Urban Farming Systems and Solutions

Dr. CHIEN Szu-Cheng is a building scientist and educator working in the fields of lighting for built environment and urban farming. He joined the Cluster of Engineering, Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) in 2017 as Assistant Professor and was later named Associate Professor in 2022. Before joining SIT, he was a visiting scholar in UC Berkeley in 2016. He had worked with Nanyang Technological University and NRF CREATE SinBerBEST Program (Singapore) as a research fellow from 2011 to 2016. Previously in Austria, he was a senior researcher in TU Vienna and visiting researcher in Austria Institute of Technology from 2009 to 2011. He has led and participated in a variety of research and design activities related to the topics of lighting, visual comfort, urban farming, sustainable/ intelligent buildings in Austria (FWF), Singapore (MOE, SFA, LTA, NRF, BCA), USA. He works closely with Singapore’s government agencies and various industry collaborators on exploring the best practices of visual performance, human-centric and horticulture lighting in tropical built environment. His research team has received NMRC Clinician Innovator Development Award (CIDA) in Singapore in 2021. He is the members of Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) Committees, namely i) Daylighting and ii) Aged and Partially Sighted Lighting.He is a certified BIM professional and Green Mark Manager in Singapore. His professional affiliations include membership in several international associations, including IES, IBPSA, WSSET, and APEC Lighting Working Group. He obtained his PhD in Architecture from TU Vienna, MFA (Arch) from TNNUA, and BSc (Arch) from NCKU in Taiwan respectively.

Dr. Andrew Ng is an Associate Professor with Singapore Institute of Technology. He is the Programme Leader of the Master of Engineering Technology and the Bachelor of Engineering with Honours in Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (Land). Moreover, Dr. Ng is a Chartered Engineer with the UK Engineering Council and serves on the committees of various international and local professional engineering institutions, such as Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Institution of Engineers Singapore (IES), Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE). He is a Senior Member of IEEE and IES; a Consultant and Advisor to startups and multinational corporations; and a Topic Editor of Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute journals. In addition, Dr. Ng is a Principal Investigator of several grants amounting to more than SGD 1.5 million. He holds one international patent and has over 30 publications as both first and corresponding author. His research and development innovations have also garnered him several prestigious awards, such as Outstanding Researcher Award, Teaching Excellence Award, Amity Researcher Award, Young Investigator Award, and National Instruments Editor’s Choice Engineering Impact Award. Furthermore, Dr. Ng has been a keynote and an invited speaker at various international conferences.

Prof. Jasper den Besten (MSc) is a plant scientist and specialized in high-tech horticulture and vertical farming at HAS University of Applied Sciences, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. He joined HAS University after his graduation from Wageningen University in 1981 as a lecturer in field and greenhouse vegetable production and plant breeding. He co-ordinated international BSc and MSc courses in horticulture next to lecturing in the Dutch programs. He has a lot of experience in lecturing and coaching, in applied research and consultancy in international horticulture. In 2010 he became professor in new cultivation systems and started vertical farming research in climate cells at HAS University and a few years later he co-founded BrightBox-Venlo, a bigger center for vertical farming together with Philips (now Signify) and Botany (a local plant research station). He is and was active in several vertical farms in the Netherlands, Singapore, Italy and Iceland and in the association for vertical farming and is involved in both online and on location courses in vertical farming. He was involved in staff exchange, train-the-trainer-programs, fact finding missions, horticulture projects in Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, England, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Serbia, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, Vietnam.