The Digital Academy by Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech Singapore) was launched officially on 21 June 2021 at a virtual Launch Symposium, attended by almost 2,000 guests across the whole of government, as well as key industry partners. The Academy is designed to raise the digital competencies of all public service leaders and officers, particularly those in the Infocomms Technology (ICT) profession.
Themed 'Raising the Digital Quotient in Public Service', the virtual launch event, was officiated by Guest-of-Honour Dr Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information (pictured in middle and from left to right), Mr. Kok Ping Soon, Chief Executive of GovTech, Professor Tan Eng Chye, President of National University of Singapore (NUS), Mr. Ng Chee Khern, Permanent Secretary (Smart Nation and Digital Government), and Mr. Khoong Chan Meng, CEO of NUS-ISS.
NUS-ISS appointed the official Operations Partner for The Digital Academy
As the Operations Partner of The Digital Academy, NUS-ISS is honoured to partner GovTech in developing training roadmaps and managing the enrolment, logistics, publicity and training processes. With a 40-year track record of best practices in setting up and running an academy for developing digital talent, NUS-ISS has been working closely with The Digital Academy’s in-house team to design a curriculum that is contextualised for the public sector, with learning objectives that enable the application of skills to government digital transformation.
Shares Ms. Janet Ang, Chairman of NUS-ISS during her welcome address, "The Digital Academy could not have been launched at a more opportune time – to forge a strong and sustained operating model for the public service, content partners and training partners to collaborate, facilitated by GovTech and ISS".
"Moving forward, ISS will be championing open-platform partnerships in digitalisation to enable a highly interconnected ecosystem. The Digital Academy is a great start for this mission, and I am confident that the academy will grow from strength to strength," she adds.
The audience were then treated to two keynote sessions by Dr Patrick Teo, Head of Engineering for Payments, Next Billion Users and Site Leader for Google Singapore and Ms Ng Wee Wei, Senior Managing Director & Country Managing Director of Accenture Singapore. This culminated with a panel discussion with GOH, Dr Puthucheary and was moderated by Mr D N Prasad, Senior Director (Strategy, People & Organisation) at GovTech,
The Digital Academy Learning Festival
Following the official launch, the week-long Learning Festival showcased a line-up of 50 curated sessions by content partners from tech trailblazers such as Amazon Web Services, Coursera, Google, Microsoft, Qlik, Secure Code Warrior, SingTel TrustWave, Tableau, ThoughtWorks as well as NUS-ISS.
Curated into five main focus tracks, the festival was open to the whole of government comprising webinars, panel discussions, workshops – and even a Secure Coding Tournament!
Pictured Left to Right: Mr Chai Chin Loon, Senior Director, Cyber Security Group, GovTech with Mr Pieter Danhieux, CEO & Co Founder, Secure Code Warrior announcing the SecureCode Warrior Tournament Open.
Pictured Ms Stacey Huang, Co-Founder, Change Voyage sharing on Day 3 of the Learning Festival.
7,000 public service officers across various agencies were engaged over the immersive week-long festival with tracks in Cybersecurity, Apps & ICT Infrastructure, Apps Management & Development, Technology & Product Management, Data Science & AI and New Technology.
Said Mr. Kok Ping Soon, Chief Executive of GovTech, “The rate of technological evolution today underscores the need to refresh tech skills as often as every 18 months. As a driving force of Singapore’s Smart Nation vision, the public sector needs to stay relevant and up-to-date, especially for those working in the ICT profession and leaders steering digital transformation for their agencies. The launch of
The Digital Academy is therefore an important milestone to accelerate the pace of public sector digitalisation."
To view The Digital Academy Official Launch Symposium video, click here.
To view The Digital Academy Launch Symposium and Learning Festival highlights video, click here.
Selected session recordings are hosted on The Digital Academy's Official YouTube Channel here.