DPM Heng Swee Keat at the IES 53rd Annual Dinner

Prof Yeoh Lean Weng, 
President of The Institution of Engineers, Singapore,

Mr Ng Chee Meng, 
Secretary-General of the NTUC and 
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office,

Your Excellencies, 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to join you this evening to celebrate the 53rd Anniversary of the Institution of Engineers, Singapore (IES).

Formed just a year after our independence, the IES has played an integral role in strengthening our community of engineers.

Our engineers laid the foundations for our nation-building.

I am therefore very honoured to be conferred with the inaugural IES Distinguished Honorary Patron award.

I am not an engineer by training. But I almost became an engineer!  Almost 40 years ago, when I applied for a Public Service Commission scholarship, I asked to study engineering, as I felt there was joy in building things. 

But the PSC told me – we have too many students pursing engineering, and not enough in the humanities.  Later, when PSC notified me that I was successful in getting a scholarship, it was to study economics. 

I spent months while doing my National Service thinking of my choices, before deciding to take what was then a path less trodden. That’s why I said I was almost an engineer – as a teenage aspiration! 

Over the years, I have worked with many engineers, many of whom are, by temperament and training, rigorous and creative problem solvers, focused on getting things done!

I am proud of what our engineers have achieved. And I cannot agree with Prof Yeoh more – engineers have heavy responsibilities, and you have shouldered them well to transform the lives of the people around us. 

In my capacity as Chairman of the Future Economy Council and as Chairman of our National Research Foundation, I will continue to do my best to advance the study and practice of engineering in Singapore.  The IES has been, and will be an important partner in this journey.

Let me also congratulate Chee Meng, who will be conferred the IES Honorary Fellow award, and to the other award winners.

Celebrating our Engineers

Engineers have been instrumental in Singapore’s survival and success. 

Starting from the most fundamental issue of national security, our engineers built our SAF and defence capabilities from scratch.

When the British withdrew from Singapore, our army consisted of only two infantry regiments, our navy consisted of two seaworthy wooden ships, and our air force had to borrow two Cessna aircraft from the Singapore Flying Club.

Today, with successive generations of engineers from DSTA, ST Engineering and the SAF, we have developed a strong next-generation defence force with modern technology and equipment such as the Hunter Armoured Fighting Vehicle – our first fully digitalised armoured fighting vehicle, which was commissioned earlier this year. The Hunter uses smart technologies for networked war-fighting, informed decision-making, and active monitoring of the platform’s health status.

And much of our new equipment is designed locally by our engineers, to best suit our needs and operate as an integrated system.

Engineers have also played a key role in securing a sustainable supply of water, a key strategic resource.

To increase our supply of potable water to meet the demands of a growing nation, we had to enlarge our reservoirs and catchment area, by damming up our rivers – including building the Marina Barrage, and develop new technology to reclaim used water.

Each of these measures is an engineering feat on its own and a significant chapter of our Water Story. This has now become a source of national pride – because we have turned our vulnerability into an economic strength. Today, Singapore is internationally recognised as a model city for integrated water management and water technologies.

Engineers have also played a key role in building and transforming our economy. Today, manufacturing makes up more than 20% of our economy. For a small island state, this is quite remarkable. Instead of accepting our land and resource constraints, our engineers worked around these limitations through their ingenuity and hard work. Over the years, we have built up a stable manufacturing base, especially in advanced areas such as semiconductors, petrochemicals, biomedical manufacturing, and maritime. Take the maritime industry for example   

Over the years, our engineers in the maritime industry have been resilient to changes in the operating environment. They have developed deep expertise in building a wide range of vessels and offshore platforms that can operate in harsh conditions.

Today, our marine engineering capabilities extend beyond Singapore, with our companies having yards in countries ranging from Azerbaijan to the USA.

In particular, I am heartened to know that Keppel Offshore & Marine, a company anchored in the tropics, is building ships and structures that can operate in the Arctic!

These examples demonstrate the spirit of engineering.

It goes beyond coming up with blueprints, instruction manuals, and complicated designs and systems.

It is about solving complex problems, and coming up with innovations to improve the lives of people.

It is about creating new value, growing our economy, and creating new opportunities for our people.

This is what our community of engineers has done and continues to do for Singapore and Singaporeans.

Building Our Future Singapore

This pursuit for excellence and innovation is crucial as we grow Singapore into a Global-Asia node for technology, innovation and enterprise.

The world is on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will see new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological world.

In Singapore, the Future Economy Committee and the Research Innovation and Enterprise Council have developed concrete strategies.

That will enable us to seize new and emerging opportunities arising from the rapid advancement of technology.

Across major domains – from advanced manufacturing, to urban solutions, cybersecurity and even healthcare.

In each of these domains, we will need more engineers to design and implement innovation solutions to increasingly complex challenges. 

Instead of buying solutions off-the-shelf, we need to develop the capabilities to engineer our own solutions, especially in key strategic areas.

Like our water story, we can turn these technological disruptions and challenges into our strength and competitive advantage.

We can also apply our expertise to global challenges, and export our successes around the world.

For example, our engineers have designed solutions for urban farming and low-carbon buildings, that can be applicable to many other cities in the region and around the world.

And we will do our best to build an enabling ecosystem where innovation can thrive.

It will not just be engineers working alone to develop solutions, but an inter-connected system of venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, engineers, researchers, designers, and policy-makers working together to support experimentation and scaling-up.

Singapore can be an incubator for ideas and innovation, that can be scaled-up to the region and the world.

One issue in particular has become increasingly vital and salient to both Singapore and the world – and that is climate change. The theme of tonight’s event – “Engineering a Sustainable Singapore” – is therefore most appropriate.

In the coming decades, we are likely to experience more acute challenges from climate change, including rising sea levels, global warming, threats to our biodiversity, greenery and disruption to our supply of essential resources such as water, food and energy.

It is an existential threat.

As a low-lying island city state, the rise in sea-level poses the most immediate threat to Singapore.

We will need to build up our coastal defences for critical segments such as Jurong Island and the area stretching from East Coast to the city.

The Dutch built dykes and polders. We should study the option and find solutions and adaptations that work for Singapore.

We need the ingenuity and effort of our engineering community, to work in partnership with government, academia and industry, to put forward solutions to this imminent challenge.

Supporting and Developing Our Pipeline of Engineers

To build our future Singapore and make sure that we are well positioned for the future, we will need to groom our engineers, and engineering leaders of tomorrow.

I want to thank and commend the IES for its efforts on this front.

For example, the IES has just launched a Global Engineers Leadership Programme.

This programme gives our engineering leaders a deeper appreciation and awareness of engineering trends that are emerging globally.

The IES-Incubator/ Accelerator (IES-INCA) programme is also a good initiative to support engineers in their entrepreneurship journey – by providing mentoring, leadership training, business planning guidance, and start-up funding for their ideas.

Today, the IES will also be presenting two engineering students with the IES-Yayasan MENDAKI Scholarship Award for their outstanding academic performance. My heartiest congratulations to these future engineers.

Beyond the traditional routes of advancements through formal education, the IES is also putting in place industry accreditation frameworks and certifications to allow practitioners, regardless of education background, to progress to the next level by attending modular programmes, and accumulating work experience.

I am happy to hear that the career progression framework for five sectors¹ will be ready for the first batch applicants early next year.

In the public sector, we are also placing a much larger emphasis on building up science & technology (S&T) and engineering capabilities.

We recently established the Public Sector Science & Technology Policy and Plans Office under the Prime Minister’s Office, to conduct S&T master planning and to strengthen our public sector S&T capabilities.

Working together in strong partnership

The IES has done very good work over the years.

The IES brings together engineers from across all disciplines.

Not only have you strengthened the engineering community, you have also partnered with industry, academia, and government agencies to develop career progression frameworks, capability building programmes, and industry technical standards.

For example, the IES is currently involved in developing a comprehensive set of standards for railway systems, together with the Land Transport Authority, SMRT, SBS Transit and Enterprise Singapore.

This will bring about tangible and lasting improvements to our rail transportation system in Singapore.

I am glad that you started the IES Outstanding Partner Award this year, to recognise the contributions of key partners that the IES has worked with.

In June this year, I launched the Singapore Together movement, to invite Singaporeans to work with each other as well as the Government to create and deliver new initiatives to build our future Singapore.

I hope that the engineering community will contribute significantly to this movement.

By building stronger partnerships, with each other, with industry and academia, with the Government, and even with overseas communities.

I encourage you to take these partnerships a step further.

To build an environment of open innovation and close collaboration to solve the challenges of tomorrow.

Together, we can make our future Singapore a thriving economy, a vibrant city, and an endearing home for generations to come.

Thank you.

[1] Built environment, land transport, aerospace, water & environmental, and precision engineering