Associate Professor Ivan Lee

Vice President (Innovation), Singapore Institute of Technology

Associate Professor Ivan Lee is the Vice President (Innovation) at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). He provides strategic leadership in the implementation of the end-to-end innovation framework for SIT to co-innovate with industry.

A/Prof Lee joined SIT in 2013, and has taught manufacturing operations, engineering design and entrepreneurship courses across several degree programmes. As the VP for Industry & Community (2015-2021), he oversaw the promotion and development of industry collaborations and community partnerships. He has been instrumental in conceptualising and spearheading various Innovation & Enterprise platforms and initiatives to promote and enhance collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurial activities between industry, academic staff and students.

Prior to joining SIT, he has acquired over 27 years of experience in high-tech manufacturing, R&D, management and consulting in such areas as tooling engineering, plastic injection molding, metal fabrication, product lifecycle management, business process improvement, operations management and enterprise systems. He has extensive knowledge of precision engineering, printing, general manufacturing and IT industries.

A/Prof Lee has founded two start-up companies, BLC Solutions Pte Ltd in 2004 and TrueZ Pte Ltd in 2013. The first was a spin-off company from the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech), established to commercialise Web-based Product Lifecycle Management solutions, while the second specialised in cloud-based technologies for B2B collaboration and e-sourcing.

A/Prof Lee graduated with a Diploma in Production Engineering (Silver Medal) from the Singapore Polytechnic in 1981, and a Bachelor of Engineering (First Class honours) conferred by the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1985. He earned his PhD from NUS in 1993, focusing on intelligent process planning using expert systems.