Intrigued to Innovate

In this special episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan does something he has never done before — he steps aside and lets you drive the conversation. For the first time on this podcast, the questions came from you — our listeners, the next generation of innovators — who sent in what you were almost too afraid to ask out loud. To answer them, Jovan brings together three people who know...

In this episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan invites two of his former students back to the same studio where their journey began — not for a project consultation or to submit a report, but as world-class startup founders. Armaan Dhanda and Samyak Baid first walked into Dr Tan's CDE2301 Value Creation in Innovation course as wide-eyed freshmen. Samyak later served as his teaching as...

In this masterclass episode, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Prof. Jennifer Rudolph — a political historian at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) — to explore a question that challenges our assumptions about innovation education: what role do the humanities play in building great innovators? The answer, it turns out, is everything. WPI is no ordinary university. For over 50 years, it has pione...

In this special NUS Open House 2026 episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Tristan Voon, a student from the NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) leading the Galassia-5 CubeSat payload project. At its core, Galassia-5 is a Singapore government-backed Earth observation mission designed to revolutionise data delivery by cutting latency from hours to just 5 to 10 min...

In this candid episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Guhan Ashok Kumar, a recent graduate of the NUS Innovation and Design Program (iDP). Guhan recounts how he turned his childhood challenge with a speech impairment and the mockery he endured into EasyConvo, a startup that offers a space for students to practice speaking daily—an essential step toward achieving fluency...

In this deeply personal episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Lakshmi Sujeesh, a recent graduate of the NUS Innovation and Design Program (iDP) who transformed her childhood fear of eye treatments into EyeWonder™, a groundbreaking device that's changing how children experience contact lens insertion for myopia control. What began as a clinical observation of a struggli...

In this captivating episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Naadiah Ibrahim, Aaryana Pradhan, and Pahaul Ahluwalia – three newly graduated mechanical engineers who boldly ventured into uncharted territory for their iDP final year project. What began as an ambitious question – " What if nature's tiniest engineers could solve climate change?" – became a year-long journey f...

In this masterclass episode, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Professor Luca Iandoli, Dean of the Lesley H. and William L. Collins College of Professional Studies at St. John's University and founder of the St. John's University Design Factory, as well as Assistant Professor Nadya Shaznay Patel from the Singapore Institute of Technology's Business, Communication and Design cluster. For decades, Pr...

In this hilarious yet hard-hitting episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan uncorks the story of Eclat, a fully automated wine glass washer and polisher built by James Wang and Chong Jay-En, the duo behind Crystal Clear and winners of the Best Prototype Award at the 2024 EDIC Project Showcase. What starts as a casual "why not?" project with friends quickly escalates to flooding labs, le...

In this engaging episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Harini Ravichandran and Felicia Tan, two NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) students who are turning municipal food waste into a sustainable future. What started as an ambitious plan to address Singapore's increasing food waste problem turned into a practical showcase of resilience, ingenuity, and hands-on...

Episode Description In this captivating episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Lee Seung Jun and Aditya Satish Nalini, two NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) students who dared to reimagine men's grooming retail. What began as an ambitious vision to create an AI-powered razor recommendation system nearly ended in complete failure — until a desperate cold email...

In this inaugural episode of Intrigued to Innovate, host Dr Jovan Tan sits down with Low Tse Han, a Y2 iDP student in electrical engineering who ventured far outside his comfort zone in music to tackle a critical healthcare challenge: reducing unnecessary caesarean sections. What starts as a conversation about innovation quickly turns into a masterclass in resilience, validation, and the messy rea...