CCDS Advisory Board

Mr NG Chee Khern

Director & CEO, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute

Mr Ng Chee Khern was appointed Director and CEO of ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute on 1 April 2026.

Prior to this appointment, Mr Ng was the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Manpower from 2022 to 2025. He began his career as a pilot in the Republic of Singapore Air Force in 1984 and was the Chief of Air Force from 2006 to 2009. In 2010, he was appointed Director of the Security and Intelligence Division and became the Permanent Secretary for Defence Development in 2014. He was the Second Permanent Secretary for Health from 2014 to 2016, and the Permanent Secretary for Smart Nation and Digital Government in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) from 2017 to 2022.

Mr Ng is the Deputy Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) and also serves on the Boards of Hong Leong Asia Ltd and SIA Engineering Company Ltd as an Independent Non-Executive Director. He is a Senior Fellow of Civil Service College.

Mr Ng was previously the Chairman of the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) and served as a board member of the National Research Foundation (NRF), Changi Airport Group, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd, and CapitaLand Mall Trust.

Mr Ng was a recipient of the President's Scholarship and Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship in 1985. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Second Upper Class Honours) and a Master of Arts in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. He also graduated with a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University.

Mr CHUA Kuan Seah

Deputy Chief Executive Officer, DSO National Laboratories
Senior Advisor, Cyber Security Agency of Singapore

Mr Chua Kuan Seah is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Systems) of DSO National Laboratories, where he oversees systems and concepts development, guiding divisions in the delivery of systems projects to operational users and driving novel concepts.

Prior to this, Mr Chua was Deputy Chief Executive (Development) and Deputy Commissioner of Cybersecurity at the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore. In these roles, he led national cyber capability master-planning, cyber research and industry development, and Singapore's international cyber technical diplomacy efforts. He also assisted in administering the Cybersecurity Act to protect critical information infrastructure and respond to cyber threats. He served on the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council for Cybersecurity.

Before CSA, Mr Chua was Senior Director and Chief Digital Officer at DSO National Laboratories, leading capability development in cybersecurity, operations research, cryptography, artificial intelligence, and DSO's digitalisation efforts.

Mr Chua has over 20 years of experience in technology and cybersecurity, has received multiple innovation awards, and was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Silver). He holds a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the National University of Singapore and completed the Stanford Executive Program.

BG Edward CHEN

Chief AI Officer
NCS Group

As NCS' first Chief AI Officer, BG Edward Chen leads the organisation's AI transformation, building AI platforms and products and ensuring their safe, secure, and responsible deployment at scale.

BG Chen brings over 26 years of public sector experience across cyber operations, digital transformation, and national security. Prior to NCS, he served as Deputy Chief Executive (National Cyber Resilience) at the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), where he led national cyber defence operations and oversaw the cybersecurity of Singapore's Critical Information Infrastructure.

As a brigadier-general, BG Chen held several senior leadership roles in the Singapore Armed Forces. These included Defence Cyber Chief, where he built key cyber capabilities in the newly formed Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS), and SAF Chief Information Officer, where he oversaw 24/7 network operations and drove large-scale digitalisation and cloud transformation.

BG Chen holds engineering and management degrees from Cornell University, Stanford University, and the Australian National University. He is GIAC-certified in malware reverse engineering, cloud security, and incident handling. He serves on several education and industry boards, including as Vice-President of the Singapore Computer Society and board director of the Singapore Chinese High School.

Mr CHANG Sau Sheong

Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Technology Officer
GovTech Singapore

Mr Chang Sau Sheong is the Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Technology Officer at GovTech Singapore, the government agency driving Singapore's Smart Nation initiative. In this role, he leads teams to develop and deliver digital products, set technology standards, and explore future technologies for the public sector.

Prior to GovTech, Mr Chang was an Operating Partner at Temasek, focusing on AI strategy, solutions, and technical due diligence for portfolio companies.

He previously led SP Digital, the digital business unit of SP Group, and oversaw IT, OT, and digital transformation for the entire group. Under his leadership, SP Group evolved from a traditional utility company to a regional energy player, building energy tech products that promote sustainability and energy efficiency.

Mr Chang brings 28 years of industry experience, having led engineering and product teams at PayPal, Yahoo Southeast Asia, HP Labs Singapore, and Garena (Sea Group). He co-founded elipva, an e-business solutions company, and has been involved in startups for over a decade.

An active contributor to the technology community in Singapore and Southeast Asia, he has written five programming books, two of which have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and serves as Organising Chair of GopherCon Singapore, Southeast Asia's largest Go programming language conference.

He also holds leadership and advisory roles on boards including SkillsFuture Singapore, SISTIC Singapore, and is a Council Member and Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES).

Mr Chang holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, a Master's in Commercial Law from the University of Derby and a Postgraduate Certificate in International Arbitration from NUS.

Mr Christopher SIA Jiun Kae

Director, Sense-making & Surveillance Centre of Expertise
Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX)

Mr Christopher Sia is the Director of the Sense-making & Surveillance (S&S) Centre of Expertise (COE) at the Home Team Science & Technology Agency (HTX). He is an accomplished technology leader with over 15 years of diverse experience across AI engineering, software development, product innovation, project management, and business development. Mr Sia has successfully conceptualized and delivered numerous multi-million-dollar AI platforms and systems, enabling transformative capabilities for government agencies and Home Team Departments.

A strong advocate for cross-sector collaboration, Mr Sia has led multiple translational R&D initiatives in partnership with leading universities both locally and abroad, bridging the gap between advanced research and real-world applications.

Before joining HTX, Mr Sia served as Deputy Director of the Video Analytics, Data Science & AI Division at GovTech Singapore, where he oversaw the development and deployment of analytics and AI solutions for the public sector. Prior to that, he was Senior Manager for Smart Nation Industry Development (Data Analytics) at the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), supporting national-level data analytics efforts under the Smart Nation programme.

Earlier in his career, Mr Sia held various technical and leadership roles, including Software Team Lead for Airforce System Project Management at the Defence Science & Technology Agency (DSTA), Software Quality Assurance Engineer at Finisar Corporation (Singapore), and Software Engineer at DSO National Laboratories.

Mr Sia holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a double specialization in Strategy and Marketing (2010) and a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering (2005), both from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Dr TAY Yi

Senior Staff Research Scientist and Engineer, Google DeepMind
Chief Scientist and Co-founder, Reka AI

Dr Tay Yi is a Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, where he leads cutting-edge research in large language models (LLMs), deep learning architectures, and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. His work focuses on advancing the scalability, efficiency, and reasoning capabilities of next-generation AI models, contributing to some of the most significant breakthroughs in natural language processing and foundation model development.

As Chief Scientist and Co-founder of Reka AI, Dr Tay spearheads the company's scientific direction and research strategy. Under his leadership, Reka AI develops state-of-the-art multimodal and multilingual AI systems, aiming to make powerful and responsible AI technologies widely accessible.

Dr Tay's research spans a wide range of topics, including neural architecture design, transformer models, retrieval-augmented generation, and AI alignment. His papers have been published in top-tier venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, and EMNLP, and have garnered extensive citations and influence across the global AI community. He is widely recognized for his pioneering contributions to transformer efficiency and scaling, as well as for advancing understanding in emergent model behaviors.

Dr Tay obtained his Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Engineering (2016) and Ph.D. in Computer Science (2020), both from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. During his doctoral studies, he focused on deep learning architectures for text understanding and large-scale representation learning.

Dr Tay is regarded as one of the leading young researchers in AI, bridging academic innovation with real-world AI deployment at scale. His work continues to shape the evolution of large-model research and the broader global AI landscape.

Dr Desney TAN

Board Director
ResMed and Washington Research Foundation

Dr. Desney Tan is a researcher and seasoned executive, who has built and run multidisciplinary global innovation teams, leveraging expertise in hardware and devices, applied machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as human-computer interaction to make impact in areas such as autonomous navigation, entertainment and consumer products, as well as health and life sciences. Dr. Tan has a Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Bachelor of Science in computer engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Tan was Corporate Vice President and Managing Director of the core Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Research Lab in Redmond, Washington until 2026. He was previously Vice President and Managing Director for Health and Life Science R&D at Microsoft, where he worked in various leading research roles since 2004. His work has shipped in various versions of Azure, Windows, Office, the Microsoft Handwriting Recognition Engine and Tablet Input Panel, Xbox, the Microsoft Band, and various Microsoft Health products.

Dr. Tan is an Affiliate Professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington Seattle and is Senior Advisor and Chief Technologist for Seattle-based life science incubator IntuitiveX. He serves on the Board of Directors for ResMed (NYSE:RMD, ASX:RMD) as well as the Washington Research Foundation. He advises multiple startup companies and is an active startup and real estate investor.

Dr. Tan was honored as one of MIT Technology Review's 2007 Young Innovators Under 35 for work on brain-computer interfaces and a 2012 Kavli Fellow by the US National Academy of Sciences. He was named one of SciFi Channel's Young Visionaries at TED 2009, as well as Forbes' Revolutionaries: Radical Thinkers and their World-Changing Ideas for work on Whole Body Computing. Dr. Tan is the named inventor on more than 100 granted patents, and author of numerous academic publications.

Dr Simon SEE

Senior Director, Chief Solution Architect and Global Head
NVIDIA AI Technology Centre and AI Nation
NVIDIA Corporation

Dr Simon See is currently the Solution Architecture and Engineering Director, Chief Solution Architect and Global Head for NVIDIA AI Technology Center, AI Nation, NVIDIA Corporation. He is also an Adjunct Dr at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Surrey University, Conventry University, and Universitas Indonesia (UI) and Newcastle University in Singapore. He is also a distinguished fellow in Fudan University and elected Fellow of Institution of Engineering and Technology. Previously Dr See is also the Chief Scientific Computing Advisor for BGI (China) and has a position in Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and King-Mong Kung University of Technology (Thailand). Dr See is currently involved in a number of International computational, mathematical science projects and national AI initiatives. Recently Dr See has been appointed as the Executive Director of the ASEAN Applied Research Centre (AARC). His research interests are in the area of High-Performance Computing, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computational Science, Applied Mathematics and Simulation Methodology. Dr See is also leading some of the AI initiatives in Asia Pacific. He is a Steering Committee member of NSCC's flagship High Performance Computing Conference Supercomputing Asia (SCA) since March 2018. He has published over 200 papers in these areas and has won various awards in the field.

Dr See is a Fellow member of IET, Chairman of TaskForce of IEEE's CIS Neural Networks Technical Committee, a member of SIAM, IET, AAAI, SCS, and also on the Advisory Team of AIP (AI Professional Association), International Advisory Board of Institute of Operations Research & Analytics (IORA), Advisory Team of Machine Intelligence and Data Analytics Research Centre (MIDARC), School of Computing Sciences (India) and Board of Studies, MS Tech Programs of Mahindra University, Editorial Board Member of Journal of Computational and Cognitive Engineering (JCCE), The Industry Advisory Committee for Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in Real-time Interactive Simulation and Interactive Media and Game Design at Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and the committee member of more than 50 conferences.

Dr See graduated from the University of Salford (UK) with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and numerical analysis in 1993. Prior to joining NVIDIA, Dr See worked for SGI, DSO National Lab. of Singapore, IBM, International Simulation Ltd (UK), Sun Microsystems and Oracle. He is also providing consultancy to a number of national research and supercomputing centers.

Mr Richard GOH

Head of AI and Strategic Initiatives
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Singapore

Mr Richard Goh is the head of AI & strategic initiatives for Singapore public sector business at Amazon Web Services (AWS). He is a certified Amazon's Culture of Innovation speaker, a global initiative that shares Amazon's innovation mechanisms. He is also a member of the AWS ASEAN AI acceleration team supporting strategic AI adoption across AWS ASEAN customers.

Outside of AWS, Mr Goh is an active member of the AI and Robotics chapter of Singapore Computer Society (SCS). Prior to joining AWS, he spent 6 years in SkillsFuture Singapore working on utilizing technology to augment and support the national SkillsFuture movement. He lead technical teams in moving systems to the cloud, modernising systems and pioneered the use of AI, machine learning and blockchain technologies for fraud prevention, skills and training discovery and automation of processes.

He started his career as a researcher in AI before spending more than 15 years in management and tech consulting, helping various MNCs, government and financial organisations with AI, automation and technology strategies.

Ms Nelly Kasim

Financial Sustainability Committee Member, Abilities Beyond Limitations and Expectations (ABLE)
Head of Project Management, better.sg

Ms Nelly Kasim is a strategic technology and transformation leader with more than two decades of experience driving transformative change in the global software, technology, and consulting sectors. She brings deep expertise in enterprise dealmaking, large-scale transformation, and the application of emerging technologies to drive sustainable business and societal outcomes.

Ms Kasim spent 16 years at Microsoft, where she held a range of regional and leadership roles across Asia-Pacific. She began in Asia Pacific Operations before moving into enterprise dealmaking, leading complex, multi-million-dollar negotiations that drove significant commercial growth. She later transitioned into regional leadership positions, guiding organisations in adopting cloud and business application technologies at scale. Her work strengthened operational excellence, accelerated annuity revenue growth, and enhanced customer outcomes across multiple markets.

As Director of Business Strategy, Ms Kasim scaled Microsoft's business applications portfolio across Asia, achieving triple-digit growth. She subsequently served as Chief of Staff for Microsoft's consulting and support divisions, where she played a central role in a large-scale transformation focused on customer success. During this period, she helped stabilise and lead a 2,000-strong organisation through leadership transitions and the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring continuity, resilience, and sustained performance.

Following Microsoft, Ms Kasim joined EY as Area Relationship Director, where she built and led strategic alliances with global partners including SAP and IBM across Asia Pacific regions. She strengthened EY's position as a strategic transformation partner, delivering impactful, technology-enabled solutions and advancing financial transformation outcomes for clients.

Beyond her corporate career, Ms Kasim is deeply engaged in technology-driven social impact. She is the founder of Huse Infinity, a social-impact investment initiative supporting renewable energy and community development projects across Asia. She also serves as Head of Project Management at better.sg, where she leads volunteer-driven initiatives that harness technology to address pressing social challenges.

Ms Kasim contributes actively through advisory and volunteer leadership roles. She serves on a Board sub-committee at ABLE, where she leads pro bono corporate partnerships to advance services for persons with disabilities. She is also a mentor to emerging leaders, with a strong focus on bridging technology, leadership, and inclusive growth.

Ms Kasim holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering (First Class Honours) from Nanyang Technological University and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the Singapore-MIT Alliance. She is a graduate of the AmCham Next Generation Leadership Program.

Mr David Yat HO

President, CCDS Alumni Association
President, Alpha Ladder Group
President, AI Green Vision

Mr David Yat Ho is a Singapore-based business leader with more than three decades of experience in the technology industry, spanning leadership, consulting, market expansion, and business turnaround across Asia. He has held senior regional roles at leading global and regional organizations including Oracle, Sabre, EPICOR, Computer Sciences Corporation, InfoCepts, and TeleChoice International. He is currently President of Alpha Ladder Innovx, a subsidiary of Alpha Ladder Group, where he focuses on connecting Chinese technology companies with growth opportunities in ASEAN and the GCC, helping translate strategy into trusted local partnerships, market entry pathways, and execution on the ground.

Over the course of his career, Mr Ho has built a strong track record in growth, transformation, and organizational leadership. His achievements include turning around underperforming business divisions, leading regional consulting and SaaS businesses, winning major strategic accounts, and helping companies expand across Southeast Asia, Greater China, and North Asia. He also co-founded Merimen.com, an early SaaS pioneer in Southeast Asia, which was later acquired by a Singapore-listed company. His work has consistently centered on building markets, strengthening teams, and delivering business performance in complex, multi-country environments.

A graduate of Nanyang Technological University in Computer Engineering, Mr Ho also contributes actively to academia and industry. He is President, NTU College of Computing & Data Science Alumni Association, and currently serves on the College Advisory Board of NTU's College of Computing & Data Science. He has also long served on the External Advisory Committee of the School of Computer Engineering. His professional interests include leadership, organizational alignment, high-performance culture, and the practical scaling of technology businesses across Asia and the Gulf region.

Prof LI Hang

Senior Technical Advisor at ByteDance
Former Head of ByteDance AI Lab

Prof Li Hang is a Senior Technical Advisor at ByteDance.

He is a Fellow of the ACM, ACL, and IEEE. He graduated from Kyoto University and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo.

Prior to joining ByteDance, he worked as a Research Scientist at NEC Research, a Research Manager at Microsoft Research Asia, and Director and Chief Scientist at Huawei Noah's Ark Lab.

At ByteDance, he has held the positions of Director of the AI Lab and Head of Research. His research interests include machine learning, natural language processing, information retrieval, and robotics.

Mr Punit Agarwal

Country Head
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Singapore

Mr Punit Agarwal is the Country Head (Singapore) at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). A seasoned business leader with almost three decades of experience across diverse geographical markets, Mr Agarwal possesses unique global perspectives and expertise in driving digital transformation across different dimensions of business.

Mr Agarwal is equipped with a wealth of experiences in running Delivery and Sales organization across geographies, having played various leadership roles during his stint in North America, Netherlands, Germany, and Singapore. He has also successfully set up high performance teams to deliver complex programs spanning multiple countries for business excellence.

Mr Agarwal had been instrumental in setting up various TCS Offshore Delivery Centers for global customers across geographies spanning India, Philippines, Malaysia, and China for Technology Services and Business Operations. He had also successfully supported customers with vendors consolidation, to drive cost optimization and operational resilience. Punit leverages his strength in client and stakeholder management for effective customer management and business growth.

As the Country Head of TCS Singapore, Mr Agarwal is responsible for driving the TCS business towards greater success. His role includes pioneering initiatives that will elevate Singapore's digital technology space through innovative strategies, partnerships, and education, while narrowing the skills gap for the local community, fostering growth and development.

Drawing upon two decades of experience spearheading digital strategy projects at TCS Singapore, Mr Agarwal is extensively connected with the local business, academic and government ecosystem. As the former TCS APAC Head of Banking and Financial Services (BFSI), his focus lies in partnering clients to craft and execute their digital transformation agenda, while collaborating with technology providers, FinTech, RegTech and other pivotal players within the ecosystem.

Mr Agarwal has been appointed to the Advisory Board of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), College of Computing and Data Science (CCDS) from April 2026 to March 2029. He is advising the Dean and leadership on strategy, programmes and partnerships. His role provides industry insights, guides curriculum relevance, advances research collaboration, supports student development, reviews initiatives, and strengthens alumni engagement across national communities.

Mr Agarwal graduated with a Master of Science (Finance) from Baruch College, USA, where he was a recipient of Beta Gamma Sigma, the highest recognition in a business program accredited by AACSB International.