Welcome Messages

Professor Haresh SHAH

Founding Chairman, Advisory Board, ICRM; Member of the Board of Trustees, NTU;
Emeritus Professor, Stanford University; Chairman, Asia Risk Centre Inc., Singapore
Founder & Senior Advisor, RMS Inc., USA

We are delighted to welcome you to our third International Symposium on Catastrophe Risk Management. Particular welcome goes to our Guest-of-Honour Mr S.R. Nathan, Sixth President of the Republic of Singapore and H.E. Dato’ Misran Karmain, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN , ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. ICRM has made impressive progress in developing its research agenda, funding for research support from the government, industry and NTU resources, and in establishing collaborative programmes with academic and industrial institutions. This year, our Symposium theme is on Black Swan Events, a theme that has repeatedly stuck all of us in recent years. We are certain that with your participation, the Symposium would help everyone gain a better understanding of the pressing issues and to develop mitigation strategies through the concerted efforts of the government, private and public sectors, and the society at large.



Professor Tso-Chien PAN

Founding Executive Director, ICRM, NTU, Singapore

On behalf of NTU’s Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management (ICRM), I would like to extend our warmest greetings to our Guest-of-Honour Mr S.R. Nathan, Sixth President of the Republic of Singapore, H.E. Dato’ Misran Karmain, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN , ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community, and Speakers and Delegates to the Third Symposium. ICRM was launched in January 2010 and over the past two years, we have received very encouraging support from the government and the industry for two key start-up projects on flood and seismic risk assessments. We are honoured that Aon Benfied is funding PhD Scholarships while Willis Re is funding Postdoctoral Fellowships at ICRM. Several of our industry partners are also contributing towards the cost of running this annual Symposium. This April, ICRM and RMS Inc will co-organize the Sixth Microinsurance Round Table Forum where our focus will be on catastrophe micro-insurance pilot projects in ASEAN region.

This Symposium, with a timely theme on Black Swan Events, will not only help to address the pertinent global concerns but also investigate policy implications leading to Public-Private Partnerships in managing catastrophe risk with low probability of occurance but extremely high consequences. International and local delegates can look forward to engaging presentations and panel discussions from the world’s leading experts in catastrophe risk spanning academia, industry and government. We are positive that your presence will make a difference to the Symposium. Lastly, but not the least, I wish all of you a most wonderful time in Singapore.