Check us out – we are featured in today’s issue of Lianhe Zaobao, the largest Singapore-based Chinese-language newspaper!

Click on image above for full article (PDF)

Translation in English:

The Ministry of Education is pushing for holistic education among the students in recent years. Students are not only expected to grasp the academic knowledge from their school curriculum but also master the 21st Century Competencies which include critical thinking, communication skills and the spirit of teamwork.

Lianhe Zaobao observed that there is an increasing trend in education service providers targeting these skills through debate and coding courses to nurture students’ soft skills. For example, The Global Citizen, which was established in 2015, aims to provide students with experimental learning and varied extra-curricular activities. The company helps the students grow through different activities like Debate, Model United Nations, Public Speaking, Global Citizenship education and leadership training.  

Founders Jared Yeo and Walter Yeo feel that learning should nurture students’ worldview and critical thinking, and not just be confined to books. They observed that most young people today lack the ability to understand the importance of their role in the society and the world. Hence, the company wishes to stimulate the students’ interest in local and international development topics and affairs, in order to be a responsible global citizen.

Coding Lab nurtures and develops students in their computational thinking. During the interview, the founder, Foo Yong Ning, talked about the four pillars of computational thinking – problem decomposition, abstraction, algorithm and pattern recognition. Lessons at Coding Lab cater to students from four years old to 18 years old. Coding Lab has collaborated with the National Library Board (NLB) to organise workshops for pre-schoolers, groomed primary school students to gain tech-know-hows with Scratch, and allowed secondary school students and tertiary students to combine Mathematics knowledge with Python.

When discussing how the company’s classes can help students grasp the 21st century competencies, founders of The Global Citizen used debate as an example and pointed out that debate helps students to improve their communication and expression skills, training them to think logically, observe their surroundings and analyze the problem before expressing their own views.

For Coding Lab, Yong Ning talked about how students are able to apply computational thinking to solve problems. He elaborated, “Our students are interacting with apps every day so when we teach them how to create games and apps, we are providing them with tools for them to tackle the future.”

An administrative executive, 38, who is a mother of two, places her two sons at Coding Lab to learn to code. During the interview, she said that the coding lessons can stimulate the children’s creative thinking and encourages them to think out of the box. She added, “Attending coding classes can allow children to relax because they do not need to worry about tests or examinations and can express their creativity freely.”

One of the sons from Wellington Primary School started to attend coding lessons this year and has already mastered the creation of games such as Flappy Bird. He said, “Through the coding classes, I understand the mechanics of programming like how to move and interact and broadcast messages.”

Innovfest unbound: The anchor event of Smart Nation Innovations; a week-long series of events that showcase Asia’s most innovative developments. It is a platform for entrepreneurs, brands, corporates, investors and tech start-ups from all around the world to meet and share ideas, build partnerships and celebrate digital disruption.

Our intern had the opportunity to gain first-class insights into innovfest unbound, and here she lists 5 things that you absolutely have to know if you missed the highlight event:

Number 1: Tencent may take over the world (literally)

We all know what WeChat is but fewer of us know that WeChat’s parent company is actually Tencent. WeChat is but Tencent’s latest success. Steven Chang, the CVP of Tencent introduced the concept of building an ecosystem that targets at what a consumer does daily in order to meet their needs. This requires intensive studying of the consumer. This is also how WeChat, which started off as just a social media platform, is now an app that people cannot live without in China. Steven also revealed the next big thing for Tencent is ABC. A for AI, B for Big Data and C for Cloud. They have already started their initiatives such as the building of smart cities, revamping retail to be smarter and AI in the medical field. Learn the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence right here and now!

Number 2: It’s all about the Consumer, the Customers, and the Market

The common theme that keeps coming up in the talks by successful businesses is their focal point on their consumers or customers. LINE music talked about understanding of the Japanese consumers to discover what they like and implement that function. Netflix talked about the importance of listening to the market in order to adapt to changes. Consumer power is rapidly growing in our digital era and they hold great importance to how businesses dictate their direction today. It is about crafting that experience for customers in order to grow and sustain the business.

Number 3: Optimization. Automation. Machine Learning. What now?

The venture capitalist judges of the Unilever Pitch Challenge pose a critical question for the pitcher and the floor. “Yes, you have optimized and automated this process. So what differentiates you from the rest of the pitchers who have said similar things?” In a few years’ time, I reckon that automation and optimisation are going to be the next must-haves for businesses and that they will no longer be unique selling points. So how do businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors and be different? This brings us to our next point:

Number 4: Brand Storytelling

Coca Cola, Intel and Circles.Life shared about the essential point of storytelling and that is what brands are built upon. Every brand has its own story and building it requires 3 ‘C’s: Context, Content, and Creativity. It is to showcase your point-of-view but more importantly, for consumers to interact and resonate with. This intangible aspect may be hard to quantify in a business. However, decisions are made with emotions, no matter how much logic we put into them. Hence, businesses need to create timely and creative content to deliver to their customers.

Number 5: Don’t be a Doctor, Be a Computer Scientist

The world has grown to become one that cannot function without technology. Lai Chang Wen, founder of Ninja Van joked about future careers for Asian parents to nag their children about; instead of being a doctor, be a computer scientist instead. This shows the equivalence in prestige and demand that a computer scientist has with a doctor, in the Asian context. Kickstart your journey to be a Computer Scientist with the versatile Python language.

Final Takeaway: We need to rise up as a generation that utilises technology to aid our daily lives and solve world problems. The importance of programming and coding is irrefutable. We must aim to be at the forefront of this technological era.