SMEs must implement Technology:
SMEs regardless how small or veteran they are it is time for companies to leverage in technology and get ready for the implementation of AI, this will be the future of jobs and work.

SMEs must digitally transform:
SMEs have no choice but to transform digitally or technologically.  They should not think they are excluded from the ability to digitally transform. Today’s artificial intelligence (AI) enables faster and more intense progress in nearly every field of human endeavour, and it is essential to enabling the digital transformation that is at the heart of local and global economic development.

Technology development
According to a research done by IDC, worldwide revenue from AI will surge past US$46 billion in 2020.  In Asia-Pacific, this is projected to rise to US$6.8 billion by 2021.

AI development has accelerated this few years thanks to three factors –
a. the ubiquitous availability of data,
b. the growing capabilities of cloud computing, and
c. more powerful algorithms developed by AI researchers

SMEs must be optimistic of the future of digital transformation:
Throughout history, the emergence of new technologies has been accompanied by dire warnings about human redundancy.  More often, the reality is that new technologies have created more jobs than they are destroyed. Businesses must be optimistic of the future of digital transformation including AI which will overhaul workplaces and will continue to change the way work is done. 
 
Workplace trends:
The trends in workplaces are evolving and how employers can work with employees to meet the demands of the growing and changing digital economy is essential. Businesses are required to create higher-value jobs, and increase personal income through “gig jobs”, referring to part-time, freelance or contract employees and reward their employees well. Bear in mind, the best workers need not just be highly skilled, but must be smart, great, ambitious, innately curious, risk-taking people learning to work well in teams to meet the changing workplace and market demands.

Job transformation in the next three years:
We expect around 93% of jobs to be transformed in the next three years especially with the working population are millennials and 62 per cent of jobs today to be redeployed to higher-value roles or reskilled to meet new demands.
SMEs need to be prepared with three key tasked to be completed because the skills required for jobs in the AI economy are changing so rapidly, we need to ensure that each company’s system for preparing, educating, training, and retraining the current and future workforce are also evolving.
Not only will new AI economy require new technical skills, but there is a growing recognition that most workers will need to learn new skills throughout their working lives.

Three key tasks:
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1. Preparing students for future jobs with AI
Rapidly evolving technology impacting every sector means jobs of the future will require more digital skills form basic computer literacy to advanced computer science.  If our youths are to be the driving force for tomorrow’s digital economy, they need the opportunity to study computer science. Computer science teaches computational thinking, a different way to problem solve and is a skill in high demand by employers.  Together, these skills enable access to higher paying jobs in faster-growing fields. 

2. Reskilling for tomorrow’s economy today
Because technology is changing so rapidly, it’s not enough to just focus on educating tomorrow’s workforce; SMEs must also help today’s workers gain skills that are relevant in the changing workplace. Economic growth depends on a skilled workforce that can enable enterprises to take advantage of a new generation of emerging digital technology innovations.  To achieve this, workers will need to be lifelong learners.

3. Ensuring today’s workplace changes to sustainable development
The economy must be healthy and sustainable, as businesses invest in AI for the long run.  The one trend that we cannot ignore is the impact that AI and machine learning will have on workforce. As each company’s mission and business models are unique, therefore; there is no one road map that fits all.  But all companies, including SEA, have thought about how we want to plan for it. Which jobs in the workplace will it help the most? How can we make smarter decision? It’s all based on each company’s road map implementation. Companies instead of being afraid to move forward, they should have an open mind to think about how best they can use digital technology and AI to do their business and jobs differently to create an impact on economy and society. We recognise that it is AI and machine learning that help make a company’s service or product really good to users and consumers.
 
 4.  Working together  As we move forward, it will be essential for our government, the private sector, academia, and the social sector to join together to explore how to best support workers in the new economy.  This can be achieved by developing new approaches to training and education that enable people to acquire the skills that employers (SMEs) need as technology advances; by creating innovative ways to connect workers with job opportunities; and by modernising protections for workers to promote labour mobility and cushion workers and their families against uncertainly in a fast-changing global economy. 

Our Lion City is becoming a strong hub for research in technology as global tech giants see Singapore becoming the next AI hub. Singapore is attracting the world’s leading artificial intelligence talent because of its status as a cosmopolitan society and strong state backing for technology research, according to the head of the private equity firm building a mega hub in the city for start-ups involved in the sector.

Joel Ko, co-founder and chief executive, of Marvelstone Ventures a Singapore-based company, said Alibaba’s announcement recently that it would site one of its global AI research facilities in Singapore a focal point for the fast growing industry. The Chinese conglomerate – owner of the South China Morning Post also revealed it was setting up an AI hub of its own in the city state, which would incubate 100 start ups every year. It said its hub would be “the world’s biggest” when it opens in 2018. The diversity of technology facility set-ups in Singapore could be an opportunity for partnership and collaboration” as what we see Alibaba and other technology giants. Such a movement by a technology giant is good for us because they make AI buzzing and popular with the country’s heterogeneous ethnic make-up made it attractive to AI researchers across the world.
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In the area of Healthcare Tech firms are racing to apply AI globally.  DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, for example, is training an AI algorithm to diagnose eye diseases.

Hanalytics, a Singapore start-up company is one such AI technology company that has developed an artificial intelligence machine helping doctors the tedious process of diagnosing a brain tumour easier and less prone to human error. The Biomind ‘AI’ machine can do in a second what an experienced doctor would take 30 minutes to complete, given the thousands of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images that need to be checked.  Cancer cells also have to be identified and a report written. The Biomind machine was developed at a research centre in collaboration between Hanalytics and Beijing Tiantan Hospital, where it has been used on patients for two months.  China is trying to become a world leader in AI and has been moving aggressively to adopt it in the healthcare sector through the partnership with Hanalytics.

Hanalytics said it is the first Healthcare AI machine that can diagnose a suite of neurological conditions, from brain tumours to vascular issues. Neurological conditions with accuracy of over 90 per cent can be picked up by Biomind, higher than the 60 per cent by top doctors at the Beijing hospital, noted Mr Moh, chief executive of, Hanalytics at the firm’s research centre for neurology at Beijing Tiantan Hospital.

A single scan contains over 3,000 images.  The AI is able to identify where the condition is, what it is, and churn out a report – all in an instant,” said Mr Moh. Biomind makes this decisions after being “trained” on a bank of over two decades’ worth of MRI and CT records of the hospital’s past diagnoses. It also learns from its mistakes.  If it makes a wrong diagnosis, a senior doctor can correct it and this correction is stored in the database so it does not make the same error in future.

Apart from Beijing Tiantan Hospital's renowned neurology expertise, the hospital was picked for the trial because of the sheer number of patients it sees - it does about 10,000 neurosurgery procedures a year.
Dr Gao Peiyi, a neurorcadiologist, said Biomind will allow doctors to be more productive. It also provides more consistent diagnoses, he said. "It does not get tired... Human doctors are affected by emotions, their physical state, time and other external factors, and this can affect the accuracy of their diagnoses."  

​By 2023, almost all Singapore government services will go digital as a Smart Nation will push picks up momentum for our nation’s digital transformation. What we will see is the future could be governed by autonomous cars and taxis and new senses linked to the internet.  As aviation, planes, drones and small satellites will hover freely all over us – the future is open to all possibilities and what hasn’t been achieved lately will perhaps be achieved in the next few years.

For now we are seeing artificial intelligence in domestic security and they will revolutionise the future of policing worldwide by reducing the time needed to capture criminals from hundreds of thousands hours to just one.  Welcome to the future of ROBOCOP!

Integrating AI technology into national security would mean new and more efficient ways for police do their jobs. AI advancement will help our Singapore Police Force (SPF) in creating a new generation of security capabilities, making our society safer. With around 50 billion devices expected to be connected to the 8 billion people on the planet, AI will increase communication and connectivity and SPF is making sure our National security will never be breached using AI technology.

​With the Forth Industrial Revolution under way, security authorities in Singapore are exploring how to best implement AI to move from an active role to a preemptive one. AI is capable of changing our ideas and vision thanks to such systems that will govern humanity, when borders no longer exist between what is normal and artificial, real and superficial, and human and artificial, AI will put in place mechanisms that can learn, think and take decisions.

On 23 February 2018, a faithful Friday there was a blue, white and red robot roving the grounds mingled with spectators at this year’s Chingay parade.  It was a debut public showcase; the Singapore Police Force patrol robot helped the police step up security efforts at Chingay 2018, which expected a 100,000-strong crowd on its first day for the celebration.

The robot was deployed after 8pm to patrol a 400m stretch at the end point of the parade.  It, which feeds 360-degree live video back to the command post with its six surround cameras, can be used to detect threats and suspicious characters.  The robot was manned by one operator to monitor its video feed on a tablet device.

For crowd disposal the robot has built-in powerful speakers, which can broadcast audio messages to the public. Ms Malathi, assistant director of SPF strategic planning division said, officers can then make sense of those images and deploy forces accordingly. This is the first robot’s first trail by the SPF and it follows a pre-mapped route and is able to avoid obstacles in its way.  If successful, it will be deployed in longer operations, such as during the Singapore Formula 1 event.

As this is a government property, any offenders who damage it will be ‘dealt with under the law” said Ms Malathi. The SPF has at least two other robot prototypes in the works.  These will indeed be a great way to increase productivity among SPF officers to focus on important assignments and at the same time on alert when duty calls.