Andy ZHENG 

Title: Adjunct Fellow

Alumni: PhD, University of California, Berkeley

Discipline/s: Mechanical Engineering

E-mail: zheng_cheng@sutd.edu.sg

Biography

Dr. Zheng’s research interests in renewable energy and innovation have led him to focus on researching and developing novel data-driven solutions that optimize energy use and minimize carbon footprint in a smart city context. Andy is particularly interested in cloud computing and big data applications in urban transportation, green financing, and digital contact tracing.

For a one-year stint at the Energy Studies Institute in 2008-2009, Andy’s research interest was studying the impact of energy-efficient vehicle technologies on Singapore’s carbon footprint and researching new policy measures to make hybrid electric vehicles financially attractive to Singaporean car-owners. During his Ph.D. training at the University of California, Berkeley, Andy studied and researched on both the technology and policy aspects of solar energy, with a focus on the role of R&D in developing an innovation-driven sustainable solar industry.

Upon returning to Singapore in 2014, Andy founded the Aspiring Citizens Cleantech (ACC), with the vision of chipping into the global effort of transitioning to a sustainable energy future. ACC’s approach is to provide a full set of technology, business model, and policy innovations to assist governments in accelerating this transition. ACC’s R&D effort in smart electric mobility has produced PAIR Taxi, a plug-and-play big data platform for 65,00 taxis (half of which are EV). ACC’s R&D effort in digital contact tracing has produced FluTrace, a big data and AI analytical engine for COVID-19 contact tracing. It was first deployed for taxis in 3 Chinese cities on 10 Feb 2020, to stratify risk of close contacts who are more likely to be infected or spread virus more widely, as well as to systematically search for asymptomatic infections in the contact network.

Andy holds a B.Eng. (Hons) First Class in Mechanical Engineering from the National University of Singapore, and both a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and a Certificate in Engineering and Business for Sustainability from the University of California, Berkeley.

Education

  • PhD, University of California, Berkeley (topic focus: solar photovoltaics) (2014)
  • BEng, Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore (2008)

Publications

  • Bauer, Gordon., Zheng, Andy., GreenBlatt, Jeffery. B., Shaheen, Susan., & Kammen, Daniel. (2020). On-demand automotive fleet electrification can catalyze global transportation decarbonization and smart urban mobility. Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.0c01609 ((link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2020). Lockdown exit strategy: Use big data to learn to fight COVID-19 (Insight-driven leak-proof risk-stratified contact tracing). Aspiring Citizens Cleantech. {(report) (Safe Code app)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2020). How China’s first-deployed taxi contact tracing & big data analytics platform is completed in 14 days. (in Chinese). The Paper. (link)
  • Feng, Su Wei. & Zheng, Andy. (2016). How app-based ride-hailing platform deviated from sharing economy (in Chinese). Yicai.com (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. & Su, G. (2016). The impact of autonomous vehicles on the ride-hailing industry (in Chinese). The Paper. (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2016). Antitrust regulations in the ride-hailing industry: Shared economies of scale from mobility exchange platform (in Chinese). China Transport News. (link)
  • Su, G. & Zheng, Andy. (2016). The Singapore lessons for adopting congestion pricing in Beijing (in Chinese). The Paper. (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. & Kammen, Daniel. M. (2014). An innovation-focused roadmap for a sustainable global photovoltaic industry. Energy Policy 67, 159-169 (2014). (link)

Conference Presentations/Proceedings

  • Zheng, Andy. (2020, Feb). Digitalize and electrify city’s fleets: Towards a smart low-carbon and sustainable future mobility. Stanford Bits & Watts EV 50 (invited) (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2019, Sep). Future of mobility roundtable. Fortune Inaugural Global Sustainability Forum (invited) (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2019, Aug). Scalable template for EV innovation and adoption: Decarbonize and optimize Shenzhen’s 22,000 EV taxis. 7th Shenzhen Low-Carbon City Forum (invited) (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2019, Aug). How big data startup builds a plug-and-play smart mobility platform using cloud computing services. AliCloud Best Practices Series (invited)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2019, Feb). From Asia to Latin America: Building a democratic and inclusive marketplace of smart cities innovations. SUTD Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities Brown Bag Lunch Talk. (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2017, Jul). Scaling Singapore’s smart city innovations globally. CREATE Future of Science Technology and Policy (invited) (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2016, Oct). Empower the workforce with innovations: Sharing economy in the taxi industry (in Chinese). Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (invited) (link)
  • Zheng, Andy. (2016, Oct). Empower the workforce with innovations: A view from the taxi industry. SUTD Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities Brown Bag Lunch Talk. (link)