[Perspectives] Living Ahead of the Times
Living Ahead of the Times
15th August 2023
Prof Tan Tin Wee put Singapore on the world map. He was inducted into the inaugural Internet Hall of Fame in 2012 for being a global pioneer of the Internet and for inventing multilingual domain names which is now a global Internet standard called IDN.
On 15 August 2023, he shared his expertise and experience in areas as wide as biotechnology and bioinformatics, supercomputing, data centre technologies, AI and quantum computing. Students were engaged with an in-depth discussion on what lies ahead in the future of technology and how it affects us in various fields.
Through his sharing, Prof. Tan Tin Wee invited us to contemplate the future of society. With technology advancing at an ever-accelerating pace, many of us may struggle to envision the possibilities that lie ahead. As the CEO of the National Supercomputing Centre, Prof. Tan frequently grapples with the future of technology and his organization. I found the questions he posed to us profoundly thought-provoking. Prof. Tan encouraged us to envision the future of medicine, AI, research, and many other rapidly evolving fields. Following the talk, I learned that technology relies on our imagination for its development. Only if one can dream it, can one truly begin building it.