Poly student’s digital fix for motorcycle retailer leads to co-founding of S’pore start-up
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(From left) Vice-chairman of SCCCI's technology committee Lim Chee Kean, Auto Machinery director Danny Hoe, Nanyang Polytechnic student Teo Yu Xiang and Nanyang Polytechnic lecturer Li Haiyun during a fireside chat at a tech symposium organised by SCCCI on Jan 21.
PHOTO: SCCCI
Follow topic:
- Nanyang Polytechnic student Teo Yu Xiang helped Auto Machinery digitalise its catalogues, saving 180 man-hours and leading to a start-up co-founded by both parties.
- His story was cited by Minister Jasmin Lau, who urged SMEs to embrace digitalisation, learn from failures and leverage government support for AI adoption.
- Singapore's SMEs comprise a significant part of its economy, and the SCCCI symposium offered workshops, expert pairings, and readiness assessments to help them digitalise.
AI generated
SINGAPORE – A Nanyang Polytechnic student’s project to digitalise a small motorcycle retailer’s catalogues for 120,000 vehicle parts saved the firm 180 man-hours – and ended with the pair co-founding a start-up to help other shops.
Second-year student Teo Yu Xiang, 26, and Auto Machinery Singapore were cited as part of a trade association’s efforts to pair students with businesses to solve real-world problems using technology, while training the next generation for today’s jobs.
Their story was told by Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Jasmin Lau to bolster her encouragement to business leaders to take the first step, learn and persist in digitalisation.
She was speaking at the inaugural two-day tech symposium organised by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) at its Hill Street headquarters on Jan 21.
About 95 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore already adopt at least one digital solution, and 15 per cent are using artificial intelligence (AI) as at 2024, said Ms Lau.
But still, some bosses are taking a wait-and-see approach.
“They want to follow someone else who has done it right, who has got the correct solution and perhaps, who has spent a little bit more money finding out what works,” she said.
While she would not fully grasp the pressures faced by SMEs, Ms Lau added, bosses should still do what Auto Machinery did – identify the bugbears that technology could ease, and have a go at it.
She said: “You can watch, you can observe, but take that first step as early as you can, because I don’t want you to lose out and be trying to catch up with everyone else later on.”
Backing her call with a sprinkle of Chinese idioms, she asked bosses to keep learning alongside their employees.
“Then you’d find that in conversations with fellow leaders, you are better able to share with each other real practical challenges and find a good solution or way out.”
Singapore’s ministers, she said, were put through two training sessions in AI and digital transformation in 2025.
“And my message to the rest of the Cabinet was, this won’t be the last lesson,” said Ms Lau, who also oversees GovTech Singapore, the statutory board leading the digitalisation of public services.
On persisting through digitalisation, she urged bosses to pause that knee-jerk response to find fault when things fail.
On GovTech’s work, she said: “Many of our products and many of the systems that we start to build do fail. And when they fail, we have to kill it, we have to restart, reset.
“A lot of these things, we don’t share so publicly. But this is how digital transformation and the use of technologies really work in real life.”
IT teams and engineers are often trying their best, and they are the first people who should be encouraged to experiment, she added.
In the coming weeks, businesses can expect to see a slew of public initiatives to help them adopt AI.
“You will see that the Government is serious about the push for AI. Stay aware, look out for what’s coming out, and then decide which are the moves that are best suitable for you,” she said.
Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Jasmin Lau urged bosses to take their first step in digitalisation and not give up.
PHOTO: SCCCI
The symposium included workshops that help bosses work out what to digitalise first, pairing of businesses with students and experts to co-develop AI prototypes, and assessments of firms’ readiness against common cyberthreats.
SCCCI designed the programme with a focus on practical implementation and measurement of business outcomes.
In Singapore, SMEs make up about 99 per cent of businesses, contribute about 48 per cent to gross domestic product and employ around 70 per cent of the workforce.
The event also included a fireside chat, where Nanyang Polytechnic lecturer Li Haiyun said she was surprised by the outcome of her student Teo Yu Xiang’s collaboration with Auto Machinery.
To laughter from the audience, she said she had not expected him to do so well, going by his academic scores.
However, Mr Danny Hoe, director at Auto Machinery, was blown away by the young tech programming enthusiast in their first meeting after just one call.
“He basically scoped it accurately. I think even external commercial vendors out there may not have got it right,” he said.
