Tang Tiong Yew

Name: Tang Tiong Yew
Nationality: Malaysia
Current Role: Research Centre for Human-Machine Collaboration (HUMAC) Senior Lecturer, Sunway University (Malaysia)

Please tell us about your role in your current organisation.

I am the founder and managing director at Cashierbook Sdn Bhd. The roles I played are managing my team members, establish external communications with our business clients and research and file patent for my technological invention for Cashierbook platform. I had conducted talks to organizations such as universities and corporate organizations for my business. I also publish articles and videos to introduce our platform to our clients. Cashierbook platform is an e-commerce platform that transact high value items between buyer and seller with our patent pending security technology with blockchain infrastructure. For example, fine arts, collectable item, wines etc. Furthermore, I was invited by universities and organizations to give talks on how to secure their high valued items using our patent pending security technology e-commerce platform.

Please tell us about your postgraduate research.

I proposed a novel human-robot communication model that is inspired by human’s stress model. The noise from the environment may create many difficulties for the robot to comprehend. If the robot is unable to understand the human’s intended messages, the robot cannot effectively communicate with the human. Therefore, we replicate human’s reactions during uncertainty situations by utilising the clues from the environment to support the robot's decision-making. We had verified our model with psychological survey and human-robot interaction experiments. Our result indicated that the robot can effectively react during ambiguous human-robot communication scenarios and thus improve the human-robot engagement.

Why did you choose to pursue your postgraduate degree at Monash University Malaysia? Did it meet your expectations?

I choose to pursue my postgraduate degree at Monash University Malaysia because of its state-of-the-art research facilities and with international exposure of the research community in my research field. I was also offered a scholarship by Monash University to pursue my research interest further which cliched the deal. My knowledge and life experience earned throughout my years as a postgraduate degree student at Monash University Malaysia did met and exceeded my expectations.

While at Monash, what type of opportunities did you participate in? (E.g. student exchange, clubs and societies, field trips, conferences, competitions, etc.)

I was given a chance to experience the student exchange program with Tokyo Metropolitan University to widen my research collaboration with Japanese robotics researchers. I also able to attend many high rankings peer-reviewed international conferences to present my work to the research community and publish my work in these conferences.

What did you like most about your student life at Monash? 

I really appreciated the given opportunities to attend many intellectual property training sessions such as patent workshops organized by Monash University Malaysia. Such opportunities accelerated my passion for intellectual property contributions for my company. Also, I enjoyed learning the different cultures with other international postgraduate students during my postgraduate study.

What is your biggest career goal? What’s the difference you’d like to make?

I wish to drive my company to the international level with the research and intellectual property skills that I learned from Monash University Malaysia. I wish to introduce to the world that high value items can be secured with our patent pending technology. I wish to secure and authenticate the artist’s intellectual property creations for a sustainable fine art industry ecosystem.