Speech by MOS Rahayu Mahzam at the Design AI and Tech Awards 2026

Professor Phoon Kok Kwang, President, SUTD

Mr Chan Yeng Kit, CEO, SPH Media

Professor Tai Lee Siang, Deputy President, Chief Innovation & Enterprise Officer, SUTD

Ms Chen Huifen, Editor, The Business Times

Dr Leslie Teo, Senior Director of AI Products, AI Singapore

Ms Jenny Lee, Senior Managing Partner, Granite Asia

Ms Dawn Lim, Executive Director, Design Singapore Council

Ladies and gentlemen.

1. Good evening. Thank you, SUTD and Business Times, for this kind invitation. It is wonderful to be here for the second edition of Design AI and Tech Awards.

   1. To this year’s finalists, congratulations on making it through a rigorous judging process. That is a strong achievement, and you should be proud.

2. I also want to thank our distinguished judging panel, which has brought together expertise from academia, AI research, industry, media, and design. This breadth reflects the interdisciplinary spirit of these awards.

3. These awards come at an important moment. Across Singapore, organisations are increasingly moving beyond asking whether to adopt AI. The question now is how.

   1. How to apply AI meaningfully, to drive productivity, innovation, and transformation.

4. The introduction of two award tracks this year reflects an important reality. Companies of all sizes can benefit from AI.

   1. The 2025 Singapore Digital Economy Report shows us encouraging progress. AI adoption rates have grown by almost 20 percentage points from 44.0% in 2023 to 62.5% for large companies. For SMEs, the figure tripled to 14.5%.

   2. Momentum for AI adoption is building across our entire business ecosystem.

5. Companies of varying sizes use AI differently. Large corporations often have the resources to deploy AI at scale. They can integrate it deeply into their systems and workflows, in transformative ways.

   1. Take Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore, for example.

      1. When they set out to reimagine car manufacturing, they did not just adopt AI as a tool. They built an entirely new kind of factory. Instead of the traditional conveyor belt, AI orchestrates over 200 robots moving dynamically through the facility to handle repetitive and potentially hazardous tasks. This frees human workers to focus on higher-value work.

      2. The results speak for themselves. Nearly 70% automation in logistics and manufacturing processes, with lead times and bottlenecks cut by more than 50 per cent. This means smoother operations, fewer disruptions, and faster turnaround.

      3. Beyond efficiency, this operating model enables something even more exciting – EV cars made right here in Singapore, recognised globally for their design, technology, and sustainability.

6. Our SMEs and startups are also finding their own paths. Some apply AI to specific, high-value tasks based on their existing operations. Others go further, building their entire business models around AI.

   1. H3 Zoom AI is a good example of this growing trend of AI-native startups. Rather than applying AI to one part of the inspection process, they reimagined the entire business around it.

      1. Traditionally, façade inspections are slow, costly, labour-intensive, and high-risk. H3 Zoom AI’s Façade Inspector platform addresses all of these, bringing every step of the process into a single, integrated system.

      2. Drones capture building data remotely, and AI analyses it to identify defects quickly and accurately. Inspectors no longer need to scale buildings, eliminating safety risks while halving costs and cutting inspection times by up to 90 per cent.

      3. This is what it means to build on AI from day one. Not to improve one step, but to redesign the entire workflow, and redefine what the work itself looks like.

7. The Government continues to strengthen support for companies to keep taking the next step in their AI adoption journey. We have a range of initiatives under the National AI Impact Programme, aimed at encouraging more businesses to take the first step, and for those already using AI, to go even deeper.

   1. For business leaders who are ready to go further, we recently launched the Digital Leaders Accelerator Bootcamp. This is a hands-on programme for leaders to develop a clear roadmap on transforming your business with AI. The first run has been fully subscribed, and more companies can soon expect upcoming sessions designed to build confidence in scaling AI solutions that address real business challenges.

   2. The Productivity Solutions Grant now supports a broader range of digital and AI-enabled solutions to help companies find the right tools at lower costs and get started.

   3. The support is there – whichever stage you are at. The next step to take is yours.

8. Now, I want to turn to something that I think is equally important, and perhaps closer to the hearts of many in this room. As AI becomes more capable and more widely adopted, it is changing what it means to do design work, and what it means to be a design practitioner in the future.

9. AI can now support the design process in powerful ways. It accelerates market research, rapid prototyping, and usability testing. It can serve as a creative co-pilot, helping teams to explore ideas and design directions quickly. What once might have taken weeks can now happen in days, or even hours. And some wonder: could AI eventually replace humans in the design process altogether?

10. I want to acknowledge that these changes can feel disruptive, even unsettling. But here is what I believe - even as AI takes on more of the technical and generative work, the distinctly human aspects of design become more valuable, not less.

11. Designers bring vision, and judgment shaped by lived experience. They understand context, including cultural, emotional, and ethical. They make decisions and align stakeholders around shared goals. The strongest designers will be those who combine deep design expertise with AI fluency, to tackle harder problems and deliver solutions that truly serve people’s needs.

12. This is what today’s awards demonstrate. The best solutions here did not start with a technology or algorithm in search of a problem. They started with a problem, approached with curiosity, creativity, and care.

13. What strikes me is not just what the finalists have built. It is also the thinking behind it. How do we make that way of thinking the norm, and not the exception?

14. This is why SUTD's Design AI approach matters. As the world's first university focused on Design AI, SUTD is pioneering a new kind of practitioner – one who is AI bilingual, fluent in both their domains and AI.

    1. Design begins with people. It asks not just what technology can do, but what people actually need, value, and experience. And this question cannot be answered by any single discipline alone.

    2. Design AI carries this principle forward. A designer who is also AI-fluent brings a new dimension to the craft. They can assess what AI can realistically deliver and ensure the right guardrails are in place. When domain knowledge and AI capability work together in this way, we can build solutions that truly improve lives and guard against potential harms.

15. And if we want AI to serve the public good, it must also make space for every person, not just those who are easiest to design for.

    1. SBS Transit's Project SiLViA shows what this can look like.

       1. For the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community, everyday travel becomes much harder when important announcements are not accessible.

       2. Powered by AI, SiLViA helps address this through real-time, two-way sign language communication. It translates announcements into sign language, and commuters can also sign to it and receive a response.

       3. What makes this project especially meaningful is that it was shaped not just by technology, but by empathy and close collaboration. The team engaged the Deaf community, interpreters, and frontline staff. They worked closely with the Singapore Association for the Deaf to ensure that the system reflects the linguistic and cultural nuances of Singapore Sign Language.

    2. When technology is built with that kind of care, it reminds us of something important. Being differently abled is a different way of experiencing the world. These are perspectives to design with. And with AI, we can move closer to a world where everyone can participate fully, in their own way.

16. Today, we have seen what is possible when AI meets purpose.

    1. Companies of all sizes, finding new ways to work smarter and reach further.

    2. Design practitioners asking harder questions, and arriving at solutions that better our world, that no single discipline could have found alone.

17. Even though the projects showcased today tackle very different challenges, I believe they tell the same story. They are about ensuring that technology serves people. The work of our finalists is proof that this is possible.

18. To everyone in this room today, whether you lead a startup, a large enterprise, or the next generation of designers and engineers, carry this spirit forward. Use AI with ambition. Use it with care. But above all, use it for people.

19. To our finalists, congratulations once again. Your work inspires us and points the way forward. Thank you.