Speech by Minister of State, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Digital Development and Information, Ms Jasmin Lau at CTRL+HERITAGE Youth Symposium and Hackathon 2026

Ms Lynn Wong, Founder of Bridging Generations,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. A very good morning to all of you.

2. Let me start with a question, and I'd like you to sit with it for a moment. Think of something from your childhood that you would never want to forget. It might be a smell, a sound, a place, a person.

1. For myself, that would be the fried prawns that my grandma used to make each time we visited her. We used to think that it was a very simple dish. Now, every time we tried to make it, we realized we could not recreate the batter. For some reason, it does not turn out how she used to make it. When we sit around for reunion dinners now, we think of her – as she has passed on – the fried prawns that she made, and all of us can vividly remember the smell as she walked out of the kitchen.
2. For many of us here, we would understand that as a concept. We may not call it heritage, but it actually is.
3. Heritage does not have to come in a museum or a textbook. It can come from that small irreplaceable thing that reminds you of your links to your ancestors; it can come from the smells, sights or sounds that you are familiar with as a child. I believe if I leave you for 30 minutes, everyone will have their own version of the "fried prawns" that you would like to share with one another.

3. We often think of heritage as physical structures, historical buildings, or crafts that the earlier generations built over the years. Yes, these are very important aspects of our heritage and tangible anchors to the past, telling us how our pioneers and the older generations lived, what they valued, and what they sacrificed to build the Singapore that we live in today.

4. But heritage is also something far more human, and this matters now more than ever in this world of AI. I have spoken in Parliament several times that we must figure out what makes us "human". I strongly believe that more and more of us will search for, yearn for, and want to connect with our past as we face a future that seems new, sparkling, but not as real as the lives that we have lived in.

1. No database or algorithm can replicate the feeling of walking through a neighbourhood that our family once did. Similarly, no model can give you the warmth nor the weight of hearing your grandparents' dialect when you sit down with them. Heritage is not data. It is lived experiences, emotions and meaning – shared between people, across generations, through trust and love.
2. In today's landscape where so much can be automated, I hope that our stories, our cultures, and our memories are among the most human things we have left and we will cherish them for as long as we can.

5. As our society evolves rapidly, heritage will play an important role in keeping us connected. It will strengthen our sense of belonging, deepen understanding across generations, and remind us that our national identity is forged not only by key events or milestones, but also by the everyday lives and quiet contributions of ordinary people.

6. Heritage cannot sustain itself without all of you here in this room. Each generation needs to take it up, make it their own, and pass it forward.

7. This is why I am very happy to be here today and I look forward to initiatives like CTRL+HERITAGE to help us achieve this goal.

1. I met Lynn six months ago during a tour around Chinatown. I was very surprised to see someone so young being involved so passionately in the business of heritage. As I look around here today, there are so many more of you that are of a young age, and I hope that all of you will find the passion to take more of your ideas forward through this experience.
2. CTRL+HERITAGE is a space that empowers our youth to tell your own stories and the stories of others around you, and champion your cultural identities through direct interactions with artists, heritage practitioners, community organisations and businesses in cultural spaces.

8. I encourage all of you to approach this programme with curiosity and openness, and to ask difficult questions about your past, history and culture.

1. Use the tools of placemaking, storytelling, and community-building not just as methods, but as ways of listening to the stories around you.
2. Explore how heritage can help us better understand the contemporary issues that many Singaporeans are grappling with, like mental well-being and rootedness. These are not new struggles that we have had, but the same struggles that generations before us also had, but we had very different ways to navigate these issues in our lives.
3. In the process, I believe all of you will develop something deeply valuable – the ability to collaborate across differences and different generations, and engage with the world in a very different way with greater empathy and purpose.

9. I want to commend the organisers, mentors, and community partners who have come together to make this initiative possible. What you have built here is not just a programme, but an investment and act of faith in our youth. That kind of long-term investment, genuine collaboration, and an openness to new ideas is what makes the difference between heritage that is archived and stored in libraries, and heritage that will be alive for years.

10. To all the participants here today: I hope this experience leaves you a little more curious, a little more connected, and a little more certain of your place in Singapore. You will become a part of Singapore's cultural landscape and a part of our history.

11. I look forward to many of your ideas through the CTRL+HERITAGE programme. I cannot wait to see what all of you will create!

12. Thank you.