Speeches
Speech by Minister Josephine Teo at SCS Gala Dinner & Tech Leader Awards 2025
9 May 2025
Opening Address by Mrs. Josephine Teo, Minister for Digital Development and Information, at SCS Gala Dinner & Tech Leader Awards 2025 (9 May 2025)
President of the Singapore Computer Society Ms Lim Bee Kwan,
Senior Minister of State Mr Tan Kiat How,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am happy to join you tonight for this year’s SCS Gala Dinner. Allow me to first congratulate all the recipients of this year’s Tech Leader Awards – well done!
About a year and a half ago, when I attended your 2023 Tech3 Forum, I had noted how uncanny it was that the event was being held on polling day for the Presidential Elections.
A few months ago, when I was browsing my calendar, I thought the SCS may once again have picked a politically significant day for this event. But it turns out the Prime Minister had other plans.
As it also turned out, so much attention had been drawn to the General Elections in the last few weeks, that other very significant events for the tech community went almost completely unnoticed.
The first of this is Singapore’s hosting of the annual International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR).
It is not an exaggeration to say that the ICLR is one of the top three conferences where the world’s most prominent researchers in AI/ML gather.
Not only was ICLR being held for the first time in Asia, in-person participation hit a new high of 11,000. ICLR has never had such high in-person participation, and they did it in Singapore.
Along with ICLR, there were several other events fostering international scientific exchanges in AI.
This includes the second edition of the Singapore Conference on AI (SCAI), which I opened before starting on day four of election campaigning,
as well as the Singapore AI Research Week.
And because these events, many luminaries of the field spent good time in Singapore, some for the first time.
For example, Yoshua Bengio, one of the three godfathers of modern AI who spoke at SCAI.
He advocated passionately for stronger AI governance, which reinforced my point about the importance of deepening exchanges between researchers and policymakers, so that AI safety research can be translated into effective policies that govern AI well.
Yoshua and over 100 other global leaders in AI, including Max Tegmark of the Future of Life Institute, also contributed to “The Singapore Consensus” on the priorities for global AI safety research.
While in Singapore, the experts identified three key priorities – Risk assessment, developing trustworthiness, and controlling AI systems. You can read about this in the latest edition of “Wired”.
We hope that the “The Singapore Consensus” will serve as a new foundation for global conversation on AI safety, and I look forward to sharing it with other Digital Ministers at the upcoming ATxSummit in end-May.
Many other AI luminaries were in town last month too.
For example, in the midst of the hustings, I caught up with Yann Le Cun, another of the three godfathers of modern AI, to discuss opportunities in AI adoption.
It’s actually quite remarkable. What are the odds that two out of three of the godfathers of AI were in Singapore in a single week?
I am heartened these luminaries made the time to speak to, and inspire, our AI community as part of the 30+ activities at the Singapore AI Research Week.
I share these with you not because I’m an ambassador for the Singapore Tourism Board excited about increasing tourism receipts.
But it’s really about the growing breadth and depth of AI activities in Singapore, and the increasing awareness of the international AI community about the possibilities here; and these are not to be disregarded.
After all, when we set out the vision of “AI for the public good, for Singapore and the world” in our refreshed National AI Strategy, it was precisely to anchor Singapore as a vibrant hub for AI innovations that could have broader impact beyond our shores.
I am glad that this vision is steadily being realised, and there are signs of a dynamic AI ecosystem taking shape here.
For example, Lorong AI has established itself as Singapore's premier AI hub, and has anchored a strong and vibrant AI community in Singapore.
Its collaborative space regularly brings together over 200 AI practitioners from across industry and Government to learn together and exchange new ideas.
Lorong AI has hosted over 40 events in the four months since launch, and continues to host multiple events weekly. These range from hands-on product workshops to technical deep-dives that are conducted by our homegrown AI experts, leading global researchers, and industry pioneers such as OpenAI and AWS.
We are also seeing promising public-private partnerships start to form out of Lorong AI. One such partnership explores the development of an agentic tool to evaluate the reasoning capabilities of LLMs.
In Government, over 50,000 users, or one-third of all public officers, regularly use Pair, an in-house secure version of ChatGPT, to enhance productivity.
Public officers have created thousands of experimental chatbots using our AIBots platform, and have innovated solutions ranging from answering HR queries to guiding colleagues through budget and procurement processes.
Many industry partners have also set up AI Centres of Excellence (AI CoEs) to innovate, build, and deploy AI-enabled solutions in Singapore.
Last year, 26 AI CoEs were set up by companies across tech, healthcare, manufacturing, and transport.
And we continue to see more.
Next January, we will also host the Association for the Advancement of AI, or AAAI’s, Conference on Artificial Intelligence – A leading AI conference that has traditionally only been held in North America.
As we grow our AI opportunities, I’m keenly aware of the concerns about its displacement impact on workers. These concerns are real, but we must also recognise that AI will create new jobs.
For example, as AI adoption grows across the many sectors in the economy, there will be greater demand for AI talent to deploy, test, and ensure its safety and governance.
We must therefore focus on anchoring more of these new jobs in Singapore.
To meet this future demand for more AI practitioners, we are actively growing a strong pipeline of AI Practitioners with a view to triple our pool from 5,000 to 15,000 over five years.
One of the ways we are doing so, is by providing more company-led training opportunities under the IMDA’s TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA).
We are also expanding the AI Apprenticeship Programme together with AI Singapore.
We estimate that the pool has already grown by nearly 25% in the last year or so.
Besides targeted efforts in AI skills development, we will continue to grow our bench of tech talent to meet companies’ needs.
One significant talent pool for employers are our polytechnic and ITE graduates – an effort that our SMS Tan has been championing.
And the SCS, together with SGTech, have been strong advocates through the TIP Alliance [TeSA for ITE and Polytechnic Alliance], for companies to hire these graduates for skills rather than just academic qualifications.
At the same time, we will also nurture more Singaporeans to become leaders in tech, like many of you are.
To do so, IMDA, has partnered with industry, including global tech firms, to offer the Singapore Digital Leadership Accelerator (SGDLA).
Promising Singaporean tech professionals are given opportunities under the Accelerator to gain global exposure in overseas markets.
They will also have the opportunity to be mentored by experienced global tech executives or founders from a network that is 1,500-strong.
For example, 2022 SG Digital Leader, Gan Hao Yi was connected to his mentor Chang Ling Siow through this network.
As mentor, Ling encouraged Hao Yi to consider Executive Management education programmes for professional growth. Doing so has allowed Hao Yi to advance to a larger role as the Head of Global Software Strategy and Transformation at Dyson.
They remain in close contact with each other, seeking out new opportunities.
With this Accelerator, we hope to prepare many more Singaporeans to take on senior leadership positions in MNCs’ global or regional headquarters, or in high-growth start-ups.
I am happy to announce today, that 19 more Singaporeans have been appointed as SG Digital Leaders this year. This brings the total number of Leaders appointed to 68 since the programme was started in 2022.
They come from across the digital ecosystem, including product management, AI, and emerging technologies such as quantum computing.
I look forward to more inspiring contributions from SG Digital Leaders to Singapore and your fields.
And once again, to all recipients of the Tech Leader Award 2025 who will be honoured tonight, congratulations. And thank you all, for your very significant contributions to Singapore’s vibrant tech sector.
Have a great evening!