Chief Innovation Officer Ng Pan Yong (front row, fourth from right) and AI Singapore’s Laurence Liew (front row, fifth from left) during last month’s ‘Undaunted’ fireside chat. (Photo: TIGER)
HTX’s innovation lab TIGER – a portmanteau of “Trailblazing Innovation ToGethER” – has organised several events with industry veterans to expose Xponents to the nitty-gritties of the real-life process of innovation and to demystify the work of innovators. One of these was last October’s inaugural Learning & Innovation Festival, which TIGER helped to organise.
Enthralled Xponents learning about design thinking (Photo: HTX)
Ng Pan Yong explored how leaders can encourage innovation. (Photo: HTX)
Codeshark’s Thomas Gram (middle) joined a panel discussion with Ng Pan Yong (left) and Gojek’s former Chief Technology Officer Sheran Gunasekera (right). (Photo: HTX)
Industry veterans have also shared their experiences with failure at TIGER’s ‘Undaunted’ fireside chat series. Their stories illustrate being brave in setting out into uncharted territories and having the conviction to act.
The ‘Undaunted’ fireside chat series kicked off with Marvyn Lim Seng (second from left), a near-space entrepreneur who has attempted to send the first Singaporean into outer space. His efforts culminated in his reaching 8 km above the Australian outback in 2019, before equipment failure aborted the mission. (Photo: TIGER)
Laurence Liew, AI Singapore’s Director for AI Innovation, discussed how his experiences with failure taught him to focus on finding and solving the real pain-points of users – an important lesson which he brought to AI Singapore. (Photo: TIGER)
What did the audience learn from the latest ‘Undaunted’ fireside chat?
Ming Xi, an alumnus from National University of Singapore’s Institute of Systems Science (NUS-ISS), shared that he “got to learn more about being resourceful.” He also felt that Laurence’s perseverance in the face of daunting challenges was “a good example for everyone.”
Victor Huang, the Director of HTX’s Digital Services Programme Management Centre, shared: “When you want to do something new, like create a new AI ecosystem, you can’t follow the old ways of doing things. You have to go all in and just get it done, Laurence’s sharing showed how he overcame many obstacles to achieve what AI Singapore have achieved today.”
“I get to know the industry leaders, their thoughts, where they are moving in this area,” noted Shee Gim Leng, Deputy Director of HTX’s Training and Learning Systems Office, adding that the ‘Undaunted’ series “helps me to connect the dots, the possibilities, the opportunities out there, and how I can bring out better products and capabilities to our Home Team.”
Tiger-themed snacks and souvenirs for the audience! (Photo: TIGER)
Laurence’s talk was jointly organised by TIGER and NUS-ISS. The ‘Undaunted’ fireside chats are supported by HTX TechXchange, which has recorded Laurence’s session as a podcast. The podcast recording will be released at a later date.
Do keep an eye out for TIGER’s next ‘Undaunted’ fireside chat!
