AsianScientist (Aug. 27, 2015) – Two regional finalists honored on the EmTech Asia’s Innovators Under 35 (TR35) list for 2015 have been selected for the global Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review’s ‘35 Innovators Under 35.’ The full list will be published in the October edition of the magazine.
The first awardee, Benjamin Tee, is a young technoprenuer with a PhD in electrical engineering (EE) from Stanford University. His research centers on wearable, flexible sensors, circuits and electronics. In particular, his work in flexible electronic sensor skins has earned him several international graduate research awards such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Outstanding Research Gold and Academy Award and the Materials Research Society Graduate Student Gold Award. Tee was also named the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign 2014 Global Innovation Fellow.
Rikki Muller, the second region listee to make the global list, founded Cortera Neurotechnologies based on her PhD research in neurological implant microsystems. She is leading the development of next-generation implant systems for treating neurological disorders and is a principal investigator in the first major project of the Obama BRAIN Initiative. After receiving her PhD in 2013 from the University of California, Berkeley in EE, she continued as a McKenzie Fellow and lecturer at the University of Melbourne. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Melbourne Accelerator Program Entrepreneurial Fellowship, the Berkeley EE Graduate Fellowship, and the Center for Neural Engineering & Prostheses Graduate Fellowship.
Other regional listees are appreciative of the honor and recognition they have gained from being named to the list.
“It is a great honor to be a TR35 APAC listee,” says Dr. Juliana Chan, a pioneer in nanomedicine who made the 2014 EmTech Asia regional list. “Being a TR35 APAC winner has helped increase my visibility as a nanotechnology researcher. Earlier this year, I was elected a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum—I’m the first professor from Nanyang Technological University to be given this honor. I believe that being a TR35 APAC listee was a stepping stone to these opportunities.” Dr. Chan is an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University and Editor-in-Chief of Asian Scientist Magazine.
Similarly, Muller urges others to apply for inclusion in the 2016 list.
She said, “The TR35 not only recognizes the technologist, but also the potential of the technology. The TR35 is an incredible opportunity for an innovator to be exposed to a global community of innovators that are advancing technology for human benefit. Being a regional winner makes you an automatic finalist for the global award that is recognized by millions of people worldwide and has included very prestigious winners in the past such as Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.”
Dr. Shawn Tan, a scientist and lead investigator at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, also made the 2015 list. He designs and build nanostructures that can manipulate light at the nanoscale. Specifically, by engineering how light interacts with carefully-designed tiny metal nanostructures, he and his colleagues have revealed a new paradigm for printing color with structures rather than inks, at unprecedented resolutions of up to 100,000 dpi.
Tan said of being named to the TR35 list at the regional level, “There definitely has been a greater recognition, appreciation and interest in the work on plasmonic color printing. The three minute pitch that I gave on the EmTech Asia stage was enough to draw keen interest from several companies that use color printing technology to investigate opportunities for further development. The exposure to the technopreneur community for a nascent technology such as this cannot be understated.”
Applications for the regional list for 2016 close 18 September 2015. Visit emtechasia.com for details or to apply.
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Source: EmTech Asia.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
