Certis and SUTD roll out AI literacy programme tailored to security industry
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Certis Cisco auxiliary police officer Colin Ng with the Argus interface through which officers on the ground send incident reports.
ST PHOTO: KEVIN LIM
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SINGAPORE – A new course employing artificial intelligence (AI) is being rolled out to upskill 5,000 professionals in the security industry by the end of 2027.
The programme, which has been developed by security company Certis and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), was launched on Oct 11.
“We are thrilled to join forces with SUTD to empower our workforce with AI skills, the first such collaboration in Singapore,” said Certis chief human resources officer Jaclyn Lee at the launch.
The initiative – the Certis-SUTD AI Literacy Programme – comprises three phases.
Phase 1 was rolled out to Certis managers and security supervisors in September.
The two-day course gives an overview of AI, such as the types of technologies available, its uses and limitations.
Certis said it aims for 2,000 of its employees to undergo it by 2025.
While the first phase targets the broadest range of job roles, Phase 2 and 3 cater to “higher level” roles. They are still being developed and are scheduled for launch in 2025.
Phase 2 aims to teach participants more advanced skills, such as how to develop digital systems with simple platforms that involve minimal coding.
Phase 3 will teach participants to develop more advanced programmes such as speech-to-text applications and image recognition systems.
Software developers and data analysts will benefit from this course, said a Certis spokesperson.
The course will be administered by instructors from SUTD and staff from Certis Corporate University, the company’s department for upskilling its employees.
Certis said it aims to cultivate a pool of developers within its workforce who can build simple applications.
The firm has been introducing more technology as it anticipates the challenges of a manpower shortage in the security industry, said chief executive Paul Chong.
Mr Chong attributed this to four trends: an ageing population, decreasing sources of foreign workers, more highly educated workers having different expectations for their jobs and rising wages.
Certis workers have been using an AI programme called Aini (AI Network Interface) since November 2023 to report security incidents.
Some reports involve a mix of English and other languages, so Aini employs a model to correct the language, tone and typographical errors.
It also helps to correct submissions that placed incidents into the wrong category. Certis said Aini’s classification accuracy was 99 per cent, up from 95 per cent by employees.
Certis Cisco auxiliary police officer Colin Ng, 32, said using AI has helped him cut down on repetitive tasks: “It saves time. For example, for each report, we only need to take about six to eight minutes, in comparison to previously where it can take much longer.”
