Meet members of Team Singapore going to WorldSkills Lyon 2024

SINGAPORE – Singapore has sent its biggest team ever to compete in the upcoming “youth Olympics” of vocational skills in France, with a contingent of 35 youth aged 18 to 23 competing in 30 skill areas.

They will be among the 1,400 competitors from more than 70 countries and regions around the world gathering in Lyon for the 47th WorldSkills Competition (WSC) from Sept 10 to 15.

Competitors – mostly students, apprentices and young adults just striking out in their careers – will vie for gold, silver or bronze medals across 59 skills such as floristry, 3D digital game art and WSC’s newest category, rail vehicle technology.

Those representing Singapore trained under appointed coaches for eight to 10 hours a day – typically at their school or, for graduates, their former school.

Most of the participants performed outstandingly in WorldSkills Singapore 2023, the national level for WSC which takes place biennially.

Five recent ITE and polytechnic graduates – all gold medallists from WorldSkills Singapore 2023 – share their thoughts and what they are looking forward to as Team Singapore prepares for the competition in France.

Ms Calista Abella Ang, 20

Singapore Polytechnic graduate with a diploma in applied chemistry
Category: Chemical Laboratory Technology

Q: What will you be doing at WSC 2024?

A: We will be presented with a problem statement – for example, “Propose two different methods of analysing ascorbic acid in vitamin C”. This could be done using different types of titration. You have to evaluate, with your understanding of chemical theories, which method is better.

Q: What sparked your interest in this area?

A: I think topics like organic synthesis are exciting. You use your scientific knowledge to make things from scratch, and sometimes it may not go as expected. You have to troubleshoot and read up on it, which is also an interesting process.

Q: What is something very few people know about your area of expertise?

A: There’s more than just one way to do anything. In secondary school, they usually only teach you one method; for example, “Add two drops of indicator”. But through my training, I realised that “two drops” is not just a number – there are reasons why someone is doing this, and there are also reasons behind why other methods are possible.

Q: What are you looking forward to most about Lyon?

A: To experience Lyon, see new sights and go through the whole process with Team Singapore! I’m also excited to meet the international competitors, to see how differently they do things.

Ms Selina Sapii, 22

Republic Polytechnic graduate with a diploma in restaurant and culinary operations
Category: Restaurant Service

Q: Why do you have an interest in this area?

A: I really do have a passion for the hospitality industry because it’s quite fulfilling to bring food and beverages to your guests. If they’re happy with it, it’s quite nice to see them full and smiling.

Q: What was a memorable experience for you?

A: In the fine dining WSC module I participated in, I had to make a dish called crêpes Suzette flambé. It’s basically like crêpes with some syrup that are flambéed, where the dish bursts into big flames. A lot of my friends were wowed.

Mr Chung Wai Fong, 22 and Mr Jabriel Seah, 20

Nanyang Polytechnic graduates with a diploma in cyber security and digital forensics
Category: Cyber Security (a team event)

Q: What will you be doing at WSC 2024?

Jabriel: It’s quite technical, but we ensure systems, machines and networks are secure, both hack and defend devices, and do digital forensics. Just like how the police investigate crime scenes, we investigate how a cyber attack has occurred.

Q: What do you think made you the “best” in your category?

Chung Wai: I can scan for important information well and find necessary information quite quickly. On occasion, I miss out on some tiny details, but that’s when I usually hand things over to Jabriel. He’ll take his time to carefully analyse them.

Jabriel: Chung Wai and I complement each other very nicely. We have different strengths that fill each other’s gaps. I’m more detailed and good at diving deep into finding out how something works, but consequently I’m a bit slower when scanning through information.

Q: What is something few know about your area of expertise?

Chung Wai: Honestly, the hacking we actually do is nothing like what you see in the movies. It’s not like all the screens pop up and we type fast… In reality, it involves a lot of reading.

Jabriel: You see eight different panels on the screen in the movies… Yeah, that happens if you want to do stocks. That’s not us. We might only have two screens.

Q: What’s a memorable experience you have had in this area?

Jabriel: I once scared my mum by letting her browse an insecure website on her iPhone, running some programmes and showing her I could retrieve the data she was sending to the website. She got very scared – she was like, “You hacked my iPhone?”, and I told her that it was something simpler than that. That’s also why we tell people not to trust public Wi-Fi networks.

Ms Winnie Leow, 20

Higher Nitec in Electrical Engineering graduate from ITE College East
Category: Information Network Cabling

Q: What made you develop an interest in this area?

Winnie: My dad was an electrician and serviced air conditioners as well. I used to follow him around during my primary school holidays when I was in Primary 4. Whenever he needed help, like tools passed, I would help him.

Q: What is a lesser-known aspect of your area of expertise?

My field is the backbone of IT. Without information network cabling, the world wouldn’t be connected. There would be no data centres, no connection to the outside world, because there’s no way the data can travel from one place to another.