Malaysian Scientist Receives Prestigious MIT Tech Review '35 Innovators Under 35' Award
Dr Kong Xin Ying is the only Malaysian recipient among the 35 exceptional young innovators shortlisted.
By May Vin Ang — 16 Oct 2024, 11:36 AM
A Malaysian scientist has been honoured with the prestigious MIT Technology Review's '35 Innovators Under 35' (TR35) Asia Pacific Award for 2024
The scientist, Dr Kong Xin Ying, is the only Malaysian recipient among the 35 exceptional young innovators shortlisted for the award from across the region.
The TR35 Award recognises individuals who have made significant breakthroughs in their fields, such as biotechnology, communications, transportation, and energy, highlighting their innovative contributions and entrepreneurial acumen.
Dr Kong speaking at the TR35 award ceremony held in Shanghai last month.
Image via TR35 (Provided to SAYS)
Dr Kong, a researcher at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, has been recognised for her groundbreaking efforts in combating plastic pollution
Dr Kong's research delves into upcycling plastic as a sustainable energy alternative.
Recently, her team successfully developed a novel approach to convert plastic waste into fuels and other valuable chemicals that can be used in solvents, antiseptics, food additives, and fragrances.
"By mining carbon resources from plastic waste instead of extracting them from fossil fuels, early laboratory tests have shown promising results — with the dual benefit of reducing plastic pollution and creating sustainable energy sources.
"With this method, non-biodegradable plastics, which naturally require a hundred to a thousand years to decompose, can be processed in just one day," reads the TR35 statement about Dr Kong's work.
Dr Kong is the fourth Malaysian to receive the TR35 Award in the last decade. The award was presented to her last month at a prestigious ceremony in Shanghai.
"Receiving this award is an incredible honour, which recognises the significance of my work in mitigating plastic pollution with sustainable solutions, and it encourages me to work harder," she was quoted as saying.
Past Malaysian recipients include Goh Ai Ching, the cofounder of Piktochart in 2014; Dr Dhesi Raja, the cofounder and chief scientist of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Epidemiology in 2019; and Wei Ru Wong, a researcher at Universiti Malaya in 2020.
Dr Kong speaking at the TR35 award ceremony held in Shanghai last month.
Image via TR35 (Provided to SAYS)In addition to this honour, Dr Kong was also recently listed in the 2023 World's Top 2% of Scientists, determined by Stanford University — making her one of the youngest to be recognised at 32 years old
Her pioneering research in photocatalytic plastic upcycling has also earned her a place as one of five recipients of the 2023 Merdeka Award Grant for International Attachment.
The Merdeka Award will see Dr Kong begin a three-month attachment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where she will further her research in plastic upcycling, at the end of this month.
