Student Achievements 2022

Here are some of the accolades garnered by our students and alumni:

People’s Choice Awards at 2022 Secur’IT Cup

Team ‘Owo’ comprising five SUTD students from the Computer Science and Design programme has won the People’s Choice Award in the global round of the Secur’IT Cup held on 14 December 2022. They were the winners of the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regional Secur’IT Cup organised by Division Zero (Div0) and Kaspersky earlier in November.

(From left to right) Liew Min Hui, Marcus Chao, Ivorine, Kelly Cheong, Vannara Lim are all pursuing the Computer Science and Design degree programme.

The team’s family-focused app, AUTCA, is a centralised notification platform aimed at helping households manage financial communication between family members. AUTCA provides a verified communication channel between banks and consumers, which helps reduce cases of phishing scams and track possible fraud while increasing security awareness among users.


The Secur’IT Cup is a project by Kaspersky Academy, dedicated to tackling security issues posed by new technologies and challenges of a rapidly changing world. This year, 1,500 students from across the globe submitted their ideas in four categories: Router Security, Mobile Secure, Chess anti-cheating and Special nomination: Family Care.

Grand Prize at Hyundai-NTU 3D Printing Challenge 2022 for EV IONIQ 5

SUTD PhD student Aaron Chooi (right) with his collaborator Keith Lee and their winning design 'Aura Neckrest'.

Chooi An Rong Aaron, an SUTD PhD student and research fellow with the Engineering Product Development (EPD) pillar, has won the Grand Prize of S$10,000 at the Hyundai-NTU 3D Printing Challenge 2022 for EV IONIQ 5.

Aaron and his collaborator Keith Lee (industrial designer from Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s Kaizen Office and Centre for Healthcare Innovation Living Lab) participated under Track 2 (Advanced Track) of the challenge. Their winning design, ‘Aura Neckrest’ – a neck rest designed for the Hyundai IONIQ 5 – is capable of moulding into the neckline of a driver during vehicular collision, whilst providing cooling soft neck support during daily commute in tropical weather.


The award ceremony was held as part of the 10th Asia-Korea Conference on Science and Technology 2022 (AKC2022).

Aaron’s scientific interests lie in bio-inspired design, microecology, soft robotics and 3D/4D printing. He is guided by Assistant Professor Pablo Valdivia.

Best Use of Sonr Flutter SDK – HackHarvard 2022

A group of SUTD students have won the ‘Best Use of Sonr Flutter SDK’ award at HackHarvard 2022 for their design – Diffusion.io.

Using Sonr's user- owned and controlled data management, Diffusion.io is a platform for Sonr ecosystem users to analyse their on-chain data and gain valuable personal insights into their daily lives.
The team comprises students pursuing the Design and Artificial Intelligence (DAI) degree programme and the Computer Science and Design (CSD) degree programme:

• Lai Pin Nean (DAI)
• Joseph Low (DAI)
• Andrean Priadi (CSD)
• Zenton Yam Jing Yao (DAI)

HackHarvard is Harvard University's premiere student hackathon.

NSCC HPC Innovation Challenge for the Environment

(From left) Associate Professor Tan Tin Wee (Chief Executive, National Supercomputing Centre Singapore) presented the award to Wu Xia and Shen Tianruo.

SUTD PhD students Shen Tianruo and Wu Xia won the 2nd runner-up prize at National Supercomputing Centre Singapore’s (NSCC) inaugural High-performance Computing (HPC) Innovation Challenge for the Environment under the Student category. Shen Tianruo is also an alumni of the Master of Engineering (Innovation by Design) programme.

The team, supervised by Assistant Professor Liu Xiaogang from the Science, Mathematics and Science cluster, took on the challenge statement of ‘reducing carbon footprint’. Their solution focused on the computation-aided molecular design for a series of functional fluorophores with redshifted wavelengths and reduced molecular sizes (namely “Singapore Red”). This design-centric approach offers a novel route to minimise “trail-and-error” in the synthesis, hence reducing the carbon emission and waste discharge to the environment.

Organised by NSCC and supported by GeoWorks, SGTech and SGInnovate, the HPC Innovation Challenge aims to enable local organisations and students to innovate using HPC and apply HPC to address today’s challenges related to the environment and sustainability. More than 20 submissions were received, out of which 5 top teams were shortlisted each for the Open and Student categories to participate in the final demo day which was held on 16 September 2022.

Leave a Nest Grants for 2 SUTD Postgraduate Students

The Leave a Nest Grant Global Challenge Award recognises young researchers for their impactful work that is contributing to solving issues of our world.

SUTD postgraduate students Rachel Koh and Ng Yi Ming are two of five winners selected from a total of 34 applications in Singapore.

Rachel is pursuing her PhD in Engineering Systems and Design (ESD) and her winning research is about decarbonising the power grid:

"The walk towards sustainability is a combined effort. In the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), countries have pledged to take various actions to limit global emissions and temperature rise. In our research, we tackle the challenge of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the power grid, with a focus on the water-energy nexus, where water resources control the production of hydro-electricity. By optimising the operations of real-life large-scale water-energy systems in our numerical models, we aim to show that the performance of existing and planned infrastructure can be improved, with more renewables used and reduced carbon emissions."

Yi Ming is pursuing the Master of Science in Urban Science, Policy and Planning (MUSPP) programme and his master’s thesis titled ‘From Innovation to Transformation: Contesting Neoliberal Markets & Meaningful Work via Social Enterprises’ investigates the transformative potential of social enterprises in Singapore to influence the market logics and business practices of their stakeholders. He shares:

"Through in-depth interviews with 21 social enterprise chief executives and staff, I identify the importance of everyday negotiations through which social enterprises socialise their business partners to adopt values beyond profit-making, such as social and sustainability values. I am grateful for the Leave a Nest Grant Global Challenge Award, which has enabled me to increase the reach of my study through funding participant compensation, data analysis tools, and conference presentations."

Best Student Paper Awards for ISTD PhD Students

For their paper titled ‘Liberate Your Servers: A Decentralized Content Compliance Validation Protocol’, SUTD PhD student Liu Bowen and Professor Zhou Jianying won the 2022 Best Student Paper Award at the 36th IFIP WG 11.3 conference on Data and Applications Security and Privacy (DBSec 2022). The conference was held from 18 to 20 July 2022 in Newark, New Jersey, USA.

The paper titled ‘Securing Password Authentication for Web-based Applications’ by SUTD PhD student Tan Teik Guan and Professor Zhou Jianying also won the Best Student Paper Award at the 5th IEEE Conference on Dependable and Secure Computing (DSC) which was held from 22 to 24 June 2022.

Both Bowen and Teik Guan are pursuing their PhD in Information Systems Technology and Design (ISTD). Prof Zhou Jianying is also co-centre director of iTrust, Centre for Research in Cyber Security.

SUTD’s First Medals at ASEAN University Games

Representing Singapore Universities at the ASEAN University Games (AUG) 2022, SUTD student Janna Tee Jiahui won two bronze medals in Sport Climbing in the Lead Climbing and Bouldering categories. These are also SUTD’s first medals at AUG.

Janna is a final-year student pursuing the Engineering Product Development degree programme.

AUG 2022 was held at Ubon Ratchatani, Thailand from 25 July to 7 August 2022.

SG Mark for Nine SUTD Designs

(Photos from: https://sgmark.org/winners-2022/ & https://www.imagenecreative.com/monuments)

Nine SUTD designs were awarded the Singapore Good Design (SG Mark) 2022 - a benchmark of good design and quality, under the categories of Digital Solutions, Experience Design, Product and Sustainable Design.

The SG Mark celebrates the best of Singapore designs since its inception in 2013. Organised by Design Business Chamber Singapore (DBCS), the SG Mark’s overarching goal is to impact businesses, improve quality of life of different communities (individuals, corporations and countries) and influence culture.

90 designs out of more than 160 entries were awarded this year. The awards ceremony was held on 25 August at Jewel Changi Airport and attended by guest of honour Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment.

Digital Solutions

Experience Design

Product

Sustainable Design

SUTD Pioneer One of Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia Class of 2022

(Image credit: forbes.com)

SUTD pioneer Computer Science and Design¹ student, Swayam Narain (right in picture) is one of the young honourees in this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list. He, together with Nisarg Shah, are co-founders of Affable, a Singapore-based marketing startup that helps brands work with influencers for social media campaigns.

Over 4,000 nominee applications were received and the final 300 are listed across 10 categories. The Affable co-founders are listed under the Media, Marketing & Advertising category for “defining and driving the ever-shifting world of news and content”.

1 SUTD’s Computer Science and Design (CSD) programme was previously named Information Systems Technology and Design (ISTD) prior to 2020.

“Collective Memory” - i Light Singapore Installation

Designed by SUTD alumni, the installation ‘Collective Memory’ is being showcased at i Light Singapore 2022. Compact discs (CDs) are upcycled and crafted into a shimmering landscape, with the suspended discs collectively reflecting light off their mirrored surfaces.


The team had participated in an open call for artworks held in 2019 and won the i Light Student Award in 2020. Comprising Michelle Gouw (MArch alumna, Class of 2021), Lai Jun Kang (EPD alumnus, Class of 2018), Muhammad Syahid Bin Mustapa (ASD alumnus, Class of 2019), Ian Soon Wen (MArch alumnus, Class of 2021) and Tan Zhi Wei (MArch alumnus, Class of 2021), the team has been an active part of LiteWerkz - a collective of artists, designers and technologists that specialise in the design of light and art installations, with works particularly driven by the beauty of materials, both in their natural form and their transformative aesthetics under lighting.

i Light Singapore is Asia’s leading sustainable light festival and it will be held from 3 to 26 June 2022 after a 2-year hiatus due to the pandemic.  

Second Runner-Up at MSC Maritime Case Summit

Stephanie-Ann T. Loy (left) and Caroline Tiu (right) are both Freshmore students.

SUTD first-year students Stephanie-Ann T. Loy and Caroline Tiu, together with their team members from Singapore Management University, won the second runner-up place at the 3^rd edition of the MSC Maritime Case Summit (MMCS). The awards ceremony held on 8 April 2022 was graced by Senior Minister of State for Transport Mr Chee Hong Tat.

The team was one of 12 finalist teams emerging from 43 participating teams. They took on the challenge statement provided by CMA CGM Group. They proposed the idea of applying a carbon nanotube coating on ship hulls in order to reduce corrosion, friction, and marine fouling, subsequently increasing fuel efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.

Stephanie-Ann and Carolyn shared, “We found out about this competition through an email sent by the SUTD Career Development Center. At first, we wanted to participate to gain experience since it was our first time joining a case competition, especially one related to the maritime industry which our team never explored. However, as we delved deeper into the issues the industry faced and developed our solution, we all became more interested in how to address these problems and were inspired to take the initiative to contribute to the net zero carbon movement.”

The MMCS is organised by the Maritime Singapore Connect (MSC) Office, in partnership with BHP, CMA CGM Group, Standard Chartered and Toll Group.

Multiple Wins at Singapore Amazing Flying Machine Competition 2022 

The awards ceremony of the Singapore Amazing Flying Machine Competition (SAFMC) 2022 held on 16 April saw SUTD teams winning multiple awards including the Championship Award and Judge’s Commendation Award in Category E: SWARM, and multiple individual awards in Category C3: FPV Flight-Advance.

This year’s SAFMC celebrates DSO National Laboratories’ 50th Anniversary with the enhanced Category E: SWARM which is open to participation from the public. The challenge requires a swarm of at least 10 to 25 drones to traverse an obstacle course in the dark. SUTD teams won the Championship Award and the Judge’s Commendation Award.


Credit: MINDEF

List of SUTD teams and wins:

The SAFMC is Singapore’s premier annual flying machine competition organised by DSO National Laboratories and Science Centre Singapore.

Silver Award at the Nippon Paint AYDA Awards

Master of Architecture alumni (Class of 2021) Lester Lim Hai Heng has won the Silver award in the Architecture category at the Nippon Paint AYDA Awards 2021.

Lester’s proposal is situated in the city of Detroit, Michigan. It reimagines the Packard Automotive Plant as a place for both production and living, transforming its identity from an abandoned industrial site to an inhabitable infrastructure for the city, whilst tackling some of the many issues which plague the city. It is also a playful take on the car-dependent suburban lifestyle that is dominant in many American neighbourhoods, re-imagining it as a neo-suburban development where the boundaries between cars and spaces are blurred, supported by communal living and sustainable energy sources.

The resulting form is a terracing “groundscraper” structure that seeks to take back the streets for the people in this industrial wasteland, along with attempting to establish a vertical suburban form instead of resorting to skyscrapers, which are often criticised at alienating people from street life and the city.


AYDA Awards (previously known as Asia Young Designer Awards) was first launched in 2008 as part of Nippon Paint’s vision to nurture the next generation of design talents, serving as a platform to inspire Architectural and Interior Design students to develop their skills through cross-learning and networking opportunities with key industry players and fellow peers in the region.

SUTD Teams Win at SUniG with First Team Sport Championship

Our women’s Tchoukball team won the first team sport championship for SUTD at the Singapore University Games (SUniG) 2022. On 13 March, the SUTD team comprising Melodie Chew, Sumi Boo, Adelle Chan, Yeo Sze Yin, Chong Shuting, Chew Liu Im and Vanessa Ann Lim emerged champions, defeating SIM, NTU and SIT along the way.

Taking a first runner-up title is the women’s Floorball team, who competed against NUS at the Floorball finals on 17 March.

Other SUTDent sports wins include for 1 Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze at the Inter-Tertiary Judo Championship 2022​ and 2 Silver, 1 Bronze (team) at the NTU Institutional Archery Championship 2022.

This year, a total of 196 SUTDents represented SUTD in their respective sports competitions.