Moderator – Professor Yaacob Ibrahim
Professor Yaacob Ibrahim
Adjunct Professor,
Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
Biography
Professor Yaacob Ibrahim is currently Adjunct Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He is also an Advisor to the Office of the President of the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and the founding Director of the Community Leadership and Social Innovation Centre (CLASIC) at SIT.
Prof Yaacob was Singapore’s Minister-in-charge of Cybersecurity (2015 – 2018), Minister for Communications and Information (2011 – 2018), Minister of Environment and Water Resources (2004 – 2011) and Minister of Community Development and Sports (2002 – 2004). Throughout the 16 years as a Minister, he was also Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs. Prof Yaacob served as Member of Parliament between 1997 and 2020.
Prof Yaacob graduated from the University of Singapore with a degree in Civil Engineering in 1980. He worked as a structural engineer with a multinational engineering consulting firm from 1980 to 1984. He pursued his PhD at Stanford University and graduated in 1989. He spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at Cornell University. He joined the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a faculty member in 1990 where he became a tenured member.
Prof Yaacob sits on the board of several research institutes, private companies and unions. He is Chairman of the St John’s Island National Marine Laboratory (SJINML). He is on the Board of Trustees for the Building Construction and Timber Industries Employees’ Union (BATU), and is a Board Member of Surbana Jurong Group, Singapore Power, and Oceanus Group Limited. He also serves as Advisor, AI Singapore, a national Artificial Intelligence (AI) programme launched by the National Research Foundation to catalyse Singapore’s AI capabilities.