Cover Lynette Tan from Space Faculty. (Photo: A screengrab from Tatler Singapore’s Asia’s Most Influential 2024 video)
Lynette Tan from Space Faculty. (Photo: A screengrab from Tatler Singapore’s Asia’s Most Influential 2024 video)
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Tan is now exploring new frontiers—envisioning Singapore as a deep tech playground, where young minds can explore their pathways in robotics, artificial intelligence and beyond
“My journey to space started from a passion project,” says Lynette Tan, the chief executive officer of Space Faculty. After graduating from Stanford University with a master’s degree in chemical engineering, she was drawn to space exploration, yet found few opportunities to pursue it directly. Tan spent over six years at the Economic Development Board, becoming its first female centre director for India.
She then joined British pharmaceutical and biotechnology giant GlaxoSmithKline, where she managed mergers and acquisitions and expanded into new markets for another six years. In 2007, Tan was one of the founding members of Singapore Space & Technology Association, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to promoting the awareness of the space sector and the use of its technologies by connecting stakeholders in the field.
In 2021, she launched Space Faculty, its educational offshoot which focuses on experimentation, learning and leadership in the space sector, along with STEM and bespoke programmes led by industry experts for young adults and businesses.
In case you missed it: When astronomy meets food: How analogue astronaut Kristine Jane Atienza is pioneering nutrition in space
Above Lynette Tan
Lynette Tan
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Now, Tan is exploring new frontiers—envisioning Singapore as a deep tech playground, where young minds can explore their pathways in robotics, artificial intelligence and beyond. This shift, she explains, was a desire to extend Space Faculty’s mission. “We had a bit too much fun in space,” she laughs. “We started looking at what else we could do.”
In February 2023, Space Faculty launched Expand Space, a comprehensive hub for innovation and visionary platform that offers an all-encompassing 360-degree experience tailored specifically for youths under 35. “Think of a playground where you can discover your purpose, passion and possibilities, and interact with real-world experts,” Tan enthuses.
For years, Singapore has fostered innovation through programmes such as the International Space Challenge, which has celebrated ingenuity for nearly two decades, and the GNSS Innovation Quest. Tan saw a need for a broader platform—one that wouldn’t just celebrate achievements but also foster collaboration among winners and participants. “We thought that it would be beneficial to have [the programmes] culminate in a platform to celebrate that journey of their learning, a place for imagination, creation and camaraderie,” she explains.
With Expand Space, Tan hopes to redefine how youths perceive their career possibilities. “Careers evolve, and we want young people to consider deep tech [careers] that might not be common today,” she says, citing how it hopes to encourage youths to shape the future by imagining careers that do not yet exist. At the heart of Expand Space is a showcase of 25 futuristic careers, from “cyber geneticists” to “cyborg makers”, which break away from traditional, everyday roles and instead, forge new paths driven by creativity and innovation.
Space Faculty’s next frontier is robotics. Tan speaks with enthusiasm about the transformative power of robotics, highlighting how advancements in artificial intelligence collaborative robots and Autonomous Mobile Robots are helping address labour shortages and open new career pathways to solve complex issues such as climate change. She stresses that as these technologies advance, a strong talent pool is essential to support the sector and drive Singapore’s future economy.
For Tan, building such talent starts with inspiring youths—an effort that is highlighted by Space Faculty’s recent success in securing the bid to host the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) finals in Singapore in November 2025. “This is like the Olympics of the robotics world for youths, which is expected to bring together over 4,000 of the brightest young robotics talents to Singapore, from around the world,” says Tan. Co-located with Expand Space, the WRO finals will not only bring together young robotics talents from across the globe, but also attract young professionals and industry experts, bolstering Singapore’s status as an innovation hub.
On a personal level, Tan is eager to embrace new challenges. This outlook is partly inspired by a life-threatening health scare in 2018, when she was diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis. “I escaped unscathed but scarred,” she says, reflecting on the rare disease. “One in three people don’t survive.”
Despite her ordeal, she believes that the narrative of greatness doesn’t have to be built on a foundation of hardship. The ordinary individual—someone who may not have a grand story of resilience—deserves to know that they, too, can achieve remarkable things. “I want people to feel that they can do great things even without [hardships] in their lives. I’m really glad I survived. It’s why I do these ‘strange and peculiar things’,” she reflects, referring to her relentless pursuit of new challenges in space, deep tech and robotics. It is this drive to live fully that she hopes to instil in Singapore’s next generation of innovators.
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Photography: Frenchescar Lim
Hair: Angel Gwee
Make-Up: Angel Gwee
Nafeesa Saini is the Features Editor at Tatler Singapore, where she shapes long-form stories on culture, business, philanthropy, wellness, and the people driving change in Asia. With a deep interest in storytelling that intersects meaningfully with identity and impact, she has profiled a diverse range of visionaries, from scientific pioneers in AI and health to creative trailblazers and literary minds.
Nafeesa’s writing includes cover stories and profiles that spotlight influential voices, alongside commentary on the trends reshaping our world.
Off the clock, Nafeesa unwinds with fiction, a good thrift hunt, and ‘brainrot’ TikTok scroll—while always keeping one eye on her next cultural getaway, usually to Indonesia.
