The Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) launched
its new SUTD Academy on January 10, which will support the earlier announced
SkillsFuture Series by offering 20 new Continuing Education and Training (CET)
courses in cybersecurity, data analytics, engineering, urban solutions and
tech-enabled services. These include 9 courses on cybersecurity, 5 each on data
analytics and tech-enabled services and 1 on urban solutions.
(SkillsFuture is
a statutory body under the Ministry of Education which aims to facilitate
continuous education and training, upgrading skills to keep up with the fast
pace of technological advancements and increasing competition. In October, a
new SkillsFuture Series of training programmes in eight priority and emerging
skills areas was announced to help equip working adults with the skills
required across different sectors.)
The SUTD Academy will contribute to SUTD’s
multi-year expansion plans through collaborations with strategic partners
in industry, government, and academia, in key economic growth sectors such as
Healthcare, Cities, Artificial Intelligence/Data Science, and Aviation.
Minister for Education (Higher Education and Skills) Mr. Ong
Ye Kung, who officiated the Academy launch, announced that his Ministry will be
setting aside up to S$75 million to bolster SUTD’s growth plans.
Including the 20 courses launched today, the Academy aims to
develop up to 60 courses in the next five years. These courses will provide
more engineering and design-centric professional education options to
jobseekers, mid-career professionals, executives and senior management.
The press release explains that SUTD Academy adopts the same
education philosophy as SUTD – offering training courses and programmes that
are multi-disciplinary, and aiming to promote design thinking as well as an
entrepreneurial spirit and active learning, among others.
Some programmes introduce SUTD’s signature Big-Design
concepts to participants and require them to work as a team to identify and
develop a real solution/prototype that solves a technical problem they will
face in the course of their work.
To maintain the quality of class delivery, class sizes are
capped at 20 to 25 students per instructor. Since the courses are typically
technical in nature, some basic scientific/technical knowledge will be expected
of participants.
The courses will be taught by SUTD faculty, staff and
adjunct faculty/fellows. Besides leveraging SUTD’s highly qualified faculty and
staff to deliver its training courses, the Academy also augments its pool of
instructors by identifying established industry leaders in relevant fields of
expertise and engaging them as SUTD Academy Adjunct Fellows, where they play an
advisory role to the Academy, as well as co-develop and deliver training to
meet urgent industry needs.
An example is SUTD’s partnership with Deloitte Singapore, which involves
co-developing courses in data analytics. The first co-designed effort was
“Foundation of Data Science”, a four-day course that has been approved by
SkillsFuture Singapore. Deloitte staff participated in the inaugural run of the
course on 9 January 2018.
Deloitte Singapore is among the 13 strategic partners with which
Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) were signed at the event by SUTD’s Acting
President and Provost, Professor Chong Tow Chong. Partnership with these various
organisations will enable the Academy to co-develop customised programmes with
industry partners.
Company participants, as well as other working adults can
enrol in the programmes, which aim to keep them up-to-date with the latest
technological developments, and help them stay relevant in the evolving job
market. For instance, transferable bite-sized modular courses with practical
use in work, have been developed through the partnership with Temasek
Polytechnic.
The 13 strategic partners include 4 organisations from the
private sector, 4 from the public sector, 2 from education, as well as 3 professional
bodies/ organisations:
Private sector
- CPG Corporation: CPG
Corporation (CPG Corp) is the corporatised entity of the former Singapore
Public Works Department (PWD). It is one of the leading development
professionals in the Asia-Pacific region, providing a full spectrum of
infrastructure & building development and management services. - Deloitte
Singapore: Deloitte Singapore is the local practice of Deloitte, the
world's largest professional services network. Deloitte provides audit,
consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services. - Keppel Offshore and Marine:
Keppel Offshore & Marine is the global leader in offshore rig design,
construction and repair, ship repair and conversion, and specialised shipbuilding. - Xilinx Inc.: It is an
American technology company, primarily a supplier of programmable logic
devices. It is known for inventing the field-programmable gate array (FPGA)
and as the first semiconductor company with a fabless manufacturing model. It
is also a leading provider of SoCs (system-on-chip),
MPSoCs (multiprocessor system-on-chip),
and 3D
ICs (three dimensional integrated circuits). Xilinx powers industry
advancements in Cloud Computing, SDN/NFV (software defined networking/ Network
functions virtualisation), Video/Vision, Industrial Internet-of-Things and 5G
Wireless.
Public Sector
- BCA Academy: BCA Academy is the
education and research arm of the Building and Construction Authority (BCA),
Singapore. - Changi
General Hospital: It is a public hospital with over 1,000 beds caring for a
community of 1.4 million people in eastern Singapore, offering a comprehensive
range of medical specialties and services. It’s a key partner and resource for
the Eastern Health Alliance, the regional health system for eastern Singapore. - Civil
Service College: This is a statutory board under the Public Service
Division. It is the public sector’s principal institution for learning,
research and staff development. - Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech): GovTech drives digital
transformation within Singapore’s public sector. The agency lends engineering
support to smart nation projects and for improvement of government digital
services.
Education Sector
- Research
Communication International (RCI): RCI is a global corporate research
consultancy in human resource, leadership and organisational development,
specialising in the building of quality corporate cultures through
research-based technologies for training, profiling and leadership
benchmarking. - Temasek Polytechnic (TP): TP is one of the leading institutions
of higher learning in Singapore. Currently it offers 46 full-time diploma
courses in the areas of applied science, business, design, engineering,
humanities & social sciences and informatics & IT. It also offers
over 30 part-time courses, up to the advanced diploma level.
Professional bodies/ organisations
- Institution of
Engineers Singapore (IES): IES is
the national society of engineers in Singapore and it is often called upon by
the Government to provide feedback on professional engineering matters. - Singapore
Manufacturing Federation (SMF):
SMF is a leading trade federation serving the manufacturing community by
driving digitalisation, innovation-led productivity, business transformation
and internationalisation towards enhancing the competitiveness of its member
companies. - Singapore Institute
of Aerospace Engineers (SIAE): SIAE is a
non-profit organization dedicated to promoting aviation safety and aerospace
technology.
Professor Chong said, “The SUTD Academy’s launch is timely as Singapore is
encouraging continuous learning. It is important for professionals, managers
and executives, to continually upskill themselves to keep pace with the rapidly
changing requirements of the workplace. We look forward to working closely with
strategic partners in both the private and public sectors, to gain industry
perspectives and co-develop courses that will impart appropriate skills to help
workers stay relevant in today’s knowledge-intensive and technology-driven
economy, and help them better the world by design.”
