This is my final year as SMA’s Singapore Co--Director. While bidding fond farewell to all of you, I would certainly like to use this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my SMA colleagues and students who have helped me in realizing the goals of SMA-1 and the successful advancement into SMA-2.

Four SMA-2 programs were confirmed last year, they are: Advanced Materials for Micro- and Nano-Systems (AMM&NS, same name as in SMA-1), Computational Engineering (CE, a change of name from HPCES), Manufacturing Systems and Technology (MST, a change of name from IMST) and a brand new program, Computation and Systems Biology (CSB). A fifth program will be decided later this year. Major tasks have been completed including the Implementation Agreement and Intellectual Property Agreement. I must thank my Singapore colleagues, Ms Diane Fletcher and Prof Ivan Png for their excellent contribution and efforts in completing these two agreements as well as other colleagues who have contributed their inputs and spent many early and late hours discussing and negotiating over video screens. For the 2005/06 session, we will see a record number of six programs, two from SMA-1 (CS and MEBCS) and four from SMA-2. Our colleagues at both SMA offices have to work extra hard to cover this period. Once again, I wish to thank them for all their dedication and contribution.

My message will definitely be incomplete without an account of some of the successful SMA graduates. Two SMA Ph.D. graduates and one SMA Masters graduate have secured academic positions in NUS and NTU. They are Karthik Natarajan and Melvyn Sim (both were from the HPCES program), and Gan Chee Lip (AMM&NS) respectively. Strong entrepreneurship was noted from Tan Boon Kiat (AMM&NS) who, in May 2004, co-founded Ozis Systems Pte Ltd which specializes in the distribution of quality pen drive flash memory. He also recently ventured into the food industry and set up STANT Group Pte Ltd in May 2005 which is the sole master franchiser and has the exclusive right to produce the recipes in Singapore. Ang Ting Yang (IMST) is yet another fast track Assistant Project Manager who handles some 200 employees at Keppel Singmarine. The SMA alumni success story goes on. I wish to also highlight that Michelle Cheong, a Ph.D. student from the IMST programme who has just submitted her thesis for examination, has already clinched an academic position at SMU even before she has graduated.

If I were to be asked one question on how I feel and what I have learned for the past three years as SMA’s Singapore Co-Director, without much hesitation, I would say that the gratification comes from the successful coordination and focusing of the diverse interests of multi-stakeholders into one concerted effort; the creation of high quality students and research.

SMA, I bid you fond adieu, but I shall be at your service whenever and wherever needed.