VISIT OF SWISS FEDERAL COUNCILLOR SCHNEIDER-AMMANN AND BUSINESS DELEGATION, SINGAPORE PRESIDENT TONY TAN AND DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER TEO CHEE HEAN

On 2 November 2012, the Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability was visited by the Swiss Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Amman, followed by the Singapore President Tony Tan and DPM Teo Chee Hean. Federal Councillor Schneider-Ammann paid a Courtesy Call to the Singapore President Tony Tan before taking his leave.

Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Amman is head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs (FDEA). He was an electrical engineering graduate of ETH Zurich in 1977 and will be in charge of the ETH domain from 2013.

As part of his visit to Southeast Asia, he stopped by the Future Cities Laboratory of the Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability. The aim of his visit to Southeast Asia is to recognise, deepen and cement the longstanding relations with Singapore and Malaysia. The Federal Councillor was accompanied on his trip by a business delegation.

During the visit, the Federal Councillor and the Swiss business delegation were shown a presentation explaining the motivations behind the Singapore-ETH Centre as well as 3 case examples of the research activities of the centre, namely, the Low Exergy module, the Digital Fabrication module, and the Mobility and Transportation module.

Singapore President Tony Tan was in his previous position responsible for the entire Singapore National Research Foundation, NRF and therefore for the design and implementation of the CREATE campus. In this visit, he was interested to know the progress of the different teams from ETH Zurich, MIT, Berkeley and other universities.

During his visit, the President and Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean were shown interactive touchscreens, that showed the Simulation Platform’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle taking off and landing, as well as a tool that models different energy scenarios of Ethiopia’s energy future, using energy sources like hydropower, wind and photo voltaic.

The Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability (SEC) is a collaboration spearheaded by top Swiss university ETH Zurich and the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Singapore. SEC partners with the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and government agencies. The SEC is an opportunity for ETH Zurich to extend its global outreach, and for Singapore to ground itself as a knowledge-based economy.