Nobel laureates, along with Millennium Technology Prize, Turing Award, and Fields Medal winners in physics, chemis- try, biology, mathematics, computer science, and other fields. GYSS programming featured plenary and breakout ses-
sions led by the guest speakers, along with site visits and tours of local labs such as the Institute of Medical Biology, the Earth Observatory of Singapore, and the Institute for Media Innovation. Evenings were reserved for social visits to some of Singapore’s main attractions — the Singapore Flyer, Night Safari, and the Singapore Night City Tour. The majority of educational programs were held at NUS’s Edu-Sports complex, a sports and fitness facility that also houses an auditorium where plenary sessions and the clos- ing ceremony took place. While breakout sessions and pan- els were closed to the public, media and other guests were able to attend plenary talks, including South African biolo- gist Sydney Brenner on “Humans in a Dish” and American physicist Eric Cornell on “Extreme Meteorology: Towards Measuring the Out-of-Roundness of the Electron at 10-15 Femtometers.” I mingled with some of the attendees at registration prior to the opening ceremony, which featured a speech by Hean. This portion of the event was held at NUS’s University Cultural Centre, a large building with a lobby brightened by floor-to-ceiling windows, set in a lush landscape of palm trees and other foliage. Along with registration, an appetizer-and- coffee reception took place in the lobby, one of many signs that Singaporeans are not inclined to let guests go hungry. Much of the chatter was of the getting-to-know-you
variety — scientific specialties, country and institution of origin, whether there’d be cocktails after the ceremony. But I did get a chance to speak with a few of the attendees about what made them attend GYSS. “Most of the programming and the list of Nobel laureates was set by the time they sent out invitations” in September 2012, said Benjamin Toh Pang Kiat, a post-doctoral researcher in immunology at A*STAR. “Usually a few [Nobel Prize winners] will come in [to Sin- gapore] each year, but it is unprecedented to have so many here at once.”
R&D&GYSS
Unprecedented GYSS was, for a variety of reasons. Although Singapore is well known for hosting high-level science, technical, and medical meetings, this was the first event of its kind drawing young and accomplished scientists together in Singapore — conceptualized when President Tan, who is the former chairman of the NRF, attended the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany, in 2010. The annual Lindau meeting describes itself as a “globally recognized forum for the transfer of knowledge between generations of scientists”; the idea was for the NRF to create a similar event, with a focus on Asian participation, that would expose young scientists to the development of a knowledge economy — one
78 PCMA CONVENE APRIL 2013
Rapt Audiences Eager young researchers at GYSS listened to Israeli crystallographer Ada Yonath (top), a panel discussion on
‘The Ups & Downs in the Life of a Scientist’ (middle), and American physicist Eric Cornell.
PCMA.ORG
PREVIOUS PAGE: PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN (TUM)
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164