Over 80% of Singaporeans see the necessity to reskill – this man helps employees stage up, Singapore Information & High Tales

Because the founder and CEO of digital studying options supplier Kydon Group, Mr David Yeo is a passionate advocate for utilizing studying to catalyse higher lives and livelihoods.

His perspective in direction of formal schooling in his youthful days, although, was markedly much less enthusiastic. “I did not like learning,” he shares candidly. “I didn’t get pleasure from time spent in school rooms, I didn’t like regurgitating data. Exams had been normally a ache, and I struggled by way of them.”

Mr Yeo believes that such rote studying is the antithesis of how folks dwelling in as we speak’s quickly altering world ought to educate themselves. “Conventional studying techniques are designed for environments the place we all know what must be completed, and we practice folks to do these issues. Right now, folks must adapt on their very own, somewhat than be advised what to do. And for that to occur, we have to change the complete construction of studying.”

Kydon, which he based in 2012, designs applied sciences to assist companies, establishments and people just do that, and its B2B purchasers embrace authorities ministries and statutory boards, multinational firms, and academic establishments.

With the Covid-19 pandemic dramatically accelerating the tempo of change throughout industries, the corporate is presently growing a brand new digital platform tailor-made for people and creators of coaching content material attempting to get their bearings on this reworked panorama.

Named ZilLearn Expertise, the platform is slated to launch later this yr to assist the workforce stage up. It couldn’t come at a greater time. A 2020 Hays’ Report discovered {that a} majority of Singaporeans regarded reskilling (80 per cent) and upskilling (88 per cent) as essential to them, following the outbreak of the pandemic. Right here’s the way it will work: A consumer uploads his resume, and signifies his skilled targets (for example, he might need to advance in his present {industry}, or pivot to a brand new sector). With assist from mission associate JobTech, a job market perception generator, the platform will then be capable of establish the required abilities the consumer wants to accumulate for his goal job position.

Customers will be capable of customise course suggestions, such because the quickest or most inexpensive pathways to plug their abilities gaps. Coaching content material will come from different mission companions together with SMU Academy, the skilled coaching arm of the Singapore Administration College; TaF.tc, Singapore’s first Persevering with Schooling and Coaching (CET) centre for the textile and style {industry}; in addition to exterior platforms similar to open on-line course suppliers.

A key characteristic would be the functionality for content material creators to generate and adapt their supplies shortly. “Conventional long-form curricula will seemingly grow to be irrelevant before earlier than,” Mr Yeo notes. “For folks to manoeuvre nimbly on this fluid setting, they want to have the ability to entry bite-sized studying parts. It’s like having a number of checkpoints in altering visitors situations, so you might have alternative ways to get to your vacation spot.”

Transformational studying journey

How did this reluctant scholar find yourself in a profession devoted to serving to others study?

Whereas he didn’t get pleasure from learning, this youngest little one in a household of six boys put in effort to do effectively in his research. Because of his 5 older brothers, who had no qualms about reminding him that he was the least academically inclined of all of them and vigilantly “spurred” him to work exhausting on 10-year-series evaluation books.

Preferring action-oriented pursuits, he accepted a scholarship supply from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) after his Nationwide Service, believing {that a} non-deskbound profession would higher go well with him.

Little did he know that his schooling journey had solely simply begun. In 2000, Mr Yeo was supplied a post-graduate SAF scholarship to review educational techniques at Florida State College in the US.

He remembers feeling a bit stunned at this flip of occasions. “Topics like weapons techniques and strategic research would have been extra typical for an armed forces vocation,” he explains. “However as an excellent soldier, after they ask you to leap, you say how excessive.”

On the time, the SAF was starting to rework studying for its troopers in order that they’d be higher geared up to adapt to fast-changing environments. This required a paradigm shift from passive instructor-led studying to a extra self-directed mannequin. The adoption of know-how was a vital a part of this transformation, and Mr Yeo’s post-graduate programme was all about how know-how may allow higher studying.

His yr in Florida proved to be a major turning level, professionally and personally. This time round, he discovered himself having fun with his research and the insights from his classmates, a lot of whom had been from high-performing enterprises together with know-how firms. “I realised I had a knack for the topic, and I deep-dived into it,” Mr Yeo says.

After returning to Singapore, he turned his skilled focus to bringing about change in studying within the SAF, ultimately heading the Coaching and Studying Methods division, the place he conceptualised a studying transformation masterplan. He additionally led the Mission Workplace for LEARNet, a tech-enabled coaching system that allowed troopers to realize extra management over the tempo and content material.

In 2012, he determined to strike out on his personal, naming his studying applied sciences start-up Kydon – a Greek phrase for “spear”, as a result of “studying can pierce by way of the darkness of ignorance”, as he places it.

His time within the SAF had been an vital impetus for this new chapter, because it had helped him perceive studying applied sciences’ relevance to establishments past the armed forces. His experiences as a volunteer who ceaselessly labored in much less privileged communities in Singapore and growing nations had additionally spurred his flip in direction of entrepreneurship.

“Singapore’s schooling system has sturdy processes, content material, and educators, that are missing in lots of components of the world,” Mr Yeo says. “How can we adapt and scale this up in order that we will help to enhance extra lives by way of schooling, particularly in Asia?”

Enabling agility

Kydon started increasing into different Asian markets a couple of years in the past, and presently has a presence in India, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Over the previous yr, because the pandemic accelerated the worldwide adoption fee of distant on-line studying by way of completely different applied sciences, the corporate has met a rising demand for its providers by growing its headcount by over 20 per cent (it presently has 150 workers) and increasing its portfolio of merchandise.

Development within the EduTech sector will seemingly persist. The EdTechX 2020 International Report states that the {industry} is predicted to develop between 14 and 16 per cent each year, amounting to a complete worth of as much as US$406 billion by 2025.

This panorama presents distinctive alternatives for home-grown gamers within the schooling sector. Moreover gaining a robust world status for its schooling system, Singapore has additionally carved out a substantial head begin within the fast-growing CET area for working adults, due to the longstanding nationwide ethos of sustaining the relevance and survival of a small city-state in a fast-changing world.

This ethos drives quite a few nationwide endeavours, together with the SAF’s studying transformation mission, and the 2015 launch of the SkillsFuture scheme, which provides Singaporeans a variety of upgrading programmes in skilled coaching and smooth abilities.

This implies there’s a sturdy basis in place with regards to readying the Singapore workforce for the brand new and rising industries of the a lot reworked post-pandemic world. It additionally implies that the CET gamers listed here are effectively positioned to fulfill the rising world demand for CET, particularly in South-east Asia.

To discover these alternatives, the EduTech Alliance for Motion (AfA), one of many industry-led coalitions fashioned by the Singapore Authorities’s Rising Stronger Taskforce, introduced collectively completely different stakeholders from the schooling sector final yr for Hack-A-Future workshop to brainstorm new ideas in CET. (See Rising Stronger Collectively)

The seeds for ZilLearn Expertise had been first planted on the hackathon, the place Mr Yeo was one of many members. He was capable of work together and iterate concepts with fellow members and study from their views.

“I discover the concept of schooling being a major financial driver very fascinating,” he says of why he was eager to participate. “Singapore has at all times considered schooling as an financial enabler – one thing that may assist construct our workforce. However the thought of schooling as an {industry} that may contribute considerably to our GDP is newer. With Covid-19, many beforehand well-performing companies might take some time to get better, or might not get better in any respect. We’d like new financial drivers, and I need to contribute to that dialog.”

Serving to folks pivot

A lot of the know-how that powers ZilLearn Expertise was already within the works at Kydon earlier than the pandemic. Mr Yeo shares, “Kydon was growing ZilLearn as a platform for structured studying, bringing instructors and learners in a single open, cell, media-rich studying area. ZilLearn Expertise is a pure extension of this effort, offering learners the added worth of closing abilities gaps to advance or pivot their profession, and course suppliers the flexibility to scale their enterprise and have interaction their learners on-line.”

Mr Yeo, whose firm needed to pace up ZilLearn Expertise’ improvement to answer the wants of the disaster, provides, “Collaborating within the Alliance has given us a way of mission and urgency. What we needed to ship over two years has now been compressed to 6 months. I advised the staff, consider this as Nationwide Service.”

Whereas he believes that ZilLearn Expertise’ mixture of job market insights and customised studying pathways has the potential to develop its regional attain, his sights for the second are set on its usefulness in Singapore.

Ask him how he intends to evaluate the success of the mission, and the 48-year-old says thoughtfully: “From the Singapore workforce administration viewpoint, these aged 40 to 50 are thought of to be at a better threat of redundancy. And I do know fairly a couple of friends who’re fighting profession development and pivoting. I’ll think about the mission successful when folks going through these challenges use this platform to grow to be extra agile and are capable of progress of their careers.”

To make it possible for such customers will discover the platform easy to navigate, his staff performed focus teams with Singaporeans who had been on the lookout for jobs or looking for to advance of their careers, in addition to employers. Ease of use, in spite of everything, is one strategy to embed a way of encouragement in digital platforms, and that may usually be essential with regards to self-directed studying.

In his personal life, Mr Yeo has discovered to step out of his consolation zone with regards to schooling, however he additionally credit mentors who he says have made a major affect in serving to him consider in his studying capability. “To mentor is to empower. We’d like folks like that to encourage studying, to create alternatives for it, and assist folks belief their inherent latent capabilities,” he says.

“How will the world change tomorrow? No person is aware of for certain. However know-how alone won’t ever be the silver bullet for uncertainty. What’s most vital is the human spirit – that’s what makes issues occur.”

That is the fifth in a six-part sequence on the resilience of Singaporeans, as they band collectively to grab new alternatives in a world modified by Covid-19.
In partnership with the Rising Stronger Taskforce.