Highlights

Join Professor Chan Heng Chee, Chair of Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities online this evening as she provides expert testimony on ‘Supporting our High Streets Post Covid’ before the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government. The inquiry will examine the long-term consequences of the Covid-19 outbreak on the future of the high street. It is interested in how government, at all levels, can mitigate the economic and social impact and develop policies to ensure high streets remain the centre of local communities. The Committee will look at the impact of existing measures to support the high street, including the business rate holiday, as well as the broader role of taxation in enabling high street businesses to remain viable. Professor Carlos Moreno, Scientific Director, Panthenon Sorbonne University, IAE Paris as well as Professor Ricky Burdett, Director of LSE Cities and Urban Age, London School of Economics will also be joining Prof Chan in this session.

In 2019, Singapore generated 744 million kilograms of food waste. To put it into perspective, that is equivalent to 51,000 double-decker buses. Globally, a whopping 1/3 of all food for human consumption goes to waste every year. Although Singapore is small, Singaporeans have big appetites, and with that, arises the inevitable issue of food waste.

Public spaces are shared spaces where people from all walks of life encounter one another as they go about their daily activities. As a space of encounter, they hold considerable potential as a platform for community building and strengthening social resilience.

Published by Routledge, the RTPI Library Series features texts from globally-renowned authors on all aspects of spatial planning theory and practice from a comparative and international perspective.

On The Straits Times’ inaugural Geopolitical Reset 2021 webinar, LKYCIC chair Prof Chan Heng Chee together with veteran diplomat Tommy Koh, both of whom were former Singapore ambassadors to the US, discussed how the US under Mr Biden is likely to manage its relationships in Asia.

At the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities, the Smart Cities Lab looks at tools that build smart government, businesses, and communities, and scales these smart tools across a network of smart cities for greater impact. Over the past few years, Dr Andy Zheng (Adjunct Fellow) and Poon King Wang (Director) have partnered the use of PAIR Taxi big data insight platform to empower workers in the taxi industry.

LKYCIC Chair Professor Chan Heng Chee delivered her 3rd IPS-Nathan lecture, titled “Singapore in a Time of Flux: Optimism from the Jaws of Gloom”, on 15 July 2020. The lecture was live-streamed on IPS’ Facebook page, and was moderated by Mr Bilahari Kausikan, Chairman of Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore.

LKYCIC Chair Professor Chan Heng Chee delivered her 2nd IPS-Nathan lecture, titled “The US-China Rivalry: Inevitable War or Avoidable War?”, on 1 July 2020. The lecture was live-streamed on IPS’ Facebook page, and was moderated by Professor Joseph Liow, Dean of College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University.

Dr Thijs Willems’ PhD dissertation was selected alongside four other winners. They were recognised for their dissertation papers’ outstanding quality, true interdisciplinary methods, originality, international scope and excellent readability.

In her first lecture as IPS’ 7th S R Nathan Fellow, Professor Chan Heng Chee outlined four big challenges the world faces today — disruption, faltering democracy, floundering capitalism and the unraveling of the world order. The lecture was moderated by Prof Danny Quah, Dean of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and was live-streamed on IPS’ Facebook page on 18 June 2020.