Keep calm and go on a hike. From exercising to reading about potential investments, Nicholas believes in making time for the things he enjoys. Find out what makes Nicholas tick and why he enjoys his work at NUS-ISS!
1. Hi Nicholas, please tell us about your professional background:
I have a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) as well as a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the School of Mechanical Engineering at National University of Singapore. During my PhD journey, the topics that I focused on revolved around state-of-the-art Industrial 4.0 technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR). Prior to joining ISS, I had spent a number of years in research at the NUS Engineering Faculty, where I was involved in the development of cutting edge CPS and IoT technologies, a novel VR training system, and ground-breaking optimisation models for bio fabrication applications.
2. Could you share more about the modules/courses which you teach at NUS-ISS?
I teach mainly robotics and IoT-related courses that are part of the Master of Technology in Intelligent Systems programme and Master of Technology in Software Engineering programme respectively. The robotics-related courses are interesting and fun, as it involves many workshops that deal with physical robot hardware (i.e. the Turtlebot3 Waffle Pi and Open Manipulator-X). Moreover, challenging tasks are given to replicate real-world situations. For instance, getting the mobile robot to move through random mazes using SLAM and Navigation technologies.
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| The Turtlebot3 Waffle Pi base with the Open Manipulator-X arm attached on top |
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3. Why did you choose to teach at NUS-ISS?
“To teach is to learn twice” is a famous quote by Joseph Joubert. Based on my earlier teaching experiences at NUS Engineering as a tutor and at NUS-ISS as an adjunct lecturer, I realised that teaching has made me better at mastering my craft, and has enabled me to learn things that I could never learn elsewhere. This in part has led me to embark a new journey with NUS-ISS.
The second reason is that NUS-ISS’ practices are well aligned with my belief, which revolves around a Chinese proverb “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand”. NUS-ISS focuses a lot on practice-based learning instead of just listening, reading and watching and I couldn’t agree more with this framework.
4. What do you enjoy most about your work?
The best thing about teaching a more mature crowd is that we get to worry less about attendance and discipline-related issues. From a personal angle, such students give me more motivation to do my best during lessons as I can relate better to them in terms of work and/or life experiences which helps in reducing the student-teacher barrier. William Arthur Ward mentioned that, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” Until this day, I still stick to this belief that I can inspire and encourage these students to venture out and develop startups that can change the world. I find that Singapore has relatively too little entrepreneurs reaching this level and this too must change.
5. How do you keep up with the industry?
This is the challenging part when you are an academic. What works for me is to spend some time daily to read journals and news articles on related topics (e.g. robotics, self-driving cars, IoT/5G). Speaking to industry players and attending conferences are also effective ways for me to keep up but the issues with such channels lies in their availability and occurrences. Lastly, videos, mostly via YouTube and Twitter are my quick and reliable sources of keeping up with the industry. This is usually my last resort when I do not have the time to read articles on related topics.
6. What are your favorite activities when you are not working?
Depending on my schedule, I make time to exercise at least twice a week. Exercising is not only a very effective way to help me de-stress but most importantly, it also gives me psychological comfort whenever I eat delicious and unhealthy food (YOLO and Yums!). Running is my favourite quick fix and I cover a distance ranging from 2.4 to 5km at the park near my house as well as the indoor jogging track at 100PLUS Promenade. When exercising in a group, HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) will be my choice as it can be very fun and motivating, especially when you have a dragon boater friend to lead the exercises and push you beyond your limits.
My top choice would be hiking as it keeps me calm and gets me in touch with nature, allowing me to getaway from the city life. However, it can be very time consuming and it takes at least 4 hours for me to complete a hike. Hence, I am unable to hike on a weekly basis - I probably need to wait for that work leave to do so.
Me exploring the various hiking trails in Singapore
Apart from exercising, I do enjoy reading non-fiction books as well i.e. getting out of your comfort zone and reading books which are not relevant to your main craft. Back in 2018, I made a New Year’s resolution to read daily on topics that are new, interesting and have nothing to do with my main craft for 30 minutes. I am proud to say that I have been keeping up with this resolution from then until this very day, and that knowledge built up over these years had a satisfying compounded effect on me! I strongly recommend you to try it!
In my spare time, I enjoy socialising, as I find joy in talking to friends and even strangers at pubs with all sorts of interesting people. It is good exposure for me as the friends that I hang out with at pubs (or houses during the pandemic) come from different professional backgrounds and industries (e.g. admin, government, insurance, IT, investment/corporate banking, compliance, marine port, fintech, e-commence). I am able to gather refreshing insights on certain topics being looked at different angles.
7. Tell us something about yourself that very few people know.
I have strong interests in entrepreneurial and investment-related topics since young and started my entrepreneurial journey during my undergraduate days, with my interests kicking in early during the 2nd year. I guess it was fated back then when I came to know about the NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) iLead programme [now known as NOC Singapore] by NUS Enterprise. Though I did not know what am I getting myself into back then, I applied for it because the only thing that came to my mind was that this programme could get me started. This programme consisted of training sessions by NUS Enterprise (e.g. pitching and networking sessions), workshops (one of which was to study successful and failed startups), internships at startups, and lastly, an overseas study mission trip (my batch had the privilege to visit companies like Google, Tesla and Intel in Silicon Valley, California). Eventually this programme did get me started and since then, I had ventured into two small businesses. One of which is a home decoration retail chain (there are still a few outlets left in Singapore) and the other is a wholesale and distributor of beverage products. To date, these businesses are still running but are being passed down to new owners. I am still exploring what ventures I can do next!
Me at the Headquarters of Google
On the other hand, my investment journey began during the final year of my undergraduate period where I was invited by a group of friends to join an investment competition organised by CIMB. Initially, it was just a ‘why not try’ thing for me. From this competition (which we got in 8th place without any prizes), one thing lead to another and I found myself regularly reading business news, investment books, annual reports, calculating/extracting ratios and figures from financial statements, estimating intrinsic values of listed companies and managing portfolios. These activities got even more intense when the market crashed in early 2020. At the beginning, it was a very lonely journey as not many people I know are interested in investments, especially topics that are more relevant to my framework. Eventually I managed to find and join an investment group that aligns with my framework and we meet on a monthly basis. Fingers crossed!