Meeting new mentors and earning an internship: How ‘Youth Olympics of skills’ helped her career in tech

Each time web developer Amanda Chan chats with two of her good friends from Belgium and Macau online, she returns to a time when she was 20 – and a competitive WorldSkills Competition (WSC) participant. 

Thanks to WSC, Ms Chan had the chance to travel halfway around the world, representing Singapore for web development in the international edition held in Brazil in 2015. There, the diploma student from Temasek Polytechnic (TP) met young participants from other countries, some of whom became her close friends.

“WorldSkills Competition was life-changing. It allowed me to meet so many people around the world,” says Ms Chan. Now 28, she is giving back to the WorldSkills community as a deputy judge.

This year, some 44 talented young people will be representing Singapore to compete against over 170 participants from other Asean countries for top honours in various skills and trades, ranging from cooking, fashion technology to mobile robotics and web development.

More than eight years since her trip to Brazil, Ms Chan could still vividly recall the scenes during the opening ceremony. 

“It felt like the Olympics. We had a huge colourful opening ceremony held in a stadium with a big flag on stage. Teams of each country were introduced, and I recall them introducing Team Singapore,” she adds.

It was an intensive one-week competition, where rows of international competitors gathered to push their skills to the limits. 

Ms Chan recalls: “There were hundreds, thousands of people, including the public at the exhibition halls where the competition was held, with guests walking about, who could view your progress as our work was displayed in real-time.”

For the local edition, Ms Chan emerged as the gold medallist amongst more than 10 competitors from other institutes of higher learning in the web development category, where they showcased front-end and back-end development skills and produced web applications for real-life situations such as programming an elevator electronic display to show the floors of a building. During that time, competitors who won the local edition were sent straight to the global stage.

The 2015 competition was not just an eye-opening experience for Ms Chan. It also opened doors for her. Her composure and skills caught the attention of two WorldSkills judges in the local edition of the competition, who offered her an internship with their gaming company.

“During the internship, we had a good connection. My judges then became my mentors,” says Ms Chan, who explains that her mentors would provide tips and guidance on her projects so that she could further improve her web development skills.

For instance, when she was tasked with creating a dynamic webpage – a webpage that displays changing information –  she was trained to follow the industry standard process. “I was also exposed to the new tech stack at the time,” she adds.

“When I graduated from university in 2018, they gave me the opportunity to be a WorldSkills Singapore judge. I immediately said yes because of my life-changing WorldSkills experience,” Ms Chan shares. 

She graduated from Temasek Polytechnic with a Diploma in Interactive Media Informatics in 2015 and Nanyang Technology University four years later with a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science.

Her WorldSkills experiences were also a talking point during her job interviews.

“Potential employers would ask me about the competition as it’s on my resume, and they become more interested and are impressed when I talk about WorldSkills and my time representing Singapore,” she says.

Now a senior front-end developer at IBM, she leads front-end efforts for the company’s applications. This involves designing the visual elements, structure and navigation of the pages to create a good experience for users.

She has received tremendous support from her employer in pursuing her interests as it recognises the value of WorldSkills, through time-off and other work arrangements.

Her supervisor, IBM associate partner Alvin Goh, says: “It’s very heartening to see how Amanda had started as a competitor in WorldSkills Singapore, and now contributes as a coach and a judge for this competition that grooms Singapore’s future talents in the tech industry.”

He adds that participating in industry events such as WorldSkills also gives Ms Chan opportunities to connect with industry experts and peers in the IT sector.

Mr Goh also says WorldSkills is an excellent platform for talent to showcase their capabilities, which will be helpful to participants generally as “they embark on their future endeavours”.

As a WorldSkills advocate who has grown from a competitor to a judge, she hopes her story can inspire other young people to leave their comfort zones and stretch their limits.

Ms Chan also embodies the WorldSkills values in continuous learning, because in today’s world, where chatter over artificial intelligence (AI) dominates, she says being equipped with the relevant skills is still important to make new technology work for you.

She says young talents must have a strong foundation in their skills, be it in graphic design technology, mobile robotics, rapid transit systems, restaurant service or web technologies. This is because human involvement is still crucial for verifying any work produced by generative AI.

With her continuous participation with WorldSkills as an industry judge, Ms Chan has one objective in mind: “I want to find individuals who have the skills and passion, groom them and continue to motivate them. Even if you just have the passion, we can still help you develop your skills.”