Keynote Address by Minister Chee Hong Tat at the Mendaki Symposium 2026

Mr Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Minister of State for Defence and Sustainability and the Environment, and Chairman of Yayasan MENDAKI

Dr Syed Harun, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Education and National Development

Mr Feroz Akber, CEO of Yayasan MENDAKI

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

Good morning, and selamat pagi. First, I would like to congratulate MENDAKI on the 10th edition of this symposium. Over the years, the symposium has served as an important space for academics, policymakers and practitioners to come together for constructive dialogue on various important issues affecting the educational and socio-economic development of the Malay/Muslim community in Singapore.

This important work continues through this year's symposium, where our theme, "Navigating Pathways: Family, Systems and Technology", is very timely. The world is changing rapidly, and the challenges faced by our society are increasingly complex. We will need to look beyond tried-and-tested methods, including how we should respond to new technologies, to help our people to adapt to this new operating environment.

During the May Day Rally earlier this year, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong described AI as the defining technology of our time - one that will transform jobs, reshape how firms operate, and disrupt and reorganise entire industries.

It is natural for people to be concerned about what this means for our jobs and livelihoods, especially when we read from media reports about how some companies are retrenching workers and attributing their decisions to AI.

Some of us may remember the rise of computers and the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s. At that time, these were considered new technologies that many of us initially found unfamiliar or perhaps even a little daunting to use. Some were also worried about how these technologies might affect our jobs.

But rather than resisting change, as SMS Zaqy mentioned earlier, we in Singapore took deliberate steps to prepare ourselves as a nation. We invested in our network infrastructure, we refreshed our school curricula to keep up with the changing technologies, and we equipped our workforce with new skills to use the new tools effectively.

Today, computers and the internet have become an indispensable part of our lives. And they did not take away all our jobs, but instead they made existing jobs more productive and they also created new jobs in different sectors of the economy.

In a similar way, I would like to propose that this is how we should respond to AI, with the right mindset and the right approach.

To prepare ourselves, I would like to suggest that we could focus on three things. One, seizing the new opportunities that AI will bring. Two, empowering every Singaporean to benefit from using AI as a tool. Three, nurturing our uniquely human qualities which AI cannot replace.

Please allow me to elaborate on each of these.

SEIZING NEW OPPORTUNITIES

First, seizing the new opportunities presented by AI - particularly its economic advantages and its ability to open up new opportunities and improve lives.

AI presents tremendous potential, especially for labour-scarce Singapore, where we have created an economy with more jobs than we have people to fill all the roles. AI can allow us to grow our economy without a corresponding increase in our workforce. By taking over routine and repetitive tasks, AI can also enable our workers to focus on higher-value work that requires human judgement, creativity and empathy.

However, whenever the topic of AI comes up today, many still feel anxious, and understandably so, because they worry that AI will displace them, and whether they will become obsolete.

These concerns are understandable. This is why a key tenet of our AI strategy is not just to pursue technology, but to also ensure that the technology, AI, can create new jobs, and to augment existing ones. In other words, an AI transition with no jobless growth. To be clear, this does not mean no job losses or disruption, because we have to be honest with our people that some jobs will be affected by AI. But what it means is that we can have growth if we use it well, there can be a net gain with more new jobs being created than jobs removed, and also there can be improved versions of existing jobs.

So we already see this taking place in some sectors, like financial services. Let me give you an example. In the past, a customer service officer might spend a big part of his or her time handling routine enquiries, such as checking account balances or processing transactions. With AI, many of these tasks can be automated. The officer would now have more time to focus on the more complex cases, such as helping a customer restructure their finances, or supporting a customer who has fallen victim to a scam, just to name a few examples.

The result, if you do it well and you do it correctly, is a win-win outcome for both the employers, the company, and also the workers. Workers can do more meaningful jobs with greater room to grow, and have stronger and better career prospects, while businesses benefit from lower costs and they can provide their customers with better and more customised support.

This is how in a tight labour market like what we have in Singapore, firms can improve their competitive edge and grow their business.

We want such examples not to be exceptions, but to become more widespread so that they become the norm. And this is why we have set up the National AI Council chaired by PM Wong, to advance our national strategy in building deep AI capabilities, harnessing AI across our economy, and turning Singapore into a hub for AI innovation. Our goal is to ensure that AI benefits every worker, with better jobs and better opportunities.

To achieve this, we are helping companies and workers to make the transition together in a way that can be mutually beneficial. We do so through schemes like the Enterprise Workforce Transformation Package, which supports companies to adopt AI effectively, design better jobs and train our workers for the new roles.

Despite these efforts, we recognise that some workers will be displaced due to AI, and we will therefore have to work very hard to support them and help them. We introduced measures to help them to transit to new roles. Because there is no benefit to Singapore as a whole, to our employers, to our workers, if we take the other approach, which is to set up barriers and to block AI from coming, or worse, to behave like an ostrich by putting our head in the sand and pretend that AI does not exist when it is out there in a very pervasive manner. And other cities, other countries, will use AI, even if we choose not to do so. And they would then become more competitive, and investments and jobs will flow there and away from us. So this approach of blocking, of denying, is not going to help our companies. It is better to, as SMS Zaqy said, face the winds of change together, and see how we can help our companies and our workers to make this transition. So what are some of these measures?

We have the Skills and Workforce Development Agency's Career Conversion Programmes that were developed in partnership with industry associations and employers to help our workers reskill and to move into new roles with stronger long-term prospects. And for those who have been retrenched, the SkillsFuture Jobseeker Support scheme provides eligible lower- and middle-income jobseekers with temporary financial support of up to $6,000 over six months. And the purpose of this is to give them the time and the space to be able to find new jobs with the right fit. So they do not have to rush into taking the first job that comes. They have time, during this period, to go for training, and to look for new jobs with the right fit.

EMPOWERING EVERY SINGAPOREAN

This brings me to my second point, which is empowering every Singaporean. Without deliberate intervention, the benefits of AI will not naturally distribute themselves evenly. We cannot leave them to market forces and hope for the best; very often we will not get a good outcome. Opportunities will flow to those who already have the skills and resources to use AI - at the risk of leaving others further behind. And this is why we are committed to help every Singaporean to have opportunities to benefit from AI and that they are provided with the support to navigate this transition.

But this will have to start young in our schools, where we have introduced AI tools at age-appropriate junctures for our students. We are updating our curricula so students learn about AI, they also learn with AI, and they learn to use AI effectively and responsibly. In May, MOE announced that all students from Institutes of Higher Learning - including adult students in full-qualification programmes - will have opportunities to develop AI skills and competencies. At the NUS College of Design and Engineering for instance, students are learning to use AI tools the same way the industry does - from sharpening problem statements to rapid prototyping.

Beyond the formal education system, we will also ensure every Singaporean has access to AI tools and opportunities to pick up AI-related skills. As we know, learning doesn't stop in schools. We must encourage lifelong learning, so this has to be a lifelong endeavour. Singaporeans who enrol in selected SkillsFuture AI courses will receive six months of free access to premium AI tools later this year. This gives them the chance to practise and apply what they have learnt to real-life use cases.

But the Government cannot do this alone. We need community groups like MENDAKI to further support Singaporeans in our AI journey.

Over the years, MENDAKI has been stepping up its education and upskilling efforts to ensure no one in the Malay/Muslim community is left behind. Through its Ready@Work programme, MENDAKI supports jobseekers at every stage, including youths and early jobseekers, ladies who are looking to re-enter the workforce, and also mid-career professionals. The programme provides AI and digital literacy training, employability and skills development, career guidance, and networking opportunities.

In addition, MENDAKI has broadened its partnerships. Through a recent Memorandum of Understanding, MENDAKI collaborated with the Singapore University of Technology and Design on initiatives in AI, design and applied learning to help prepare the Malay/Muslim community for a digitally enabled future.

I am happy to know that MENDAKI plans to build on these efforts by making AI learning more hands-on and accessible across life stages. This includes introducing youths to Design·AI and OpenClaw to develop practical solutions to real-world community problems. MENDAKI will also be extending M³+ Langkah Digital to more locations and age groups, so that more in the community can benefit.

NURTURING HUMAN VALUES

I have covered two of the points and now I will move on to the third and final point, which is nurturing human values. In a rapidly changing world, having knowledge and technical skills alone are not enough.

As AI becomes more powerful and pervasive, what will set us apart as homo sapiens are our uniquely human traits - empathy, resilience, curiosity, and the ability to build trust and meaningful relationships with others. These are qualities that are developed through lived experiences and human judgment, and learning from other human beings, learning from our teachers, learning from our parents, our grandparents, learning from our community leaders. These are values and qualities which AI cannot fully replicate.

Just now we saw our students performing a very good skit to kick off the session. The young lady who started it said her name is Aisyah. Even though the first two letters of her name are 'AI', Aisyah is very much a human being with human qualities, with dreams, with anxieties, and a relationship with her family. These are things which AI cannot replicate.

In healthcare, we see that AI can potentially help healthcare workers with routine tasks like monitoring patients' vital signs, charting records and tracking medications, but we know these are just part of what healthcare means to the patients. The overall care needs for patients are more than these. For example, the ability to listen, to pick up on a patient's body language, to notice that a patient is feeling uncomfortable or in pain, offer comfort and reassurance to a patient or a family member who is anxious, these human-to-human connections make all the difference to a patient's recovery and these cannot be substituted with AI. It can be augmented and assisted with AI, but we still need that human touch. High tech still needs high touch.

That is also why in the age of artificial intelligence, we have to be even more intentional about nurturing genuine human qualities. While AI can be a powerful tool for teaching and learning, it cannot replace nurturing parents and grandparents, educators who help build character, instil values, and inspire our next generation.

On this note, I would like to thank MENDAKI staff and volunteers for the dedication that you bring to this very important work that you do, for walking alongside our young people and their families as they pursue their goals and aspirations. And for many of our staff and volunteers, you inspire our young people to go further, to reach higher, and when they succeed, to give back and help others.

The Malay/Muslim community has always drawn strength from its deep bonds of family and community. The "gotong royong", or kampung spirit, is what we must continue to carry forward as we navigate the challenges and changes ahead.

CLOSING

Ladies and gentlemen, AI is not going to be the first or the last technological change to change the way we live and work

It is natural for us to feel anxious and to feel uncertain about what lies ahead, but what will help to tide us through this change is our willingness and our ability to adapt as individuals, as a community, and as a nation. If we take the right steps and move forward together in the right direction, I am confident that Singapore and Singaporeans can continue to succeed and do well in an AI-transformed world.

I hope today's event will spark new conversations and ideas that will enable us to navigate the road ahead. I like to wish everyone a very fruitful symposium.

Thank you very much.