To say that the human body is an intricate complicated system would be an understatement. When one thing goes wrong, others often follow suit. So in 1970 when Alvan Feinstein first coined the term ‘comorbidity’ — to refer to a person having multiple diseases at the same time — it wasn’t too revolutionary a concept.

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11 June 2021 – NUS Computing and Yale-NUS College Associate Professor Ilya Sergey has won the Distinguished Paper Award from the 42nd ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation conference.

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How can you get your next great idea? One way is to ask other people, and many of them, even a crowd. Crowdsourcing — harnessing the wisdom of the crowd to attain a common goal — is used for an impressive array of tasks, from learning how to eat sustainably, to redesigning cities with open government, creating apps with hackathons, and annotating data for machine learning. When you need help in such instances, you are almost guaranteed to find a ready army of volunteers online.

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1 June 2021 – Assistant Professor Reza Shokri was recently awarded the VMware Early Career Faculty Award, a grant program that recognises the next generation of exceptional faculty members from universities all over the world.

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25 May 2021 – NUS Presidential Young Professor of Computer Science Reza Shokri and his co-authors have won the prestigious IEEE Security and Privacy (S&P) Test-of-Time Award 2021. The award recognises research papers that have made a broad and lasting impact on both research and practice in computer security and privacy.

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Madanmohan Rao reviews Leading with IT: Lessons from Singapore's First CIO, on YourStory.com.

Insights and stories on riding the “technology tiger” in an enterprise are well captured in the book, Leading with IT: Lessons from Singapore's First CIO, by Alex Siow.

Topics covered include management of IT infrastructure and applications, information processing, knowledge management, data governance, cybersecurity, change management, and organisational culture.

The book is written in a compelling storytelling manner, and also integrates research from leading consultancies. A glossary of terms, chronology of events, and reference section would have been a welcome addition to the material.

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In 1961, something momentous happened at a squat, nondescript factory in the tiny town of Ewing, New Jersey. The Unimate, a robotic arm, was fired up for the first time, grabbing pieces of hot metal off an assembly line and welding them onto car bodies while onlookers cheered — the world’s first industrial robot had officially been put to work.

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17 May 2021 – Computer Science PhD student Li Qinbin won the Best Student Paper Gold Award 2021 from the Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence Association (PREMIA).

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Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Cybersecurity R&D Laboratories (NCL) of the National University of Singapore (NUS) via video conference yesterday.

Signing on behalf of UTB was Dean of School of Computing and Informatics (SCI) Dr Mohamad Saiful bin Haji Omar while NUS was represented by Dean of NUS Computing Professor Mohan Kankanhalli.

The ceremony was witnessed by guest of honour UTB Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Hajah Zohrah binti Haji Sulaiman.

Professor Kankanhalli said, “We are very pleased to partner with UTB by supporting its initiatives in cybersecurity related research, education, and training. It is our hope that the positive relationship that we expect to develop as a result of this MoU between UTB and NCL will spark further collaborations between UTB, NUS Computing, and NUS in more areas.”

The newly signed MoU formalises the intention for staff and students of UTB and NCL to collaborate through joint academic, research and development activities, seminars and conferences, as well as the exchange of academic materials of mutual interest.

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Every decade has an exercise trend or two that defines it. Step aerobics and the Thighmaster were popular in the ‘90s, for instance, while exer-gaming and CrossFit were all the craze in the 2000s. To know what’s trending this decade, look no further than your wrist (or to those around you) — chances are it’ll be adorned with some sort of wearable device, fitness tracker, or smartwatch.

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Loose lips sink ships, warned US anti-espionage posters during World War II. It turns out loose code can do a lot more.

The world first caught wind of a massive breach linked to cyber firm SolarWinds last December. The breach was unique not only in its scale, but also in its method of attack. Hackers targeted the very first stop of the entire cyber line of defense: the cybersecurity software.

The compromised software let hackers into thousands of government agencies and companies, sending shockwaves throughout the world. GovInsider spoke with cyber experts to understand what Singapore and its neighbours can learn from the SolarWinds attacks.

What made these attacks particularly insidious was the way it exploited trust in cybersecurity companies, notes Terence Siau, General Manager of Singapore at the global research institution Center for Strategic Cyberspace + International Studies. Many organisations never thought to second guess their security tools, trusting that cyber firms had done their “due diligence”.

But the hackers targeted the software right from the coding stage, sneaking into it as developers built it. Any vulnerabilities would then be passed down to companies, their employees, and even external customers, Siau explains.

“Imagine you’re using an Android phone, and the compromisation comes in from the Android OS,” he says.

Another surprising factor was the scale of these attacks, say Abhik Roychoudhury, Provost’s Chair Professor at the National University of Singapore’s Department of Computer Science, and Liang Zhenkai, who is Associate Professor at the same department.

There were more than 18,000 SolarWinds customers affected, and an estimated 1000 attackers involved, according to Reuters. But it’s likely that we won’t know the full extent of these attacks until much later, Siau says.

First, we need to rethink what makes ‘trustworthy’ software, say Roychoudhury and Liang. “Think of this as extra vigilance – why trust software because it comes from a trusted supplier?” they add.

The second lesson is to prioritise application security, which means making services that run on individual devices more secure. Every device – be it a mobile phone, laptop or IoT sensor – that connects to an organisation’s central network presents an opportunity for attackers to strike.

The bad news is that software for these devices are “most fragile (and poorly written), allowing attackers easy access,” Roychoudhury and Liang note.

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23 April 2021 – Assistant Professor Yang You, from the Department of Computer Science, has been named one of Forbes’ ‘30 Under 30 Asia’ – a list that honours 300 trailblazers in various fields under the age of 30.

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23 April 2021 - Thirteen research papers by NUS Computing faculty and students were featured in the 30th Web Conference, which ended today, April 23.

The Web Conference is an annual international conference focusing on the topic of the World Wide Web, and aims to provide the world with a premier forum for discussion and debate about the evolution of the Web, the standardisation of its associated technologies, and the impact of those technologies on society and culture.

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For an electronic device to ‘know’ what to do, computer programmers need to give it a set of instructions, called code. Writing software programmes can be an immense task — the average Android phone uses 12 million lines of code, Facebook runs on 62 million, and a modern car on 100 million.

Because of the sheer size of code involved, starting from scratch every time you need to write a new programme would be a nightmare. Plus many software utilise similar functions, such as password authentication, copy and paste tools, or parsing a text file. So instead, some software developers employ a neat trick: code reuse, where they take existing code and use it to build new software.

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The term "NFT" (Non-Fungible Token) has become very popular recently, and it has been constantly appearing in news about the sale of artworks. The digital collage image file "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" created by American digital artist Beeple was traded in the form of NFT. Last month, it sold for a record US$69.3 million (approximately S$93.1 million) at the New York auction, shocking the art circle. The buyer turned out to be an Indian blockchain entrepreneur who settled in Singapore.

The Chinese translation of NFT is "non-homogeneous token", also known as "non-fungible token". It is a digital authentication stored in the blockchain. Each NFT has unique identification information, which can be used to represent any physical or virtual objects such as images, recordings, game items, characters, etc. Even if digital objects can be shared or watched online indefinitely, NFT ensures that only one party owns the original product. The concept is similar to buying a famous painting-anyone can buy a copy of a famous painting, but only one person owns the original painting.

Associate Professor Hahn Jungpil, head of the Department of Information Systems and Analytics at the School of Computing, National University of Singapore, said in an interview that the independent authentication function of NFT can derive many usage scenarios. "For example, a virtual item in an online game cannot be traded outside the game. If the game is discontinued, the item will disappear. With NFT, the owner of the virtual item can sell it to people outside the online game."

Blockchain technology is still developing, and there are many challenges that must be overcome, one of which is the huge power consumption. Blockchain requires so-called "miners" to verify transactions, and the process is called "mining", which includes collecting transaction information, verifying and confirming the authenticity of transaction information, etc. Mining requires powerful computer computing functions, so it consumes a lot of power.

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5 April 2021 - Professor Shen Heng Tao, an NUS Computing undergraduate and postgraduate alumnus (Class of 2000 and Class of 2004 respectively), was named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) early this year.

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The National University of Singapore (NUS) will offer two new graduate programmes in digital financial technology (FinTech) in the new academic year, to help build a robust ecosystem of high-quality research talent and capabilities to support the fast-growing financial industry in Singapore. The new Masters and PhD programmes are under the Asian Institute of Digital Finance (AIDF) at NUS, a university-level institute jointly founded by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF) and NUS. The PhD programme, in particular, is Singapore’s first and only doctoral programme in FinTech.

In these uncertain times, more financial organisations than ever are leveraging FinTech to grow and improve their financial products, and to enable smooth and more innovative interaction with their customers.

“In this golden age of technology, banks are becoming more efficient as more operational processes are being automated by AI, and decision making is assisted by sophisticated data analytics. Such advancement is rapidly reshaping the financial services sector. At the same time, financial institutions are facing rapid market changes and intensified global competition. In-demand skillsets such as competencies in digital technologies and innovation, which our new Masters and PhD programmes are designed to impart, will give our graduates a significant competitive advantage to thrive in the industry,” shared Associate Professor Huang Ke-Wei, Director of Academic Programmes at AIDF, who is also from the NUS School of Computing (NUS Computing).

Masters of Science in Digital Financial Technology

The 1.5-year Masters of Science in Digital Financial Technology is a collaborative programme by AIDF, NUS Computing and NUS Business School.

With an intake of 40 to 50 students, the Masters programme is designed primarily for those who plan to work in financial institutions or FinTech firms as AI software developers, data scientists, FinTech security specialists, or financial quantitative analysts.

The programme also offers elective modules that cover deep computing and finance expertise to help prepare graduates for future challenges in FinTech.

Students will undertake a two-semester long capstone project which is designed to help them pick up in-depth skills and knowledge in a focused area – such as artificial intelligence, machine learning or data analytics – via experiential learning. Students can choose either an academic research project, or a FinTech internship to gain industry work experience that supports the acquisition of practical work skills and self-directed learning.

Please visit here for more information on the Masters programme.

PhD in Digital Financial Technology

The PhD in Digital Financial Technology programme will be hosted jointly by the NUS Graduate School and AIDF. The programme will admit talented students with computing, finance, or STEM background, and it aims to train graduates who can excel with a strong technical foundation and independent research ability for driving financial innovations in academia as well as in FinTech industries.

As this is currently the only FinTech PhD programme in Singapore, graduates of this programme will be uniquely suited to work in the FinTech industry especially in fields where research projects require advanced quantitative techniques. Graduates may also become trainers in educational institutions to groom qualified FinTech manpower for Singapore and beyond.

Please visit here for more information on the PhD programme.

Applications to the new Masters and PhD programmes are now open and interested students should submit their applications before 15 April 2021.

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When computer science freshmen first begin their undergraduate degree at NUS Computing, they’re required to take an innocuous-sounding module called CS1101S. There, they are introduced to the fundamentals of computer programming and, in the process, are transported to a whole new world — one comprised not just of 1s and 0s, but of spaceships and alien planets.

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30 March 2021 – In recognition of his work in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, Professor Alex Siow was recently inducted into the Singapore Computer Society (SCS) Hall of Fame at the SCS IT Leader Awards 2020.

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For Ravi Suppiah, the term “teaching innovation” has never just been some far-off ideal to strive for when one has the time or energy for reflective improvement. Instead, it’s ingrained in everything he does as an educator.

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