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| Source: Singapore Computer Society (SCS). The President of SCS, Howie Lau, welcomes guests to the SCS 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner and IT Leader Awards 2017. |
The Singapore Computer Society (SCS) - and Singapore - have come a long way in 50 years. The Central Provident Fund (CPF) had one of the most powerful computers, a mainframe, in September 1963 which boasted all of 4KB* of memory, shared Howie Lau, President of the SCS, at the SCS Gala Dinner and IT Leader Awards late last week. The event kicked off 50th anniversary celebrations for the SCS.
Today, everyone has at least one handheld smartphone with an average 32 GB of memory, Lau said, citing 148% phone penetration and 105% residential broadband penetration in the country. Given an ever-changing ICM landscape, Lau, who has been SCS President since 2015, said SCS expects to:
Lead the way, and be the catalyst for industry growth
Help with the professional and personal development of members
Be the voice of the industry
"All of us at SCS are committed and focused on these three missions," he said.
In 2016, SCS grew membership by 6% to over 32,000. Two new student chapters were set up, for the TMC Academy and the SP Jain School of Global Management, to bring student chapters, all institutes of higher learning, to 21.
The SCS also launched augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) and enterprise architecture special interest groups (SIGs), elevated the Information Security SIG to a chapter, and launched the bi-monthly Cloud 101 Series, a collaboration between the Cloud Computing Chapter and Info-Communications Media Development Authority (IMDA).
The Technopreneurship SIG initiated the Weekly Techour Series and the Supply Chain Management SIG started the bi-monthly ASCENT Series, Lau added. "We counted an average of 2.8 events per week last year, up from 1.8 events in 2015," he said.
SCS' five certification programmes, offered with partners like the NUS Institute of Systems Science (ISS), recorded a 26% jump in growth, Lau said. "We’ve also partnered with the Myanmar Computer Professional Association to extended our Certificate in IT Project Management (CITPM) to Myanmar in 2016, the first foray to bring our intellectual property (IP)/training overseas," Lau shared.
Other highlights of the year included:
A working committee with IMDA to develop the Cloud Computing Body of Knowledge which will eventually allow a Cloud Computing Certification to be designed
The SCS TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) committee that was set up earlier last year to work closely with the national TeSA teams.
The October 2016 launch of the SCS Career Compass with Workforce Singapore, IMDA, NTUC and e2i.
"The Career Compass aims to provide career guidance to ICM professionals. As part of Career compass, we reached out to SCS Fellows and Senior Members to take on the role of ICM career mentors. An amazing 110 members came forward to volunteer their service as ICM Career Mentors, including some very senior leaders like Mr Chan Yew Kong, Mr Bill Liu, Mr Lai Kim Fatt, Mr Lim Swee Cheang, Mr Alphonsus Pang just to name a few. This gotong royong spirit in our ICM industry is very heartwarming," Lau disclosed.
Lau further shared that SCS has been working with government partners on the recently-announced National Digital Proficiency Programme that is to be launched later this year. "The objective of this programme is to raise the water level for digital proficiency for all professionals, managers, engineers and technicians (PMETs) across various sectors – social presence, personal cybersecurity, data usage and insights proficiency. As companies and industries leverage on technology more than ever, it’s critical for each of us, regardless of which sector we’re in, that we’re sufficiently competent digitally," he said.
In fulfilment of the goal to be the voice of industry, the SCS TeSA subcommittee conducted an Employability Survey in the early part of 2016 to understand the challenges and issues concerning IT professionals and displaced workers. The latest SCS Infocomm Media Industry Survey in 2016 found that the ICM course is the top study choice in local universities, Lau added.
SCS' youth engagement in 2016 included Youth Engagement Series (YES!) to provide a channel for the younger generation to interact and be inspired by tech leaders and the 13th Splash Awards, a tech innovation event for students organised by students, that had a cyber wellness theme last year.
The theme for the 50th anniversary is Celebrating the past, envisioning the future. "Our celebratory finale event which we’re co-organising with Singapore Science Centre is called the Game of Drones. Science Centre is celebrating her 40th birthday and it’s very exciting for us to come together to bring this new idea and event to Singapore. It is taking place in October and promises to be lots of fun," Lau said.
“A strong ICM industry in Singapore would certainly be key for Singapore’s continued growth and prosperity. How well we do as a industry in Singapore depends on two things: how well we work together as an ecosystem to support innovation, talent development and job creation. On the individual level, staying curious, staying connected and staying competent. SCS is committed to continue playing our part to contribute to the ecosystem as we write the next chapters together," Lau concluded.
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| Source: Singapore Computer Society. From left: Wee Tew Lim (1984-1990)– magnetic tape; Pearleen Chan (1991-1993) – DOS; Dr Juzar Motiwalla (1994-1996) – 3.5" disk; Professor Alex Siow (1997-2000)– pager; Martin Tsang (2001-2003 – dotcom; KC Lee (2004-2006) – Wi-fi; Wilson Tan (2007-2008) – duck plush toy; Alphonsus Pang (2009-2011) – email; Chak Kong Soon (2012-2014) – cloud; and Howie Lau (2015 to present) – 50th anniversary icon. |
As a finale, the SCS recognised its former presidents and some of the major technology milestones encountered over 50 years. SCS founding presidents include:
Michael Abrams, SCS President (1967)
Terence Kanagarajah, SCS President (1968-1969)
Goh Leng Seck, SCS President (1970)
Jonathan Ou, SCS President (1971)
Robert Iau, SCS President (1972-1983)
Former presidents include:
- Wee Tew Lim (1984-1990), who carried iconic magnetic tape, the main method of storage in the past
- Mrs Pearleen Chan (1991-1993), with the disk operating system (DOS), the key operating system used before Windows
- Dr Juzar Motiwalla (1994-1996), showing off a 3.5" disk, with a capacity of 1.44MB*
- Professor Alex Siow (1997-2000), carrying a pager
- Martin Tsang (2001-2003), sharing the dotcom era, when the first web-based brands were introduced
- Professor Lee Kwok Cheong (2004-2006) offered Wi-Fi, which was born out of the IEEE standard for local area networks, 802.11, in 1999
- Wilson Tan (2007-2008), highlighting the SCS Great Duck Race 2007
- Alphonsus Pang (2009-2011) carrying an icon representing emai
- Chak Kong Soon (2012-2014), representing the cloud
Interested?
Read more about the SCS Employability Survey (PDF)
Browse the TechTrade Asia blog posts on:
SCS' 21st IT Leader Awards
SCS IT Leaders explain why we're in the most exciting time for technology ever
SCS' 50th anniversary plans for 2017
*A GB comprises roughly 1 million KB and 1,000 MB.
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