Courses & Events
Mine Less, Last Longer? Singapore Solutions for Critical Materials in Energy and Electronics
Thursday, Oct 22, 2026
04:30 pm - 05:50 pm
Lithium, cobalt, gallium and the rare earth elements underpin both the energy transition and modern electronics, yet their supply chains are concentrated, carbon-intensive and increasingly shaped by geopolitics. For a resource-scarce city-state like Singapore that makes 1 in 10 of the world’s semiconductor chips, the question is less where to mine and more of how we keep critical materials in use for longer.
Details
Registration:
Agenda:
- 4:30 pm – 5:50 pm Discussion and Audience Q&A
Venue:
- Stanford University, Bishop Auditorium, 518 Memorial Way, Stanford, CA 94305 [Google Map]
Parking options:
- Memorial Way, Stanford, CA 94305 [Google Map]
- Lasuen St. and Roth Way, Stanford, CA 94305 [Google Map]
- Please check parking signs carefully to ensure that permitted parking (A or C) and metered spaces are free after 4:00 pm. Paid parking is enforced around The Oval until 6:00 pm.
Speakers
Prof. Benjamin C.K. Tee
Professor, Materials Science and Engineering & Vice President, Ecosystem Building, National University of Singapore
Benjamin C. K. Tee is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Vice President (Ecosystem Building) at NUS, where he oversees innovation and startup ecosystem growth programs. He holds the NUS College of Design and Engineering Dean’s Chair and received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2014.
His research pioneers electronic skins and neuromorphic sensing technologies: flexible pressure sensors, artificial nervous systems, and soft, stretchable, self-healing electronic materials that give robots and human–machine interfaces a sense of touch. His recent work spans spike-based neuromorphic tactile sensors, electronics-free sensing-to-actuation for soft robotics, and sustainable, recyclable electronic materials, published in journals including Science Advances, Nature Materials, Nature Electronics, Nature Communications and Advanced Materials.
His honours include the James Dyson Award International Winner (2021, the first Singapore team in the award’s history), World Economic Forum Young Scientist (2019), MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 (Global, 2015), the National Research Foundation Fellowship (2017), Singapore Young Scientist Award (2016) and the IES Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award (2020), TSMC Gold and Academy Award (2011). A serial deep-tech entrepreneur, he has raised over USD20M from institutional VCs, and co-founded medical device startup Privi Medical (acquired in 2021), Hannah Life Technologies (YCombinator portfolio company), and tactile sensing startup Tacniq AI. He has co-founded his fourth startup in advanced packaging for photonics that enables heterogeneous integration of critical materials for next generation AI infrastructure needs.
