000 in total. The seminar was kick-started with a welcome speech by Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PAIR, followed by a guest speaker introduction by Prof. LIU Aiqun, Chair Professor of Quantum Engineering and Science of Department of Electronic and Information Engineering. In the presentation, Prof. Chan shared Singapore’s long-term energy plan and research focus, as well as a few major initiatives on hydrogen application. He then introduced turquoise hydrogen and the catalytic decomposition of methane for hydrogen production, followed by an overview of the research activities on hydrogen and fuel cells at NTU over the last 30 years. Following was a question-and-answer session moderated by Prof. WANG Shengwei, Director of Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Research Institute for Smart Energy (RISE), Chair Professor of Building Energy and Automation, and Otto Poon Charitable Foundation Professor in Smart Buildings, and Prof. LI Gang, Associate Director of Research Institute for Smart Energy (RISE), Sir Sze-yuen Chung Endowed Professor in Renewable Energy, and Chair Professor of Energy Conversion Technology. The audience was inspired to engage in a fruitful exchange with Prof. Chan. Please click here for an online review.

PAIR Public Seminar successfully held on 21 April 2023

Prof. YANG Weimin, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology, delivered the PAIR Public Seminar titled “Green Chemical Engineering and Zeolite Catalysis” in hybrid mode on 21 April 2023. The seminar attracted over 120 participants joining onsite and online from over 10 countries and regions in Asia, Europe and North America. It was also broadcasted live on multiple social media platforms, including Bilibili and Weibo, and viewed by an online audience of over 11,000 in total. The seminar was kick-started by Prof. WANG Zuankai, Associate Vice President (Research and Innovation), with a welcome speech and a speaker introduction. Prof. Yang introduced his team’s research progress in the field of green chemical engineering, including the development and practice of green chemical technology based on zeolite catalytic materials and the application of novel zeolite catalytic materials, and shared his views on the future trends in the industry.  A question-and-answer session moderated by Prof. Edman TSANG, Visiting Professor in the Department of Applied Physics, followed. The audience was inspired to engage in a fruitful exchange with Prof. Yang. Please click here for an online review

The PAIR Public Seminar was successfully held on 10 January 2023

Dr WANG Yulun, Fellow at Teladoc Health and Co-founder and Chairman of World Telehealth Initiative and Maxcess Health, delivered the PAIR Public Lecture titled “An Entrepreneur’s Perspective on Surgical Robotics and Telemedicine, and their Convergence” in hybrid mode on 10 January 2023. The seminar attracted over 120 participants from over 25 countries and regions, including Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, etc. The participants came from diverse backgrounds and sectors, including academia, science and engineering, research and development, the medical and healthcare industry, etc.Dr Wang began the seminar by giving a brief history of surgical robots and their applications. He then showed the audience a short video about the first transatlantic tele-surgical operation, “Lindbergh operation”, carried out by a team of French surgeons led by Prof. Jacques Marescaux in New York on a patient in Strasbourg, France, on 7 September 2001. The operation involved minimally invasive surgery and high-speed fibre optic technology. The surgeon controlled the arms of the robotic surgical system in New York to operate on the patient in France.  Dr Wang then elaborated on the emergence of telemedicine and technology-enabled remote health care. He pointed out that more and more doctors have become specialists, and patients are now looking for quality, access and low-cost healthcare. Telemedicine utilises technologies for electronic health records and personalised medicine, big data analytics, artificial intelligence and remote monitoring so that practitioners can serve more patients efficiently without boundaries. Another short video was shown to explain the application of telestroke medicine—telemedicine for stroke patients in remote locations. Stroke experts work with local emergency health care providers to recommend a diagnosis and treatment. In this way, thousands of lives can be saved since patients can have access to proper stroke treatments and advice within three hours. Subsequently, Dr Wang talked about the digital transformation during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The internet has driven various sectors, including the healthcare industry, to do business internationally through interconnected computer networks. The COVID-19 pandemic has also catalysed the rapid adoption of digital technology. Hence, the future of the healthcare system will be a combination of cloud-based solutions in digital health, telemedicine and virtual care, which are considered reliable, scalable and cost-effective. Finally, Dr Wang looked at digital healthcare for non-profit and charitable causes. He talked about the World Telehealth Initiative (WTI), a non-profit he co-founded in 2017, leverages telehealth to bring clinical expertise to the world’s most vulnerable communities to build the local expert capacity and advance core health services. A 30-minute question-and-answer session moderated by Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PAIR, followed. The audience had a fruitful exchange with Dr Wang on the regulatory issues in healthcare, the contributory role of computer science and biomedical engineering in telemedicine, the technical and financial complications in telemedicine, ethical issues in digital healthcare, etc. Please click here for an online review.