Speech - Address by Ms Low Khah Gek, CEO of ITE, at AI & Digital Readiness Partnership Event on 10 February 2022, at ITE College West

Ms Low Yen Ling, Minister of State 

Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth & Ministry of Trade and Industry

Mr Justin Chiah, Senior Director, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard

Enterprise company

Dr Anjan Ghosh, Executive Director, Intel Corporation

Mr Tomoya Hayashi, Managing Director, SB Telecom Singapore  

Mr Mohamed Irshad, Head of Corporate Affairs, Tata

Consultancy Services Asia Pacific

Distinguished Industry Partners 

ITE Colleagues and Students

Ladies and Gentlemen  

AI and Digital Readiness 

1.      At the 2021 World Economic Forum, many countries and speakers highlighted the need to address the digital skills gap. Messages such as the following were highlighted:

1. 50% of all employees need re-skilling by 2025

1. Employers must shift focus from education credentials to skills 

2. Don’t get left behind in a digital future

3. 65% of youth in school today will end up working in completely new job types that don’t yet exist.

4. Existing jobs will certainly become very different.

2.      Some may think these messages are alarmists while many think these are real challenges to be addressed. In Singapore we already see signs of skills mismatch between job requirements and job seekers. Education and training institutions like ITE need to respond and take steps to plug the digital skills gap. ITE has been responding in three ways:

1. Ensure our curriculum are constantly refreshed and will equip  students with relevant skills to enter the job market (PET);

2. Provide skills upgrading and re-skilling courses for  existing employees (CET); iii Support employers to transform their business and work processes through adoption of digital tools and capabilities (analytics, AI, blockchain, etc.)

Collaboration with Industry 

3.      ITE has benefited from the strong support of industry to enable our curriculum to keep pace with industry transformation, enable staff to keep abreast of new jobs and skills demand as well as the provision of workplace learning opportunities for students. 

4.      This morning, it is our pleasure to formalise our collaboration with four distinguished industry partners: Aruba – a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Intel Corporation, SoftBank Telecom and Tata Consultancy Services.

5.      Aruba is a global leader in wireless solutions. We are excited that Aruba will be enhancing the learning opportunities for ITE staff and students in the domain of Intelligent Edge Networks and Solutions. They will also be providing us superior technology support such as bandwidth with super networking speed.

6.      Intel Corporation and ITE have already collaborated on a number of programmes to bring AI training to ITE staff and students as well as to the public and adult learners. Together, we launched Intel AI for Youth in 2020 and Intel AI For Citizens in 2021 as well as co-developed several SkillsFuture AI CET courses.  We are very pleased to elevate our collaboration with Intel to a much deeper level by signing an MOU today.

7.      SoftBank Telecom has also been supporting ITE through their robotics business units. ITE staff and students have benefitted from the opportunity to use ‘NAO’ and ‘PEPPER’ robots to develop workplace applications and solutions. These robots will be integral learning resources and tools in two Higher Nitec courses: ‘AI Applications’ and ‘Data Engineering’.

Softbank Telecom has committed to continue their collaboration with ITE to strengthen the learning for ITE staff and students in the domain of AI and Robotics. 

8.      Tata Consultancy Services will collaborate with ITE in Technology Enabled Solutions. ITE staff and students will participate in Tata Consultancy Services’ Digital Garage and Senior Lab programmes and be mentored to develop technology solutions for various companies and community groups.

9.      My staff and I look forward to the new learning, new skills and new outcomes from the partnership with our four distinguished MOU partners. 

Official Opening of Two New Training Facilities 

10.      This afternoon, we also have the distinct pleasure of having our Guest of Honour, MOS Low Yen Ling officiate the opening of 2 new training faculties. 

11.      Drone & Robot Hub is jointly developed by ITE with DJI and UBTECH. This hub is equipped with programmable drones and robots to carry out multiple tasks in an indoor environment. This training facility also features a high 8K resolution, 14m x 3m curved LED video wall with portable stage platforms. Students will learn the skills of integrating artificial intelligence with drone and robot technologies. We believe that the ability to combine skillsets from different specialisations will better prepare our ITE graduates for the new emerging jobs in the digital economy.

12.      Advanced Computing Lab provides learners the resources to use High Performance Computing (HPC) as they aggregate the computing power remotely through a virtual platform to develop and train AI applications and models. Much more can be achieved than working on a typical workstation. With the support of National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC), ITE has developed an elective module in HPC to be included in relevant Higher Nitec courses as well as SkillsFuture HPC CET courses for adult learners. Embarking on HPC training has also resulted in ITE widening our collaboration with various HPC providers such as Google Co-Lab, AWS and Microsoft Azure and gaining access to a broader suite of cloud-based services. All these enhanced speeds and capabilities will help ITE staff and students to develop more advanced AI innovation projects and solutions for companies and the community. 

Conclusion

13.        I wish to thank our four new MOU partners for collaborating with ITE and working with us to address the digital skills gap challenge. With your support, ITE will:

1. Ensure our PET curriculum equip  students with relevant skills as they enter the job market;

2. Conduct CET digital skills upgrading and re-skilling for  existing employees; 

3. Provide automation, robotics and AI-enabled solutions to support employers as they transform their business and work processes.

14.        Together, let’s build the future talent pipeline, enable existing employees to be agile and employable and bring everyone forward together into the future.