CNRS@CREATE activities during CREATE Symposium 2024
Prof. Dominique Baillargeat, CEO of CNRS@CREATE, presenting the DesCartes Hybrid Digital Twins to the Symposium’s Guest of Honour, Prof Tan Chorh Chuan, Permanent Secretary (National Research and Development).
CREATE Symposium 2024: Decarbonisation
The CREATE Symposium 2024 was held on Monday 22 July. After a successful CREATE Symposium on Science of Sustainable Cities last year, the theme of this year was “Decarbonisation”.
Prof. Antoine Petit, Chief Executive Director of CNRS, was in Singapore for the occasion and also attended other meetings.
During his opening address, Guest of Honour Prof Tan Chorh Chuan, Permanent Secretary (National Research and Development) introduced a S$90 million programme to further national research into areas such as hydrogen utilisation and the production of greener chemicals and fuels, like sustainable aviation fuel. This CREATE Thematic Programme in Decarbonisation is a “large-scale, but ambitious and synergistic” initiative, he said.
The morning session was dedicated to keynote lectures on decarbonisation.
Prof Richard Lester (MIT) gave a talk on “Research Universities and the Climate Challenge: Science and Solutions for Life in a Changing World”, while Prof Toshiro Fujimori (Tohoku University) discussed about “Technology Development through Industry-Academia Collaboration in Japan toward Carbon Neutralisation”. Lastly, Prof Peter Seeberger (Max Planck Institute) presented “Building a Circular Chemical Economy: Center for the Transformation of Chemistry”.
2 new Decarbonation projects for CNRS@CREATE: CNegSAF and HYCOMBS announcements
After the introduction to CREATE Decarbonisation Challenge by Prof Liu Bin (Deputy President (Research & Technology), Distinguished Professor, NUS), Prof Chueh Loo Poh (Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, NUS) presented the new Decarbonisation project hosted by CNRS@CREATE, CNegSAF: Carbon Negative Production of Advanced SAF Using Twin Synthetic Bacterial Consortia. Prof Poh gave a first interview to Singapore media Lianhe Zaobao to give more context about this exciting project (the article is originally in mandarin, but you may use direct translation tools if needed). Prof. Poh was already Lead PI for the CNRS@CREATE project EcoCTs, which ended recently.
The HYCOMBS project was also introduced later. HYCOMBS stands for Hydrogen and Ammonia Combustion in Singapore, and CNRS@CREATE is also part of this project.
DesCartes Hybrid Digital Twins and SPACE booths at the CREATE Symposium
As side activities of the CREATE Symposium, Prof. Antoine Petit discussed about the SPACE project with Dr Olivier Telle and Dr Borame Dickens. He also viewed the posters presented by ScaNCells and NGAP projects, as well as the DesCartes program. The latter also showcased its booth on DesCartes Hybrid Digital Twins.
Using an interactive table specifically designed for decision-making, along with HoloLens, participants could interact with the digital twins of two districts: Marina Bay (Singapore) and La Défense (Paris). In real time, they could understand and visualize how different conditions (wind, temperature, pollution, no-fly zones, etc.) impact these neighbourhoods.
This augmented reality platform requires a physical substrate to project the added information indeed, which limits its applicability to new domains of study. As an alternative, virtual reality by the DesCartes partner Immersion offers a valuable solution, where information on a screen is enriched with a 3D model containing all relevant physics. This model can be manipulated in real time, providing an excellent collaborative platform for design and operation.
Guest of Honour, Prof Tan Chorh Chuan, visited the DesCartes Hybrid Digital Twins booth during the afternoon, discussing with Prof. Antoine Petit and Prof. Dominique Baillargeat on how it helps to understand and visualize how different conditions (wind, temperature, pollution, no-fly zones, etc.) impact the Marina Bay (Singapore) and La Défense (Paris) neighbourhoods.
Warm thank you to everyone who made this CREATE Symposium 2024 a memorable event!
- Prof. Antoine Petit, CNRS Chief Executive Officer, attends CREATE Symposium 2024 and CREATE Governing Council meeting; meets with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
- Prof Poh interview to Lianhe Zaobao on CNRS@CREATE CNegSAF project
- New $90 million programme to fund more research into hydrogen use, sustainable chemicals
- Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Heng Swee Keat LinkedIn post
- CREATE Symposium 2023 on Science of Sustainable Cities