The President of the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) Dr. Muhammad Al-Saggaf, accompanied by Vice-President of research and Innovation Dr. Ali A. Al-Shaikhi and Chair for the KFUPM’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering Dr. Turki Baroud visited the National University of Singapore on 17 February 2023.
After a courtesy meeting with NUS’s Provost-designate Prof. Aaron Thean and NUS senior management represented by NUS Senior Vice Provost Professor Bernard TAN, and faculty leadership from the College of Design and Engineering, the KFUPM delegation sat down to a research dialogue with scientists from the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials and the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials.
KFUPM is a sister University of Aramco (a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company , and as of 2020, it is one of the largest companies in the world by revenue) and one of the two major Universities in Saudi Arabia. Formerly a vice-president of Aramco, Prof. Muhammad Al-Saggaf delivered a talk to share his thoughts on “KFUPM’s Experience: Transforming academic institutions to align with future global trends”.
There was lively exchange between the participants of this round-table as academics and scientists discussed the need and strategy to mould academic teaching and training to encourage big picture thinking that would birth ideas that would drive innovation.