Lessons Learned from Singapore

A four day trip in Singapore from February 22 to 25, 2016 was quite educated and fun. I had a chance to visit 3 different companies including: (1) Temasek Polytechnic School, (2) IEEE Asia-Pacific Limited, Singapore and (3) Metso Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. The 1st visiting place brought me new thoughts and ideas of how to handle and manage student senior projects. Based on the serious game project at Temasek, the development cycle is divided into three main stages: i-proofing concept idea stage, ii-design and development stage, and iii-testing and implementation stage.  One of the knowledge gained was the school and departmental mechanisms to maintain the project progress by providing 3 different studios (rooms) in correspond to the project stages. As such, the only completed task of each stage which was approved by a supervisor will step up to the next stage and move into the next studio and so on until the project has finished. This process not only motivates each project team members to keep on developing their works but handling project by the supervisor was also conducted in an efficient and effective manner.

The 2nd visiting place was IEEE Asia-Pacific Limited which provides the IEEE certified learning modules for both trainers and trainees. Several IT and SE courses/modules at different skill levels are offered such as the 12 core modules of SWEBOK. However, the upcoming trends in technology for new graduates are big data and analytic and cyber security. Several research studies have guaranteed that a shortage of knowledge workers in these fields will be high for the next several years. 

The last company visit stopped at Metso Asia Pacific Pte Ltd on the last day before our group left Singapore to Chiang Mai. Over 13 years' experience and skills from IT staff to departmental manager, our keynote person gave me a chance to gain knowledge from her practice. Firstly, I learned that a company must be aware of IT adaptation due to a rapid change in technology and environment. For example, the IT department involved radical changes to reflect on its experience at three different time periods. During the first period, IT infrastructure and applications were mostly dependent on in-house development which cost a lot of money. As IT expenses drop substantially in the past decade, the company tends to transfer its hardware and software to outsourcing companies in the 2nd period. This not only reduce expenses but technology was kept maintaining at state of the art. The last period of company movement was due to the advanced technology in big data and cloud-based computing. It is no doubt that a company moves almost all infrastructure and databases into the cloud environment. For example, the SAP enterprise application will be moved to SAP HANA cloud soon. Secondly, concerning job careers in IT, what are criteria of international company expects from the applicants especially the Thai graduates? We come up with 2 key factors of considerations: academic knowledge and English skills. For IT position, applicants must proof themselves of academic or technical knowledge according to the recruited position which can be acquired from the educational studies. In case of the English skills, we learned that the only mechanism of improvement is to practically use it. During the master degree study at ABAC, our keynote speaker worked at Metso, Thailand as a part-time manager’s secretary. By this way, she improved her writing skill from regularly composting formal letter and memo and speaking skill from communicating with her boss. That's why she finally was capable of transferring her job to Singapore.