1. Good morning. First, thank you BCG for soldiering on with us during the very difficult times of COVID, and for reskilling and upskilling 1,700 Singaporeans with the RISE 1.0 programme. I am also thankful to BCG for your efforts to work with us on these two new programmes – RISE 2.0, and RISE for Business, and let me set in context why this effort is significant to Singapore.
2. I have always said that Singapore will never be able to compete with others based on our resource base, population size or general physical environment. Singapore will always have to compete with the faster speed of evolution of skills and business models. But how then do we do this?
3. In the Government today, all of us are putting our minds together to see how we can organise ourselves to deliver innovation and transformation at scale and at speed. This is not easy. But we believe that if any country can get this done, Singapore must be one of them. So, what are the challenges for us to evolve at scale and at speed? I will highlight three of them.
5. While individuals may aspire to upskill and reskill as they progress along their careers, it is difficult for individuals to come together to do this. The aggregation and articulation of individual skills demand is one of the biggest challenges in all countries, including Singapore.
6. On the industry's part, the same problem happens in the SMEs. While the larger enterprises may be more well developed and organised to do this, the SMEs do not command the same resources. The question is: how can we help them to connect with one another so that they do not have to reinvent the wheel, and they can all evolve faster and at scale? That is our second challenge.
8. And the third challenge for us, as we try to evolve at scale and speed, is how do we learn from the best around the world, so that we do not repeat the same mistakes that others have made, and can build on others' experiences. For these three reasons, RISE 2.0 and RISE for Business are important for us.
9. As a SkillsFuture Queen Bee company, BCG is one of our models in organising enterprises to try to evolve at scale and at speed. And, going forward, we are going to try a few models in Singapore's system, because we believe that in different sectors, we will need different models of articulation and aggregation for the demand of new skills and new businesses.
10. Some of our models will include having Queen Bee companies like BCG to lead the effort, doing what they are good at not just for themselves, but also for other companies.
- The second model will be to leverage our Trade Associations and Chambers' capabilities to organise the different companies in largely similar industries to come together.
- The third model will be to leverage our Institutes of Higher Learning, or as I like to call them, the Institutes of Continuous Learning, to also act as an aggregator for the demand of new skills and new business models.
11. These various models across industries will share the same purpose of ensuring that we can aggregate the demand for new skills and new business ideas at scale. And that is why RISE 2.0 meets that need so aptly, as it helps individuals to reskill, upskill and come together to form communities where they can learn from one another.
12. And our goal in Singapore today is no longer just about strengthening our basic education system to produce 30,000 to 40,000 quality graduates per year. Our challenge today is to reskill up to a few hundred thousand adult learners who are already in the job market each year on top of producing those graduates. And my own belief is that the country that can do this well at speed and scale will be the more competitive one.
13. Now, if businesses do not transform, workers will not be motivated to go for reskilling. They know that they are not going to get a better job or more meaningful job even if they reskill. That is why business transformation and workforce transformation must go hand in hand. And that is why we are happy to have BCG partner us for RISE 2.0, because RISE 2.0 will complement RISE for Business.
14. And finally, with BCG's vast experience and network of talents around the world, we hope that our workforce and our businesses can benefit from the wonderful talents and ideas that BCG has access to. That is how we can accelerate the speed of evolution in Singapore.
15. If we do this well not just with BCG but with the different models – the Queen Bee companies, TACs and IHLs – then we will be firing from all cylinders to help our people and businesses to transform. Then our yardstick will not just be how much talent, or how many talented Singaporeans or non-Singaporeans we can have in Singapore. Our benchmark of success will be how many Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans we can have in a global Singapore talent network, which we can access to help us evolve our businesses faster than the rest. And with that, we will also help our people to keep upskilling to stay ahead of the challenges that may come our way.
16. So, on that note, a big thank you to BCG, and also to other Queen Bee companies that have joined us in this endeavour to work together to accelerate the pace of our transformation.
17. Thank you very much.