Assoc Prof Lim Sierin, School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

1) How do you use your role to ensure that technology and policy are truly inclusive?

Women in STEM represent less than 30 per cent of the workforce.

In the context of my services through Women@NTU, the Promotion of Women in Engineering, Research and Science (POWERS) programme, and Society of Women Engineers Singapore (SWE@SG), we develop initiatives to promote the achievements of women to the community.

This is achieved by having a platform for faculty members and students, as well as academics and industry practitioners, to exchange ideas and develop their own initiatives.

A unique aspect of our initiatives is the HeForShe chapter on the NTU campus to engage men to stand alongside women.

Through inclusive empowerment, we empower the whole community.

2) What’s a moment in your career when you saw firsthand how technology or a new policy changed a citizen’s life for the better?

It was during the preparation of my TEDxNTU talk in 2019 when I dug for inclusive technologies.

I found that seatbelts up to that point were tested on male crash-test dummies to represent average men who were bigger, taller and heavier than women and children.

In 2025, dummies that better represent women and children have received endorsement for crash tests.

3) What was the most impactful project you worked on this year, and how did you measure its success in building trust and serving the needs of the public?

Our projects focus on STEM, serving women aged 14 to 40 through our Promotion of Women in Engineering, Research, and Science (POWERS) programme.

Earlier this year, we launched a book project to gather 25 stories of Asian women in STEM who have been dedicating their work in Asia.

The book will highlight the women’s achievements and, more importantly, their science.

By making it accessible to the public, we hope that more women will be inspired to study STEM and continue using their STEM knowledge in their future careers. 

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The book will commemorate the 5th anniversary of POWERS’ launch!

Madam Halimah Yacob, the first woman president of Singapore, who launched the programme in 2021 – Singapore’s designated Year of Celebrating SG Women – will provide an introduction to the book, so stay tuned!

4) What was one unexpected lesson you learned this year about designing for real people? This can be about a specific project or a broader lesson about your work.

Evolution. Innovations need to evolve with the people.

5) We hear a lot about AI. What's a practical example of how AI can be used to make government services more inclusive and trustworthy?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can do a lot, particularly for service optimisation or answering queries.

Inclusive implementation is paramount to ensure that humans remain at the centre. Only then can we build trust in AI.

6) How are you preparing for the next wave of change in the public sector? What new skill, approach, or technology are you most excited to explore in the coming year?

Learn about and improve my computational skills.

My undergraduate training was in chemical engineering, where computational methods, such as design of experiments (DOE), were routine.

Throughout my academic career in bioengineering, my work has since ventured into the intersection of engineering, biology, chemistry and materials science.

In the past several years, the students and researchers in our lab have been excited about incorporating AI and machine learning (AI/ML) in their work.

This ranges from DOE to – and this is the most exciting – designing proteins, especially enzymes that degrade plastics.

We are currently developing a screening platform called SPEED (Screening Platform for Enzyme-Enhanced Depolymerisation) that will use AI/ML to help us identify the best enzyme in our designs.

7) What advice do you have for public sector innovators who want to build a career focused on serving all citizens?

The only constant thing is change.

Listen to people, keep adapting, keep evolving innovations and implementations while keeping the interests of citizens at the core of what we do.

8) Who inspires you to build a more inclusive and trustworthy public sector?

Being in Singapore, my inspiration comes from various people whom I have been interacting with. Through those interactions, particularly with POWERS, I resonated with the need and aspiration to build an inclusive and trustworthy public sector.

Together, we are building an ecosystem to serve the community, one girl, one woman and one group at a time.

9) If you had an unlimited budget, what would your dream project be?

Interactive science cafes at community clubs with people at the centre.

With the increasing use of generative AI (GenAI), our community needs to be more aware of what it can do and what we can trust.

The aim is to demystify science and foster critical thinking by bringing science closer to the community.

10) Outside tech, what excites you the most?

Nature.

It teaches us a lot, including inspiration for new technologies!

It is up to us to observe,  to listen, to learn, and to ensure that the impact of our work contributes to its conservation.