2020 OCAA Winners
- Distinguished Alumni Service Awards
Class of 1990
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Managing Director & APAC Chief Information Officer, MUFG Bank, Ltd
Ms Goh Sok Kim graduated from NUS Faculty of Science’s Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) in 1990 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. She was a table tennis player during her time at NUS; she is still a member of Table Tennis club representing NUS Society, the alumni association for NUS graduates.
She has close to 30 years of experience in the IT and banking industry and has held global and regional leadership roles at Citibank. She joined Japan’s largest financial group MUFG Bank in 2019 and was promoted to be the Bank’s Asia Pacific Chief Information Officer (excluding Japan & China) in 2021. Sok Kim oversees the bank’s IT and digital transformation blueprint in line with its business requirements for 18 locations in this region. She is the first female senior executive at MUFG to head its regional IT team.
With Sok Kim’s experience and leadership, she was able to provide context to the accelerated pace of technological adoption and digital disruption within the financial services sector over the course of the pandemic. Through her work at MUFG, she is instrument in driving and transforming MUFG to be more operationally resilient and digitally focussed on customer-centric initiatives.
Sok Kim sits on the Board of Directors for MUFG Enterprise Solutions India (MES India), a subsidiary dedicated to developing IT system programmes across APAC.
She was also a member of the Board of Director for Scape Singapore for 4 years till Sep 2021, supporting Singapore youth to identify and pursue their passions.
Through the Singapore Computer Society (SCS), Sok Kim also contributes to the mentoring of I.T. professionals in Singapore through the Career Compass program, an industry-led program in partnership with Infocomm Media Development Agency, SkillsFuture Singapore, Workforce Singapore and Employment and Employability Institute.
Class of 1989
Master of Science in Computer Science
Senior Deputy President and Provost
Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor
Professor (Department of Marketing)
Professor (Department of Analytics & Operations)
Professor (Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management)
Executive Chairman, AI Singapore
Director, Centre for Behavioural Economics
Professor Ho Teck Hua graduated from the NUS Faculty of Science’s Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) in 1989 with a Master of Science in Computer Science.
He is currently the senior deputy president and provost of NUS, a Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor, and director of the NUS Centre for Behavioural Economics. As senior deputy president and provost, he oversees educational initiatives and policies, defines strategic areas for research, facilitates research collaborations, and advances entrepreneurship and innovation by faculty members and students.
Teck is also the founding executive chairman of AI Singapore. AISG is a $426 million national research and development programme launched by the government of Singapore in 2017 to strengthen the nation’s capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science, power the country’s digital economy, and grow local AI talent.
Prior to joining NUS full-time in 2015, Teck was the William Halford Jr Family Professor of Marketing at the University of California, Berkeley’s (UCB) Haas School of Business. He received numerous awards at UCB, including the Williamson Award in 2015. The award is the Haas School’s highest faculty award, named in honour of Oliver Williamson, recipient of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. It celebrates honourees who best reflect the character and integrity associated with Williamson’s scholarly work and legacy.
Teck is a prominent behavioural scientist and has had many significant works published in refereed journals in behavioural economics, management science, and marketing. He was the first non-US citizen to be editor-in-chief of Management Science (from 2014 to 2017), the flagship journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, and one of the top journals for research in management.
Teck is a member of the boards of the National University Health System, the National Environment Agency, the Government Technology Agency, DSO National Laboratories, and the Defence Science and Technology Agency. He is also a fellow of the Singapore Civil Service College and the Academy of Engineering, Singapore.
Awards:
- Fellowship of the Academy of Engineering, 2019 – Academy of Engineering, Singapore
- Williamson Award, 2015 – Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley
- Distinguished Teaching Award, 2010 – University of California, Berkeley
- Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Weekend MBA Programme, 2006 – University of California, Berkeley
- Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Evening MBA Programme, 2005 – University of California, Berkeley
- Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Full-time MBA Programme, 2004 – University of California, Berkeley
Class of 1994
Bachelor of Science, Information Systems & Computer Science
Chief Technology & Security Officer, Microsoft Singapore
Mr Richard Koh graduated from NUS Faculty of Science’s Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems and Computer Science. While at NUS, he was the Vice-President of Eusoff Hall as well as the Chairperson of the Eusoff Hall Orientation Board.
Richard has more than 20 years of experience in the tech industry, and is the Chief Technology & Security Officer at Microsoft Singapore. He engages with key executive leaders from the government, industry and academia, bringing in the macro technology landscape; and helping customers leverage technology innovations for their digital transformation. His focus areas include guiding technology policies, standards, legal and regulatory matters, as well as security, privacy and compliance decisions.
Richard started his technology career at Hewlett-Packard, with stints at the company first in Singapore, then in Cupertino & Palo Alto, California, where he gained wide experience in R&D, business development and product management of emerging Internet/web-services and telecommunications technologies, as well as people and global organizations management.
After 12 years at Hewlett-Packard, he joined Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, where he led product teams as director of technical product management in Microsoft’s Office business, Servers & Tools business, as well as telecommunication solutions businesses, and eventually became part of the founding product team for Microsoft’s flagship modern workplace cloud services suite – Office 365. He then relocated to Singapore, and spearheaded Emerging Markets strategy for Microsoft Operations as the operations team unit lead working on Microsoft’s cloud services launch efforts in China.
Before rejoining Microsoft Singapore in his current role, he was the senior director for Emerging Businesses & Strategy under Group Enterprise at Singtel. There, he led a team of intrapreneurs, products managers, product marketers, architects, software engineers and data center engineers to catalyze new businesses, products and platforms in Cloud services, the Internet of Things, machine to machine, education and healthcare.
Richard currently serves on the board of directors of Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs’ Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX), NTUC Income, and Sentosa Development Corporation’s Digital Transformation Advisory Panel. He is also the past chairman of SGTech’s AI & HPC Chapter, as well as an advisory member of Singapore ITE’s (Institute of Technical Education) Electronics and Info-Comm Technology Academic Advisory Committee and SMU School of Accountancy’s Data Analytics Advisory Board. And occasionally, volunteer and mentor young student talents at Advisory.sg and the National Youth Council’s Youth Action Challenges.
Class of 1994
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (First Class Honours)
Managing Director, Group Head of Big Data/AI and Consumer Banking Technology, DBS Bank
Ms Soh Siew Choo graduated from NUS Faculty of Science’s Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (First Class Honours), winning the top honours student award, the Halbrecht Associates Book Prize.
Siew Choo has more than 25 years of experience in senior technology leadership roles in financial technology, working for J.P. Morgan across Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong, prior to joining DBS Bank. She is currently the Managing Director, Group Head of Big Data/AI and Consumer Banking Technology at DBS Bank.
At J.P. Morgan, Siew Choo drove the architecture and technology build out of Equities capabilities including cash equities and algorithmic trading across the 13 markets in Asia, including the implementation of the one of fastest equities trading systems in Japan. She also successfully created the vision and implementation of J.P. Morgan’s Treasury Services technology capabilities from scratch to support the Asian currencies for Asian multi-nationals, by hiring local technology talents across the 13 markets, in addition to building technology development hubs in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Mumbai.
At DBS Bank, Siew Choo has been instrumental in driving the Bank’s digital transformation by leveraging modern technologies such as Big Data, AI and cloud computing, building strong engineering teams, and championing culture changes including the adoption of Agile practice at scale and leadership transformation. Siew Choo pioneered the build out of ADA, the Bank’s Data & AI Platform-as-a-Service, to enable the democratisation of access to data and leverage of AI.
Siew Choo is also recognized as a champion of women representation in technology; she pioneered innovative recruitment initiatives such as DBS Women in Tech and Hack2Hire to bring diverse talent into DBS.
Siew Choo also serves as a Board Member at the School of Science and Technology in Singapore, and the NUS High School of Mathematics & Science. She is also a mentor at the Financial Women’s Association (FWA), Dell MentorConnect (a cross industry mentorship programme) and Poly Fintech100 Singapore. She was also named in the inaugural Singapore 100 Women in Tech list in 2020.
She is a frequent speaker at technology conferences, including 2018 SpringOne Conference, at Washington DC, USA, 2019 IBM Think, Singapore and 2020 EDB Singapore Tech Forum. She also wrote for The Enterprisers Project (an online publication for CIO) and Forrester.
Awards:
- Singapore 100 Women in Tech List, 2020 – Singapore Computer Society, SG Women in Tech & Infocomm Media Development Authority
- IBM Global Women Leaders in AI Award (2019 and 2021)
- LinkedIn Spotlight Award – Singapore (2019)
Class of 1994
Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science
Shaw Senior Professor, National University of Singapore
Executive Director, Singapore Data Science Consortium (SDSC)
Professor Tan Kian Lee graduated from NUS Faculty of Science’s Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science (with Honours) in Computer Science.
Subsequently, he pursued a Masters in Computer Science, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science, and graduated from NUS in 1994.
Kian Lee is a Shaw Senior Professor at NUS Computing and Executive Director of the Singapore Data Science Consortium. His research interests include query processing and optimization in multiprocessor and distributed systems, database performance, data analytics, and database security.
Kian Lee also teaches Database technologies at NUS Computing. He has received numerous research and teaching accolades – namely, the NUS Outstanding University Researchers Award in 1998, and the NUS Graduate School (NGS) Excellent Mentor Award in 2011, respectively.
Kian Lee has also published over 300 research articles in international journals and conference proceedings, and co-authored several books/monographs. He won the Best Paper award at the 47th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases in August 2021.
He was a co-recipient of Singapore’s President Science Award in 2011, which was awarded to him for his outstanding contributions to database systems research for managing ‘big data’ in large-scale parallel and distributed systems.
Kian Lee is also a 2013 IEEE Technical Achievement Award recipient, a member of ACM, IEEE, and IEEE Computer Society. He is also an associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS), and the World Wide Web: Internet and Web Information Systems (WWW) Journal.
Awards:
- Best Paper Award, 2021 – 47th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB)
- Best Paper Award, 2014 – 40th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB)
- IEEE Technical Achievement Award, 2013 – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
- Singapore’s President Science Award, 2011 – Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)
- NUS Graduate School (NGS) Excellent Mentor Award, 2011 – NUS
- NUS Outstanding University Researchers Award, 1998 – NUS
- Young Alumni Award
Class of 2013
Bachelor of Computing in Computer Science
Manager, Software Development, PayPal Singapore
Mr Laurence Putra Franslay graduated from NUS School of Computing in 2013 with a Bachelor of Computing in Computer Science. While at NUS, he was also part of the NUSHackers interest group.
Apart from holding a day job as an Engineering Manager at PayPal Singapore, Laurence is also co-founder of Project Stable Staples, an initiative he started with other friends during Singapore’s COVID-19 circuit breaker period in 2020, and sits on the core team of IAmTalentedSG, a social empowerment initiative designed to provide kids opportunities to explore alternative non-academic pathways.
Laurence and his friends realised there was a group of Singaporeans living in rental HDB flats who were badly hit during the circuit breaker period. They decided to raise funds from the public through an online donation portal which Laurence built in under two days. Using the funds raised, the group purchased NTUC vouchers for needy families to buy daily staples such as food and groceries. They raised over S$160,000 to support some 3,000 individuals across more than 600 households through the circuit breaker period. After circuit breaker, Laurence has pivoted the organisation into a quick response fund with a bench of sponsors to rapidly deploy funds to supply groceries to families in transition, and help these families land on their feet.
For this, Laurence won the President’s Volunteerism & Philanthropy Award 2020 under the People of Good category. He received the award from President Halimah Yacob at the Istana, and was also recognised by his company with the #PayPalItForward Award for his initiative.
Laurence was also awarded the NUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award in November 2021.
Awards:
- NUS Outstanding Young Alumni Award, 2021 – NUS
- President’s Volunteerism & Philanthropy Award, People of Good Category, 2020 – National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre
Class of 2008
Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems
Senior Scientist & Group Manager, Affective Computing Group, A*STAR
Dr Yang Yinping graduated from NUS School of Computing in 2003 with a Bachelor of Computing (with Honours) in Information Systems. Subsequently she pursued a Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems from NUS, and graduated in 2008.
Yinping is a social technologist with 14 years of experience in data analytics and intelligent systems. She is currently group manager of the affective computing group at A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing. Her group drives A*STAR’s digital emotion and empathy machine programme, and aims to build emotion-level understanding and empathy in next-generation intelligent systems.
Yinping’s research interest also encompasses areas such as automated negotiation, emotion recognition and sentiment analysis, disease surveillance and ground sensing, and science and technology foresight.
She is also deeply involved in leading industry and public sector projects, and is an advisor for deep tech start-ups. She has won numerous research and technology innovation awards, including a Best Paper Award from the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences in 2009, and the 2020 Connect + Develop Open Innovation Solutions Award on Digital Insights from the Procter & Gamble Company.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Yinping pivoted away from her usual research areas to focus on analysing online trends surrounding COVID-19. Using her group’s in-house developed emotion analytic algorithm, she examined more than 124 million Tweets on people’s sentiments during the pandemic.
In 2020, she was recognised as a female tech leader in the inaugural Singapore 100 Women in Tech list.
Awards:
- P&G Connect + Develop Open Innovation Solutions Award on Digital Insights 2020
- Singapore 100 Women in Tech List, 2020 – Singapore Computer Society, SG Women in Tech & Infocomm Media Development Authority
- Best Paper Award, 2009 – Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
