Happy Digital X: Cities, Systems, Products and Services
For Our Common Sustainable Future
Cities
The global economy is an economy of cities. More than half the world’s population live in cities, and more than half of all economic activity happens there.
Systems
Cities are embodiments of a complex adaptive system, influenced not only by their built environment but also by their ecological, social, and cultural contexts.
Products
Despite the promising potential, some cities and regencies are still facing talent scarcity, particularly for the skill-sets needed to develop happy digital cities
Services
Happy Digital X embraces systems thinking and data as the asset as its core messaging, bookended by happiness and sustainability of cities.
Happy Digital X
Happy Digital X is a professional education program of Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center at the UID Bali Campus, Indonesia, set up to study and deliver best practices in these areas. The program is designed for transformative leaders in the age of the fourth industrial revolution.
Individuals selected to join will be immersed in learning with city planners, innovative entrepreneurs, system designers, product developers and digital experts. Together, the program alumni will form new collaborative networks, mindsets, and practices, and co-create the next generation of happy and sustainable communities integrating data, ICT, products, and services.
Happy Digital X 3.0
Following the success of the first intake of the Happy Digital X professional education program, the Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center will be launching the second intake of the program in the Fall of 2025. Apply now to become a part of prestigious network of leaders and innovators working together across sectors to make happier and more sustainable digital cities of the future.
Program Faculty
Happy Digital X faculty members are drawn from top global universities, such as MIT, Tsinghua University, and Harvard University. Additionally, distinguished speakers from government and industry contribute decades of experience to the program. Led by Professor Edward Crawley, MIT’s Ford Professor of Engineering, our faculty members are not only scholars but also distinguished practitioners.
VICTOR CHAN
Tsinghua University Shenzhen International Graduate School, Professor and Associate Dean
Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Co-associate Director
Wai Kin (Victor) Chan is Professor and Associate Dean of the Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School and Co-Associate Director of the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, Tsinghua University, China. Prior to joining Tsinghua, he served on the faculty of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Troy, NY. He received his B.E. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, M.E. from Tsinghua University, and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Chan has served as the lead editor of the 2017 Winter Simulation Conference, co-editor of the 2015 Winter Simulation Conference, program chair of the 2013 Industrial and System Engineering Research Conference, editor of the IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering, and associate editor of the IIE Transactions, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, and Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research. In addition, Dr. Chan has served as program committee for a number of international conferences, and panelist for U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), and Macau Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT). He is a member of the Macau Science and Technology Innovation Development Committee.
His research interests include discrete-event simulation, agent-based simulation, big-data analytics and their applications in social networks, business big-data, service systems, healthcare, transportation, energy markets, and manufacturing.
EDWARD F. CRAWLEY
Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center, Senior Advisor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ford Professor of Engineering
Edward Crawley is the Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT. From 2011 to 2016 he served as the founding president of the Skolkovo Insitute of Science and Technology, Moscow, a new university focused on science and innovation. Prior to that he served as the Director of the Bernard M. Gordon – MIT Engineering Leadership Program, an effort to significantly strengthen the quality of engineering leadership education for competitiveness and innovation. From 2003 to 2006 he served as the Executive Director of the Cambridge – MIT Institute, a joint venture with Cambridge University, funded by the British government and industry, with a mission to understand and generalize how universities act as engines of innovation and economic growth. In this capacity he was in close consultation with the British Government on issues of science and innovation policy. For the previous seven years, he served as the Department Head of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, leading the strategic realignment of the department. Prof Crawley was appointed as Founding Interim Provost of Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center in April 2020.
Prof. Crawley has co-authored several influential books in systems and education, including Rethinking Engineering Education: The CDIO Approach (2007), System Architecture: Strategy and Product Development for Complex Systems (2015) and most recently, Universities as Engines of Economic Development (2020).
MATS HANSON
United In Diversity, Chair of Faculty
KTH Royal Institute of Technology Sweden, Professor Emeritus
Professor Mats Hanson has extensive experience in academia in Sweden and internationally. Prof. Hanson has served at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH in Stockholm SWEDEN for around 40 years and is now emeritus. He was one of the pioneers in building up research and education in the field of mechatronics in the early 1980s. His main interest has been education, from teaching & learning to building up entire educational programs including the pedagogy. He has served as vice-rector for education, school dean, pro-dean and member of different boards over the years.
Prof. Hanson started the KTH Learning Lab together with Stanford Learning Lab and was one of the founders of the CDIO program/organization together with MIT. Between 2012 – 2015 he was the Founding Dean of Education at the new elite university Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Skoltech, in Moscow, Russia. Prof. Hanson also has entrepreneurial experience with start up companies associated with mechatronic applications.
Today he is Senior Advisor at AI Sweden, a partner organization for the acceleration of AI applications in Sweden. He is also appointed Chair of Faculty of United In Diversity Foundation and Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center, responsible for the intellectual challenge of designing initial academic programs and institutions of integrated teaching, research and innovation as well as to seek and recruit potential faculty members.
