Four PhD students of the University of Twente, Rindia Putri (TNW), Wouter Vijselaar (TNW), Floris van den Brink (EWI) and Marinke van der Helm (EWI), had the unique opportunity of attending the Global Young Scientists Summit in Singapore. During this annual ‘ boot camp’ for young talent, the met several Nobel Prize laureates who were their mentors during the week. At the final session, they met President Tony Tan Keng Yam of Singapore.
About 300 young scientists from all over the world attended the Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS@one-north 2016) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design, from 17 to 22 January. The theme of the summit was ‘Advancing Science, Creating Technologies for a better world’. The summit is not one of the many specialized scientific congresses: scientists from a broad range of scientific disciplines gather to discuss major societal problems for which science may find solutions. Not less than 13 Nobel Prize Laureates gave lectures, among them Carlo Rubbia and Gerard ’t Hooft. Other speakers previously won the Fields Medal, the Turing Award and the Millennium Technology Prize. For young scientists, the summit is an exquisite opportunity to meet their scientific heroes. At the same time, they are challenged to join a competition in which solutions are sought for the problems of ‘sustainable and liveable cities’, for example.
PhD student Rindia Putri of UT’s Biomolecular Nanotechnology group: ‘The line-up of speakers was very impressive. Especially in the smaller group sessions, we could easily interact with the top scientists. For me the sessions with Ariel Warshel (Nobel Prize Chemistry, 2013) and Michael Graetzel (Millennium Award) were very good. We also had the opportunity of visiting several institutes in Singapore. This opened the way to future collaboration and was also very interesting for young people considering a career in science in Singapore. During the final session, we met the President. He asked us about our experiences at the summit and was highly interested.”
Singapore recently announced that it will invest 19 billion dollars in research, innovation and entrepreneurship. The University of Twente has good working relations with, a.o., the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technical University (NTU).
Check the GYSS@one-north website for more information on the summit.
Right to President Tony Tan Keng Yam: Marinke van der Helm, Rindia Putri, Wouter Vijselaar and Floris van den Brink.
