26
June
2018
|
21:03
Asia/Singapore

Education Minister visits NUS Computing

Tom presenting an item to Mr Ong (far right), while (from left) Prof Hsu, Prof Tan and Mr Mohit Shridhar, a research assistant at the Robot Living Studio, look on

Minister for Education Ong Ye Kung dropped by NUS Computing on 22 June, welcomed by NUS President Professor Tan Eng Chye and NUS Computing Dean Professor Mohan Kankanhalli.

Prof Mohan kicked off the visit by giving Mr Ong an update on the School’s recent achievements and projects, while Assistant Professor Prateek Saxena from NUS Computer Science, who is also Chief Scientific Officer of blockchain start-up Zilliqa, gave a presentation on how the start-up’s high-throughput blockchain platform is using sharding to improve the scalability and energy efficiency of cryptocurrency mining.

Professor David Hsu, NUS Computing Vice-Dean of Research and Deputy Director of the Advanced Robotics Centre at NUS gave Mr Ong an overview of the Robot Living Studio before Tom the robot guided the party on a personalised tour of the room. Tom ended the tour by introducing Mr Ong to Jerry, another robot with the uncanny ability to recognise common objects and follow human instructions.

Mr Ong later popped into the new Makers@SoC space at the School, a space for NUS Computing students and staff to work and collaborate on projects and ideas. Led by Dr Colin Tan from NUS Computing, Mr Ong was introduced to some of the student-led projects including a personal hoverboard, an Internet of Things monitoring system that updates students on the availability of washing machines in the common laundry room, and an arcade-style game for the elderly to make exercising fun and convenient known as Silver Flexer, which has already received $30,000 in grants for commercialisation.