science

Philip Yeo

Philip Yeo is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Philip Yeo rather than just read about it. In short: Noel Philip Yeo Liat Kok (Chinese: 杨烈国; born 1946), DUNU (First Class), is the Chairman of Economic Development Innovations Singapore, Advanced MedTech Holdings and Accuron Technologies. From April 2007 to March 2018, Yeo was Chairman of Standards Productivity and Innovation for Growth (SPRING Singapore), a government development agency with the mission to grow small and medium enterprises and startups.

Key takeaways

Philip Yeo belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Philip Yeo to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Philip Yeo from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Noel Philip Yeo Liat Kok (Chinese: 杨烈国; born 1946), DUNU (First Class), is the Chairman of Economic Development Innovations Singapore, Advanced MedTech Holdings and Accuron Technologies. From April 2007 to March 2018, Yeo was Chairman of Standards Productivity and Innovation for Growth (SPRING Singapore), a government development agency with the mission to grow small and medium enterprises and startups. Yeo was Special Adviser for Economic Development in the Prime Minister's Office (April 2007 – August 2011), Senior Adviser for Science and Technology, Ministry of Trade and Industry (April 2007 – July 2008), Executive Chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (February 2001 – March 2007), Executive Chairman of the Economic Development Board (January 1986 -January 2001), Executive Co-chairman of the Economic Development Board (Feb 2001 to March 2006), Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence for Defence Research, Logistics and Industry (September 1979 to December 1985).

Education Yeo was a student of St. Joseph's Institution in Singapore. He graduated in 1970 in Applied Science (Industrial Engineering) from the University of Toronto under a Colombo Plan scholarship. He obtained a Master of Science (Systems Engineering) from the University of Singapore in 1974. In 1976, he obtained a Master in Business Administration from Harvard University under a Fulbright scholarship. Yeo has been conferred honorary PhDs from University of Toronto, Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, Monash University and Imperial College London for his work in Economic Development in Singapore and Asia.

Career Philip Yeo served in the Singapore Administrative Service from June 1970 to 31 March 1999. He served in various appointments in the Ministry of Defence, including Permanent Secretary for logistics, technology research & development and defence industries. He became acquainted with then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, deputy prime minister Goh Keng Swee and Defence Minister Howe Yoon Chong during his time in service. He left MINDEF to assume the appointment of chairman, Economic Development Board in January 1986. During his EDB chairmanship, Yeo redirected EDB's focus from the traditional fields to new areas of business. These included: Internationally exportable services; developing high-tech industries like biomedical science, semiconductors, aerospace and speciality chemicals; nurturing local small and medium-sized enterprises and encouraging Singapore companies to make direct investments abroad. Yeo pioneered Singapore's participation in overseas infrastructure development projects such as those in the Bintan Industrial Estate and the Wuxi-Singapore Industrial Park in China. During this time, Philip Yeo also served as the first Chairman of the National Computer Board (now Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore) from 1980 to 1987. He played a leading role in formulating and championing Singapore's first national computerisation plan to evolve the nation into the information age. Yeo was the Chairman of A*STAR from 2000 to 2007. As Chairman of A*STAR he was credited with developing Singapore to become a leading centre for biomedical research and development in Asia within fields such as the biological mechanisms of infection, functional genomics, and stem cell research. To that end he recruited, amongst many others, accomplished researchers like Edison Liu, Nancy Jenkins, Neal Copeland, and David P. Lane to work on biomedical research in Singapore's biomedical hub Biopolis. Yeo stepped down as Chairman of A*STAR and become chairman of the Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board (Spring Singapore) on 1 April 2007. He was also appointed senior adviser on science and technology to the Minister for Trade and Industry. In his role as Adviser for Economic Development in the Prime Minister's Office from April 2007 to August 2011, Yeo assisted in expanding Singapore's economic space through forging new economic links and providing strategic inputs in Singapore government partnerships with foreign governments who value Singapore's development expertise, including countries in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America as well as those in Russia. From January 2009 to January 2010, Yeo was a member of World Health Organization Expert Working Group on R&D Financing. Mr. Yeo was a member of the United Nations Committee of Experts in Public Administration (CEPA), established by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) from 2010 to 2013 for the promotion and development of public administration and governance among Member States, in connection with the United Nations Development Agenda. He was a member of World Health Organization Expert Working Group on R&D Financing from January 2009 to January 2010. He is also Chairman of Economic Development Innovations Singapore Pte Ltd (EDIS) which is focused on developing and managing integrated cities and providing industrial development advice to overseas governments and government-related entities. In the private sector Yeo has chaired numerous company boards, including: Singapore Technologies Holdings, Sembawang Corporation, and CapitaLand. Yeo was board member (from 1980) and chairman of the executive committee of Singapore Technologies Holdings from 1987 to 1993. He also served as Chairman of Sembawang Corporation (1994–1998) and the successor Sembcorp Industries (1998–1999), Pidemco Land (1999–2000) and CapitaLand (2000–2003) formed from Pidemco after a merger in 2000. Yeo is currently the Chairman of a-iTrust (Ascendas India Trust – Asia's first listed India property trust) and Accuron Technologies. In addition, he was appointed as one of the first non-Japanese outside directors of Hitachi alongside George Buckley, the former chief executive officer of 3M. In 2013, Yeo joined the board of directors of the Baiterek National Managing Holding of Kazakhstan, which is a trust management company which manages key Kazakh financial institutions like the Development Bank of Kazakhstan. In December 2013, Yeo joined the Board of Kerry Logistics in Hong Kong. In April 2020, Yeo joined the Board of Sunway Berhad. Yeo also serves as chairman on the board of social enterprise Project Fisher-men, which funds Singaporean social news website Mothership.

Public service and awards

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Philip Yeo

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Philip Yeo claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Philip Yeo before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Philip Yeo ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Philip Yeo

In research: Philip Yeo appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Philip Yeo in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Philip Yeo is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1946 births, Commanders of the Order of the Crown (Belgium), Fellows of King's College London, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Philip Yeo outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Philip Yeo in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Philip Yeo means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Philip Yeo out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Philip Yeo in simple terms?

Why does Philip Yeo matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Philip Yeo?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Philip Yeo.