Speech - Address by Ms Low Khah Gek, CEO/ITE, at the MOU Signing Ceremony between ITE and LinkedIn Singapore Pte Ltd, on 15 June 2020, 3.30pm, Compass Room, ITE Academy, ITE Headquarters

Mr Olivier Legrand 

Managing Director and Vice President

Asia Pacific & China

Mr Alvin Tan

Director and Head of Public Policy and Economics (Asia-Pacific)

Friends from LinkedIn Singapore Pte Ltd;

My ITE Colleagues

Ladies and Gentlemen

1              After eight weeks of circuit-breaker due to Covid-19, we have gotten used to virtual meetings and webinars. However, this virtual signing of MOU is a first for ITE and for me. The signatories (Olivier and myself) are at home and Ang Mo Kio respectively, while the witnesses are at the three ITE campuses in the east (Simei), west (Choa Chu Kang), central (also Ang Mo Kio), as well as a Singapore residence (Alvin is working from home). This unusual arrangement makes today’s signing event a special and unique one. This MOU is very precious and significant for ITE as we seal our partnership and collaboration with LinkedIn, the largest online professional networking portal. We know it will make a significant difference to our students’ lives.

2              ITE’s initial engagement with LinkedIn started last year and so far there have been six workshops for 400 ITE students and a training session for 150 ITE lecturers. LinkedIn has also connected our student leaders with industry mentors for Career Conversations. 

3              Let me go back to how this idea of a MOU was mooted Sometime in February, in the pre-Covid days, Alvin, Kaye, Hosea and Carol visited ITE and I hosted you. Kaye did the presentation on the features of LinkedIn. She was very clever to include in one of her presentation slides, a chart that showed that only 3% of LinkedIn Singapore subscribers are ITE students/graduates. That piece of information became the focal point of discussion. We started a very rigorous discussion on that. Both ITE and LinkedIn agreed and expressed our strong desire and commitment to teach and enable all our ITE students to use the LinkedIn portal. We are talking about 28,000 of them. We have reached out to 400, so now we need a faster way to do it. The discussion is that you will train our lecturers and they will embed this in our LifeSkills programme, so that we can reach out to all the students.   

4              We want our students to be on LinkedIn portal to: 

(i)              profile themselves

(ii)            meet and network with like-minded people

(iii)           be mentored by industry practitioners

(iv)          engage in learning through your 10,000+ online courses, videos, and various resources

(v)            check the profiles of various companies to keep abreast of changing industry and job trends Through LinkedIn, a vast reservoir of contacts, content and new possibilities will open up for our students. We think this is especially important in the current challenging employment climate. 

5              Alvin and the LinkedIn staff are very passionate that ITE students are accorded all the advantages and opportunities that LinkedIn can accrue. I am also convinced that our ITE students possess unique skills, talents and character and should be supported to build a bright future for themselves. 

6              Today’s signing of the MOU brings together two organisations and two sets of people with a common vision and purpose – to enable ITE students to succeed. To our LinkedIn friends, thank you for believing in and valuing our ITE students and graduates. 

7              ITE is delighted to seal this partnership, collaboration and friendship with you. 

Thank you.