Woh Hup Makes $1 Million Gift as Part of Anniversary Celebrations
Professor Chua Kee Chaing, Dean of Engineering, National University of Singapore (third from left) receives a $1 million cheque from (from left) Who HupÆs Deputy Chairman Mr Kim Yong, Executive Director Mr Yong Mee Him, and Executive Director Mr Eugene Yong.
Singapore’s leading privately-held construction and civil engineering group Woh Hup (Private) Limited is making a gift of $1 million to the National University of Singapore (NUS) to establish a Visiting Professorship at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, NUS Faculty of Engineering, as part of its 90th anniversary celebrations.
Professor Chua Kee Chaing, Dean of NUS Engineering, received the cheque from Woh Hup at the company’s annual dinner and dance held at Fairmont Singapore hotel on April 21, 2017. The gift will be used to establish the Woh Hup Visiting Professorship to attract top researchers, scholars and/or practitioners in the civil and environmental engineering field globally to Singapore and NUS, to share their expertise on construction innovations, and exchange insights on the latest best practices with NUS faculty, staff, students and the built environment industry. This Professorship demonstrates the close collaboration between Singapore industry and the academia to establish thought leadership in this field.
Woh Hup Executive Director Mr Eugene Yong said, “NUS Engineering is world-class in academia because it has an open culture of collaborating with external experts and with industry. This Visiting Professorship, which Woh Hup is happy to endow, will enable the faculty to invite such experts to share their expertise with the built environment sector in Singapore.”
NUS Engineering intends to invite leading international experts who have used newer construction methods to build iconic structures, such as volumetric construction (or construction of three-dimensional units in controlled factory conditions), and structural health monitoring systems, where hundreds of sensors are embedded to detect damage in critical structures like bridges and buildings. Each scholar and/or industry practitioner appointed under the Woh Hup Visiting Professorship will visit Singapore during which they will share their experiences through public lectures or short courses.
The Professorship is part of a $3 million donation to charities, community projects and education in 2017 as Woh Hup marks its 90th anniversary. In February, it gave $1.5 million to the President’s Challenge and $500,000 to the Garden City Fund to build a new Therapeutic Garden for senior citizens in Bishan Ang Mio Kio.
