Speech by Mr Chan Chun Sing, Second Minister for Defence at the Singapore Amazing Machine Competition Awards Presentation Ceremony

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon to all the students who are present here with us today. I hope you have enjoyed your last few days of working and coming up with something new in the Science Centre together with the guidance of the mentors from the Science Centre and the defence science organisations.

Some of you must be wondering why they set you such a complicated project to do a seemingly simple task in so many steps. I used to ask that as well because this is probably the third time I have come here to give out the awards to the students. Actually the idea and the reason are very simple. They want to know how well you understand the scientific principles that you have learnt and how well you are able to cross-fertilize the ideas, because in many of the projects that you do in the future, you will not need just one particular concept, but very often you will need different concepts to work together to come up with something. This is the reason why they encourage you to use as many steps as possible, as many scientific principles as possible, to come up with what is seemingly a straightforward task to be completed.

Having said that, whatever you have done is not just fun and games. Whatever you have done actually has very serious objectives and implications. Some of you might be wondering, "Is science and technology still as important as it used to be in the past?" Actually, the role of science and technology in Singapore's future has never been more important if you look back at 50 years ago and today. I will just highlight two particular examples whereby science and technology has played such a vital part to the survival of Singapore.

The first has to do with water. Many years ago when we first got our independence, we did not have enough water to survive. Without importing water from our neighboring countries, the amount of rain we collected in our reservoirs was hardly enough. But today, after 50 years of hard work, after 50 years of research, we are very confident that we have enough water to take care of ourselves. How did we do that? That only came about because of our strong investment in the water research technologies. We used to have two taps - one, water from foreign sources; two, our reservoirs. Today, we have more than two taps. We have a third tap as we are able to recycle the water from sewage into pure drinking water for us. This is what we call NEWater affectionately. We also have another source; another tap, and that is by harnessing the water from the sea. We are able to do reverse osmosis; we are able to desalinate the salt water for our own drinking purposes. All these would not come about without our emphasis on science and technology. All these would not come about if we had not made the steady investment over the last 50 years to bring this about.

What about a more recent example? How many of you were born in 2003? The rest of you were still not born yet? What happened in 2003 that helped our country to survive a rather serious crisis in our history? Anyone can remember? Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). When SARS first emerged as a disease that threatened the survival of Singapore, many people did not even know how to detect SARS or how to find out who were the people who were infected. The idea that came about was the result of a cross-pollination of ideas. The defence scientists in the defence organisations realised that you could use thermal imagers that we have in our anti-tank missile system to detect the change in temperature for the large numbers of people walk through the customs. Within a couple of weeks of hard work, they were able to retrofit a thermal image used for anti-tank purposes into something that is so prevalent today in all our airports and seaports to detect people who have developed a fever as they pass through our borders. This is an example of the power of science and technology. This is an example of how the cross-fertilization of ideas to apply some science and technology from a seemingly unrelated field to yet another field.

We wouldn't have been able to do this if we have not invested in science and technology over all these years. We wouldn't have been able to do it if we had not invested in our scientists over all these years, and we would not have been able to do this if not for the ability of our scientists to apply their knowledge in different disciplines and cross-domain disciplines. These are just some examples of how science and technology has played an important part in the survival of our country.

Now the question is, going forward, are there any challenges that you think science and technology is critical to helping us reach the next level in our country's development? This week, you would have heard about the project to develop unmanned vehicles to be deployed on our roads. Now that is a great challenge. How do we develop a vehicle that is safe and can shuttle people to-and-fro our roads without having a driver? There is still much work to be done and maybe one day, sitting amongst the audience here, would be someone who will be working in a team to bring this project to fruition.

But that is not all, what if we challenge ourselves a bit more? Actually a vehicle is a very inefficient form of transport. To bring someone your weight of 50 to 60 kilograms on average, you actually move a vehicle that weighs about one ton or a thousand kilograms. Can we think of a more efficient way to transport people around that is at the same time, efficient, economical and comfortable? Some people have suggested, "Why don't we look at having capsules moving on rails to zip people around the town?" Some countries have started looking at this. Maybe your generation will bring to fruition this idea where we have a much more efficient personalized mode of transport that doesn't require us to drive a one thousand kilograms machine just to bring 80 kilograms of human being from point A to point B. So there are tremendous opportunities for you to explore the challenges of tomorrow.

Yet a second example could be this - today, how many of you stay in Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats that are above ten storeys? That means you live in a HDB flat that is above ten storeys. Do you know that one upon a time when I was sitting there, at your age, to live in a HDB flat above ten storeys is a skyscraper. The HDB buildings ranged from two storeys, four storeys to ten storeys. The skyscraper during my time was 16 storeys. Then we have 25 storeys. Today, we have HDB buildings that are 50 storeys.

Question is this: Can you imagine that one day we will be building HDB buildings even higher than 50 storeys? If so, what are the technologies required to build such buildings that go high up into the sky?How many of you know what could be the most difficult thing when we build HDB buildings above 50 storeys? What is the most challenging part? What is the most challenging aspect of it? Is it the structural design or something else? Foundation? Not really. Actually if you pour enough concrete you will have a good-enough foundation. But let me share with you something interesting that someone shared with me. I don't know whether it is absolutely correct but I think it is quite true. One of the biggest challenges of building even higher buildings is the lift. The lift! Why the lift? Because you can build a HDB building that is a hundred storeys, but the question is how you bring people up and down the hundred storeys efficiently. Beyond a certain point, the cable that is pulling the lift up and down is much heavier than the lift itself and that becomes a big challenge. How do you have a pulley system when the cable is so heavy that it might even break the pulley system? So these are the interesting challenges that you can think of in the civilian domain and challenge yourself. What if one day we have to build many buildings beyond fifty storeys and how can we overcome some of these engineering challenges economically? And I hope amongst you, one of you, one of these days, will be able to provide us that solution.

For the rest of you who are looking for applications beyond the civilian world, you are also welcome to join the Defence Science Organisation to explore some of the challenges we have in the defence-science domain. Today, we are going to retire an entire fleet of old M113 armoured personnel vehicles.

The question is, will you be able to turn this entire fleet of armoured fighting vehicles into unmanned fighting vehicles whereby even the combat unfit soldiers can sit in an air-con room and fight with the vehicles just like anybody else? Those are the things that you can dream of and may very soon come to fruition if we work hard at it.

Today as we have more high-rise HDB buildings, our radars detecting incoming airplanes are increasingly challenged by the obstruction of these flats. Then what are the new ideas we can use to overcome these challenges to detect these incoming threats and incoming planes so we can continue to keep our airspace safe and sound? These are the examples of the variety of challenges that you can think of in the coming years. If you continue to display the spirit that you have done so these few days, to relentlessly pursue your ideas, to dare to dream big, then I am quite confident that science and technology will enable Singapore to rise to the next higher plane to bring us better quality of life in the years ahead, just as science and technology has helped us to overcome our water shortage, the SARS crisis and many others before.

Next year will be Singapore's 50th anniversary. I will be very happy if one of you will be able to compile the 50 big ideas that have contributed to Singapore's success over all these years. 50 big ideas in the areas of science and technology And I can guarantee you that if you are interested, you will find no lack of ideas and you will have a hard time trying to decide which are the 50 big ideas that have made a significant impact on the history of Singapore, ranging from water to the detection of SARS and so forth. So on that note, I wish you all the very best.

I know I stand between you and your prize presentation. Most of you will be eagerly waiting to see whether you have won, but regardless of whether you win today or not, I hope you continue your passion in science and technology and help to build a better future for Singapore. Thank you very much.