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 problem-solving.

Facing challenges like contaminated bacterial batches weeks before their final presentation and daily exposure to food waste fumes, Harini and Felicia's journey highlights the often-overlooked, gritty side of lab-based innovation.

This episode captures their remarkable transformation of carbohydrate-rich food waste (trash) into high-value lactic acid (treasure), a key material used in bioplastics. This process not only helps reduce environmental impact but also opens up new economic opportunities.

This episode uncovers:

· Why Singapore's food waste problem demands urgent, circular solutions

· How to turn procurement nightmares and contaminated samples—things that go wrong—into learning opportunities

· The power of interdisciplinary collaboration across chemical engineering, materials science, and environmental engineering

· Why soft skills—such as time management, stress coping, and strategic pitching—are more important than technical perfection

· How focusing on problems you care about sustains you through a year-long innovation challenge

Whether you're a student engineer, sustainability advocate, or simply curious about turning environmental challenges into valuable resources, understand why the greatest innovations emerge not from perfect execution, but from embracing every setback as a stepping stone.

Guests: Harini Ravichandran and Felicia Tan Mei Ling, Y3 Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) Students, National University of Singapore

Hosted by: Dr Jovan Tan

Produced by: Low Tse Han & Dr Jovan Tan

Presented by: NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) at the NUS Engineering Design and Innovation Centre (EDIC)

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 turned out to be their salvation.

This episode reveals the messy, unglamorous side of innovation that nobody talks about — dead ends, false starts, and the moment when staying silent becomes more dangerous than asking for help.

From ChatGPT failures to AI tools that struggled to distinguish a nose from a blemish, Seung Jun and Aditya's journey exemplifies resourcefulness, resilience, and humility.

They learned that groundbreaking innovations are not always created from nothing; often, they stem from strategic collaborations with those who believe in your vision.

This episode uncovers:

· How dreaming bigger doesn't always lead to better solutions and outcomes

· Why building things from scratch and doing everything yourself isn't always the answer, and the importance of strategic collaboration

· How recognising when to stop fighting and giving up is a sign of strength, not weakness

· How there's always a way forward, in fact, many different ways — and the moment you stop searching for the "right" solution and start looking for any solution is when breakthroughs happen

Whether you're an engineer, entrepreneur, or a young innovator pursuing a seemingly impossible dream, this episode reminds you that the way ahead isn't always what you initially plan—and that's where true innovation happens.

Guests: Lee Seung Jun and Aditya Satish Nalini, Y3 Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) Students, National University of Singapore

Hosted by: Dr Jovan Tan

Produced by: Low Tse Han & Jovan Tan

Presented by: NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) at the NUS Engineering Design and Innovation Centre (EDIC)

Don't miss the EDIC Project Showcase 2025 on 14 November 2025, 5PM at the NUS Engineering Auditorium Atrium, featuring over 40 cutting-edge student projects.

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 reality of problem-solving.

Tse Han shares the story of his MedTech innovation project—a machine learning-based clinical decision support system (CDSS) aimed at helping obstetricians make better decisions during labour. The journey was challenging, as halfway through, after months of research and development, his team's prototype received a lukewarm response from clinicians: it didn't align with their thought process. Rather than defend their work, Tse Han and his team did something extraordinary—they went back to the drawing board and eventually transformed a stalled project into a highly collaborative innovation.

This episode explores what it takes to truly understand a problem, highlights the importance of regular stakeholder engagement, and explains why sometimes the greatest learning occurs when things don't go as planned. From analysing complex medical literature to rebuilding prototypes under pressure, Tse Han learned firsthand that perfect prototypes matter little without stakeholder alignment. His journey provides valuable insights for anyone pursuing interdisciplinary innovation.

This episode uncovers:

· The challenge of unnecessary caesarean sections and labour dystocia

· Why early validation and stakeholder alignment are more critical than aiming for a perfect design

· How to turn negative feedback into resilience and growth

· How to approach problems you know nothing about

· How to understand your weaknesses to build stronger teams

Whether you're a student engineer, healthcare professional, or anyone passionate about problem-solving, learn why "Validate First, Prototype Later" is the motto for sustainable and impactful innovation.

Guest: Low Tse Han, Y2 Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) Student, National University of Singapore

Hosted by: Dr Jovan Tan

Produced by: Low Tse Han and Jovan Tan

Presented by: NUS Innovation & Design Programme (iDP) at the NUS Engineering Design and Innovation Centre (EDIC)

Don't miss the EDIC Project Showcase 2025 on 14 November 2025, 5PM at the NUS Engineering Auditorium Atrium, featuring over 40 cutting-edge student projects.