Once a TP student, now he is a mentor to many
Post Date: 24 May 2019
Samuel Gan is one of TP’s most accomplished alumnus. Our Biotechnology graduate is now a full-fledged research scientist and a principal investigator at the Antibody and Product Development (APD) Lab at A*STAR Bioinformatics Institute.
His research team focuses on virology, antibody engineering, and molecular biology, at the same time, provides services to the local scientific community for independent testing. Previously holding workshops in universities, including professional courses, the APD team also headed a Skills Future-accredited course, together with Temasek Polytechnic (TP).
Gan’s further successes kick-started right here at our Temasek LaunchPad.
“I would never have branched into the Internet of Things (IoT) and 3D printing without TP’s LaunchPad. It opened many doors for me, allowing me to grow the company. It is yet another thing TP has done for me as a student, and now as an entrepreneur,” Gan said.
He has supervised 10 FYP projects for TP to date. Five from the Diploma in Game Design & Development, three from Information Technology, one from Digital Forensics and one more from Biotechnology.
Some of these projects include:
Wound Monitoring App – An app designed by Information Technology students for patients to monitor their wounds, so that burden on health care, as well as patient healthcare expenses, can be reduced.
Games for Psychological Studies – Tasking our Game Design & Development students to create psychology games that track the coordination and reflexes of the game players, concurrently, building on player algorithms to see the pattern of cheat methods.
Test Your Memory – Based on the collection of data and measurements of memory, a card game was created to test the susceptibility of the individual to false memory (very much like the Hollywood blockbuster movie, Inception).
In addition to the abovementioned projects, Gan has mentored over 50 TP interns from various diplomas. To manage students of various attitudes was indeed challenging, but Gan was always confident in the abilities of his mentees.
“Poly students can solve solutions practically…I’ve had the opportunity of mentoring some mature and serious applicants who have done extremely well,” Gan said.
Gan further emphasises that work experiences and internships are far more important than grades. In fact, he had his first research publication through TP’s internship, which opened many doors for him.
“The connections I made continued to be important even 20 years later. It’s important to take internships seriously. I wish students would be more active to search for what they want, rather than wait to be assigned placements,” Gan said.
by Kavitha Sundralingam
