With funding from a TUM Montgelas Fellowship I had the opportunity to visit this megacity in September 2022 and, of course, to get to know the work of my colleagues there. The morning after the day-long journey to Singapore, I take the ultramodern and always reliable underground train to the University City in the south-west of the city. Along with the country’s two major universities, the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, this is also home to the Singapore Institute of Technology and TUM Asia.
Passing palm trees and food courts, I soon reach the rear section of the campus where the nerve center of our overseas site is located on an office floor.. All of the employees, from curriculum developers to managers, have their offices here. As I soon observe during the first working days of my visit, this ensures that feedback from student advisers or digital communication channels is routed directly to the professors responsible for the course programs – practically as a call to action.
Digital marketing in Asia
Given my role in Munich as a responsible editor for website and social media content, it is exciting for me to see the different situations faced by digital marketing in countries such as China and India. The challenge of taking these conditions into account and managing them is addressed by agile teams who plan new formats for student recruitment, for example, and integrate them directly into communication concepts.
From electromobility to alternative protein sources
In the following days I visit our TUMCREATE multidisciplinary research platform at the Singapore Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), where our TUM researchers are working on various projects with other top universities located here. The projects are funded by the Singaporean state, but their relevance extends much further. The focus of the first two project phases was on electromobility and public transportation systems in megacities. In the third phase, “Proteins4Singapore”, launched in April 2022, scientists are exploring the cultivation and processing of non-animal protein sources.
Along with exciting insights into everyday work and the valuable personal experience I gained, the major benefit of my stay was the closer ties I formed with my colleagues there and the significant shortening of communication pathways between continents.
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More about the Maximilian Graf Montgelas Program