From left: HTX awardees Yap Kian Wee, Wang Jiale, Ong Ka Hing, Jasper Ho, Ron Tay and Wong Sum Thai at the Public Sector Transformation Awards 2026. (Photo: HTX)
Summary
- HTX won six awards at the Public Sector Transformation Awards 2026 held on 3 July.
- Winning efforts spanned robotics, AI and border security.
- The wins reflect HTX’s culture of bold experimentation, continuous development and impactful collaboration.
Continuing its winning streak, HTX bagged a total of six awards at the Public Sector Transformation (PST) Awards 2026.
Held on 3 July as part of the Public Service Festival: SPARK at Republic Polytechnic, this year’s awards recognised 136 winners from 812 nominations.
Shining as a beacon of inspiration was Project Fabre, which clinched the Dare to Do Award. This project saw HTX’s Robotics, Automation & Unmanned Systems (RAUS) Centre of Expertise (CoE) deploy cyborg cockroaches to assist in search and rescue operations in earthquake-hit Myanmar in March 2025.
RAUS engineers at a rescue site in Myanmar, where they deployed cyborg cockroaches to locate earthquake victims. (Photo: SCDF)
The endeavour marked the first time in the world such technology was used in a humanitarian operation. In the process, the HTX team overcame challenging conditions and faced multiple disruptions to power and water supply.
Though challenging, the deployment yielded valuable lessons on real-world environments, the complexities of search and rescue operations and inter-agency coordination, helping turn an experimental concept into a working humanitarian support tool.
Powered by an innovative spirit
Wang Jiale (first row, third from right) with his Q Team teammates who worked on Phoenix. (Photo: HTX/Wang Jiale)
HTX’s award-winning innovations extend into the fast-moving field of artificial intelligence (AI). Wang Jiale, Acting Head (LLM Development), AI R&D, Q Team CoE, won the Exemplary Innovation Award for his efforts in leading the research and development of Phoenix, the Home Team’s first purpose-built family of multimodal Large Language Models (LLMs).
Without the benefit of precedence, his team had to innovate on the entire model development pipeline, from data curation to model training, evaluation and safety alignment – while applying expertise gleaned from research partners Mistral AI and Nvidia.
“No one rides the AI wave alone, not even the smartest AI model,” he said. “Real innovation in public safety is a team sport, where engineers’ ideas and Home Team officers’ insights converge to turn prototypes into useful products.”
Upskilling for the win
Jasper Ho, an engineer from the Civil Defence Programme Management Centre, took home the Exemplary SkillsFuture @ Public Service Award. (Photo: HTX).
Another way in which HTX fosters innovation is by supporting Xponents’ learning journeys, which have helped spark solutions to reduce operational inefficiencies. Take for instance, Jasper Ho, an engineer (Product Engineering, Digitalisation) from the Civil Defence Programme Management Centre (CDPMC), who undertook multiple SkillsFuture courses on Microsoft enterprise AI/data platforms in his own time.
This inspired him to develop an automated account and application assignment system that onboarded 6,000 Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) officers to Home Team Go-Mobile, as well as NEXA, SCDF’s AI chatbot that was launched to all SCDF users in 2025. He also used AI to create multilingual training videos and text-to-speech tutorials that improved app adoption across the organisation.
In addition, he built the Food Indentation and Consumption App (FICA), an inhouse mobile and web application that streamlines catering and reduces food waste for SCDF. Together, these efforts have helped drive digital transformation within the Home Team.
From left: Xponents Ong Ka Hing, Wang Jiale, Jasper Ho, Yap Kian Wee, Wong Sum Thai and Ron Tay did HTX proud at the Public Sector Transformation Awards. (Photo: HTX).
In recognition of his contributions, Jasper was awarded the Exemplary SkillsFuture @ Public Service Award, which he said serves as a reminder that self-directed learning pays off.
“Lifelong learning means being willing to sit with uncertainty, pick up something unfamiliar and trust that the effort will eventually translate into something meaningful for the people we serve,” he shared.
“Receiving such awards is affirming, but more importantly, the environment here at HTX makes me feel safe to learn, fail and iterate.”
Here’s the full list of HTX projects and officers who did us proud:
Dare to Do Award
Project Fabre – Cyborg Deployment
Electric Pump Ladder
Exemplary Innovation Award
Wang Jiale
Exemplary SkillsFuture @ Public Service Award
Jasper Ho Jing Qi
One Public Service Award
Redefining Border Security & Clearance
Service Experience Breakthrough Award
iSMART
